Hospital Food: Free download of the week podcast

This week's free song podcast is now available. It is a cover of David Gray's Hospital Food recorded live at the Acoustic Music Centre @ St Bride's, Edinburgh, on 24 August 2008 as part of my Octagon '08 show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The video of this recording is available at youtube.com/dayvedean.

It's been just over a year since my run of shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year. It was great to go back up there last week to play with the band, and because we were playing the Free Festival we could enjoy the festival without having to worry about selling tickets. It was quite a learning curve to do a show up there last year, particularly as I was launching the new album at the same time so there was a lot going on.

One of the things that became quite obvious even during the first show of the run was that the venue felt less relaxed than the places I usually play so the shows were more like sit down performances rather than a show in a bar or venue where it's fine to move around, go to the bar etc. I realised that an hour long show was quite a long time to sit and listen to new songs, particularly considering the album had not yet been released. I decided to restructure the show so that I was playing a cover version to every two of my own songs.

The covers I performed varied during the show's run: some were songs I'd prepared before coming up to Edinburgh, others I was either already performing regularly or had done so in the past. Hospital Food was completely new to me though and it was interesting to learn a song and start playing so regularly within such a short space of time.

I was performing several times a day in various situations including in the shop window of John Lewis and on an outdoor, unamplified stage on the High Street, as well as my hour long show at the Acoustic Music Centre. This recording is taken from the final show of my run, the only show of the run which I recorded. The videos are available at youtube.com/dayvedean.

You can download the podcast at www.dayve.co.uk or on iTunes.