Fish, the Codfather of Sole, will be performing a few scaled back shows later this month in Europe which promise to be off the hook. If anemone is interested details of the time and plaice are below.

Fish fans will already know that the Fish Convention, organized through Fish’s devoted fan club The Company, is this weekend in Leamington Spa. Fish retains a strong fan base throughout the UK and Europe and is a frequent and expansive blogger on his myspace page. Recently he wrote about getting back into musical shape for the convention, and even the great man himself couldn’t avoid a few Fish puns:

Dear FishHeads, Freaks, fans and the Company,

Well the convention is approaching fast and furious, and I am coming to terms with the enormous workload we will have to deal with in the next few weeks.

The band arrives on Sunday to begin three weeks of solid rehearsals and hopefully everyone has done their homework so we can get up to speed quickly.

It’s a huge commitment and we will be pressed to get everything together in the run up. As I said there are no warm up shows so it will all be focused on the night.

To put it in perspective only 9 of the 40 songs across the two set lists were performed on the last tour. 3 are first time ever as a solo artist, 11 are pre ’88 with most of them having been on the bench for years and a lot of the others haven’t been in a set since the ’90s.

Frank and Foss have dim recollections but Chris and the 2 Gavin’s are learning everything from scratch.

I would never have contemplated sets like these for anything other than a convention and in all honesty this could be the last time out for a lot of these songs.

The sets will contain a mix of eras on either night and there is enough material to keep everyone happy across the weekend.

And the band completely perched on their toes! 🙂

Not only do I have my own end to hold up as the singer, relearning lyrics and remembering material from over 20 years ago but I also have the “daily events” to put together including writing the “Never Mind the FishHeads” sketches for the Sunday afternoon, working out what we will do as the acoustic set on the Saturday, getting together with Tosh and others to plan the back screen projections and all the other film elements together with all the “sundry” pieces that go to making a happening weekend.

The convention is taking a massive effort to put into place and with promotion kicking in over the coming weeks I am going to be a busy chap!

All that and getting down the gym and pool to try and get myself in some sort of acceptable shape 😀

It’s been 8 months since I last sang a full set on stage and at the moment I am worrying the neighbours as I weed the brassicas and go through my vocal exercises.

It seems ludicrous to some that we are putting ourselves through all this for just two performances in Leamington Spa but as this will be the last indoor performances for a long time I want to make it a bit special and at the same time have a bundle of fun.

Fish blog at myspace

Details on the Fish Convention can be found here.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otHcZxMEDJM