I’ll freely admit that I wasn’t having the best day anyway. Despite having had a wonderful weeks holiday, that day I’d woken up to an email which told me that someone I work with had died unexpectedly, heard later that a good friend was quite ill and then when I got to the venue just before Kasim came on stage my view was blocked by some late arrivals so I had to move, my camera was knocked off a table and slightly damaged and then afterwards I was pestered by a fan so I had to leave earlier than I intended!

That said, I still enjoyed the gig and Kasim’s voice tonight was very good. The sound there was good too and I was also impressed that the sound guy walked around a couple of times to check that the sound in all of the venue sounded good.

The Winchester was another venue that, like The Beachland Ballroom, was outside of Cleveland but this was in the better area of Lakeland. It was larger than The Beachland as the entrance led into a bar and behind that was the actual music venue with it’s own bar. I was told that it held 200 people but I think that was seated as it could easily have held more if it was an all standing gig. The area in front of the stage had tables and then there were about 4 or 5 long rows of seats at the side. After my table view was blocked I moved to the chairs and could still see well.

Unfortunately this was another gig which was hardly promoted (if at all) so there was lots of spare room which didn’t help the atmosphere.

The opening act was Rob Fetters who was one of those opening acts that (most) people sat and listened to which often doesn’t happen at Kasim’s solo gigs! He played guitar and sang his own songs. He enunciated his words really well so it was easy to understand what each song was about. However his first three songs were about death which I really didn’t need to hear today. He was amusing though with a lot of self-depreciating humour.

Kasim started his set with I Just Wanna Touch You straight into Somebody Loves You. He then told us that he was a big fan of Jason Faulkner and had recently discovered that Jason likes Kasim’s music too and they had been emailing each other. He then sang Jason’s beautiful Afraid Himself To Be and followed that with his own The God Of Low.

Sacrifice was next with Kasim saying after a few bars that he liked the way that people clapped when he started the song because they recognised it! The Traveler was next and then Kasim told us that he had arrived in Cleveland at about 4am that morning as he had to wait for the washer repairman to arrive! He explained that he had played a gig with Ricky Byrd and some others on Staten Island on Thursday evening. Before that he had loaded his washing machine and got changed to go to the gig. Thankfully he had checked the machine before he left and realised that it had leaked about a quarter of an inch of water. If he hadn’t checked until after the gig, he would have come back to considerably more water. Kasim then said what a lovely fall evening it was and reminded us that winter was coming which neatly led into Summer’s Gone followed straight into a slightly less than perfect version of Yellow Cab so he asked people not to post a video of that song online.

Next Kasim asked us if we would like to hear some Utopia tunes (loud cheer) or some of his own music (an even louder cheer!). Kasim then explained about his forthcoming album and sang his new song 15 Minutes which was lovely to hear again. Kasim said that the recorded version will be longer.

Kasim then spoke about Fell In Love For The Last Time which he co-wrote with Phil Thornalley. As Kasim did on Long Island, he asked us to sing part of the chorus so that he could use the recording on his album. However this time he recorded just us singing before the song rather than during it so that it was just us with no guitar. Kasim also asked people not to post a video of that song online yet until the album donators had heard it.

As we were in singing mood, Kasim sang Libertine next which neatly led into the Utopia section of the set. The big surprise was that Kasim sang the first verse and chorus of Princess Of The Universe (he said that was all he knew) before playing There Goes My Inspiration. Cliché was next (although Kasim started with the wrong verse!). Kasim then changed to his smaller guitar and played Watching The World Go By followed by The One Sure Thing. That song was just brilliant to hear again although I was surprised that he chose to end his solo set with it.

Kasim then invited Rob Fetters on stage and they played One World together. Rob did a great guitar solo in that song but, despite that, I prefer it when Kasim’s solo gigs are purely him solo and he doesn’t feel obligated to sing one of ‘his’ songs with someone else. It meant that Kasim’s actual solo gig only lasted 76 minutes from first note to last.

Then, all too soon for me, it was time for Kasim to leave the stage. The good news is that he said that he aims to play lots of solo gigs in 2012!

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