Gig Round-Up: Tim Fletcher - 13th Jan @ The Flapper

Friday 13th January - The Sharp Darts played at The Flapper in Birmingham along with up and comers Towns, Silvershores and acoustic hero Tim Fletcher. In this post we let you know all about Tim.

First up was Tim Fletcher, a solo acoustic singer/songwriter. You'd be forgiven for thinking that he's never seen anyone else play guitar before, some of the things he does to his acoustic are out of this world. He plays with both hands on the fretboard, under and over as he slaps and pops his way around the guitar body, all while singing and barely looking at his guitar.

If you are a guitarist, you need to watch this guy, he can play, he really can. Now I've seen the odd guitar trickster before and you often get a bit of a one-trick pony affair where the rest of the act suffers and after getting over the initial wonder of the guitar-japery, the effect wears off and you get bored.

Not so with Fletcher, he has a great voice and songs to go with it, he keeps you entertained throughout with a whole host of tricks up his sleeve. He moved from all out guitar-god skills to more conventional strumming, keeping the beat the whole time using his guitar body as percussion that gives the songs a real stomping drum beat effect. It certainly held my attention from start to finish. 

My only criticism, which is one that is easy to make of many local artists, he didn't really say who he was and where to listen to more of his stuff enough. It's a weird thing to have to do on stage, but there's nothing worse than not being able to check out someone you really enjoyed. One other thing, he could have left me more time to clap in between songs, coz you can't give this guy enough plaudits. But I'm sure everyone else was keener to hear the next song than me clapping.

Please check Tim out on facebook and like him up!