There’s a photo of me from Ey Up Mi Duck taken by The Late Developer that feels like it was taken from the inside out. I’m mid-scream, guitar having 7 shades of crap knocked out of it, I’m completely unhinged in the best possible way. My eyes are squeezed shut, mouth wide open, mid yell and heart somewhere in the roof of the tent.

I remember that exact moment too, not because I saw a camera, but because I wasn’t thinking about anything at all, my head was elsewhere, I was gone totally lost in the surge of it all, in the joy of letting go. It wasn’t pretty as it rarely is and it wasn’t polished because it’s not supposed to be but it was truthful and it was mine.

Scottish travellers have a word for this in the Cant language, it’s called Conyach. It’s when the music and the moment envelopes you, it wraps you up and it’s ALL that matters, you’re inside it and its inside you. Martin Taylor the jazz guitarist and hero of mine talks about it in his book “Kiss and Tell” and I’m feeling it right here, in this fabulous photo.

For me there’s something beautiful about it, a beauty of being being so deep in the “now” you disappear. It’s not performance, it transcends  that. It’s honesty, pure and simple.

Someone caught that moment, froze it, stuck it in a frame and gave it me back.

That photo is a reminder of why I do this, its not for applause but please do keep applauding, its not perfection either but that feeling, that overwhelming, blast of connection. It’s soul, it’s The Conyach.

What I love most though is the whole contrast. On the outside, it’s all wild noise, spit and fury with veins throbbing, fingers hurting and my throat burning from yelling. But inside? There is peace, there is stillness and there is clarity.

For me, this is what joy looks like when it finally breaks through all those noisy guitars.

Thank you for capturing it Kate

Photo by The Late Developer.