Out of all the people I know, Jenny is the coolest. I have only ever seen her happy and banterous, even when PLAY isn’t going too well and the rest of the band are moody. I’d ask her what’s wrong and she’d reply along the lines of “Well there must be something wrong with them, cause I had a great night!”
I met Jenny at PLAY, the open mic in The Cellar Bar, back at the end of 2014. When I first saw the band, they all looked like characters, except for Jenny. She wasn’t wearing clothes of any style or playing her instrument in a funny way. My eyes were drawn more towards Tom, the emcee with his (I cringe when I say this) groovy fashion. I was entranced by Karl as he slapped the strings of his bass. I think, even when I performed, I spoke very few words to her. Not out of ignorance, she just seemed happy out quiet on her keyboard.
I think it was a month later when I finally started chatting to her. I was sitting up near the stage at a table, talking to Sharpie and someone else. Jenny came over and began talking to Sharpie as I continued speaking to whoever it was. After a bit of conversation, the table went quiet. This happened a lot after the open mic. While the band are packing up, people chat until the realization hits them that they have to leave shortly and everyone gets sad. Because I hadn’t spoken to her before, I just turned to her and said ‘How are you?’. Her face lit up and she said ‘Oh, well today I had to…’ and started talking about her gardening. I found it all really interesting and I thought to myself ‘Why haven’t I spoken to this person yet?’. She spoke so enthusiastically about gardening that I just sat there listening to it, actually taking in every word instead of pretending to listen and trying to get out of the conversation ASAP.
As the months went on, I started to really appreciate her incredible talent. Her voice had no limit and the way she played Keyboard, was amazing. She showed no stress from playing the more complicated songs and connected with the other musicians very well. At the time, I only ever spoke to her when I met her at the Monday open mic. I had no idea she played in cover bands until I met her one night when I went out to see Sharpie play in The Loft with his band Four Mile Circus around the end of 2015. It was going to these gigs that our friendship began to build. In the summer of 2016, I went to see her band Fraggle Rock which included Kieran, her other half (I don’t know whether to say boyfriend or fiance….they’re engaged anyway). They played every Saturday in The Cellar Bar and a few of us that were PLAY regulars would show up to see them. It was going to these gigs that I started growing an interest in funk and soul music and bands like Fleetwood Mac. It was going to these gigs, that I realised I loved live music. As I’ve always been one for going out on my own, I found these cover band gigs were what I was looking for. I could just sit back and chill, listening to the classic music as Jenny shouts out before every song ‘This next one goes out to Daniel’. I’d even shout up requests to hopefully encouage other people to do it too!
Out of all the members of the PLAY band, I didn’t expect Jenny to be the maddest of them all. She’s a very down to Earth person who, in any situation, is always happy and bubbly with a great sense of humor. Her incredible talent isn’t just limited singing and keyboard. She’s also amazing at drawing and writing too. Even I get envious at the way she writes. Whether I stay in Glasgow, or move away to the middle of the Antarctic, her friendship is something that I’m going to want to hold on to.
Jenny has a blog on gardening you can follow by clicking the link below. The name of the page is my favorite thing ever!
fiftyspadesofclay.wordpress.com
Jenny has even played keyboard on one of my tracks called Late July. You can find it below!
Galway 2 everywhere 