Declan Zapala at the Elgar Room

This week I went to see Declan Zapala at ‘The Royal Albert Hall: Elgar Room.’

Dec has been my friend for over half my life. We first bonded over a love of stand up comedy. After his 6^th Form Asda shift, he would bound up the hill to mine where we would talk Bill Hicks over tea. Both of us - like Bill - shared the dream of being artists, untethered by commercial interests, free to be who we wanted to be; free to be different. But was it possible to be an artist when your birthplace read ‘Watford’?

Years later, Dec and me are sharing a flat. On one side of the wall he practices guitar. On the other side of the wall I write comedy. Dec and me at this point are working part-time. (Our other flatmate Beth, Dec's girlfriend, is out at work as a Social Worker for the elderly, so not doing anything nearly as important as us.) Dec is committed to a career as a classical guitarist and I’m attempting to break into stand-up comedy. Having an artistic bent, being friends and living in close proximity, it wasn’t long before people were referring to us as the Wordsworth and Coleridge of Watford – by people I mean Dec and myself. You could argue with two ‘artists’ living under one roof, our flat was fast becoming Watford’s answer to Andy Warhol’s Factory. It wouldn’t be long before we released work as culturally significant as the Velvet Underground's first album; all we needed to do was unplug the kettle and hide the remote.

The Warhol Factory. Just like 24 Mayfair Court.

Eventually I would come to realise the artist’s life wasn’t for me (this was revealed to me in a bank statement). But it was for Dec. Dec is someone who didn’t play at being an artist – like me – but someone who truly committed to it. Much of the money he makes from function work and teaching is re-invested back into the true vocation of writing, recording and performing music. He has what all good artists need: the courage to take risks when it appears reckless to do so. So it came to pass, Dec booked the Royal Albert Hall for the first gig of his album tour.

Picking up my ticket at the box office and seeing the words: ‘Royal Albert Hall presents Declan Zapala’ was a huge thrill. Knowing this gig was achieved through a coalescence of talent, hard work and originality made the experience even more gratifying, living as we do in an age where TV talent shows ignore all three. As an aside, Dec was once asked to audition for Britain’s Got Talent; he turned them down on the grounds he wasn’t willing to use a stunt guitarist for his difficult Bach piece. (I can still write jokes.)

The Elgar Room gig began with Dec showing signs of confusion as to why so many people were there to watch him. Fortunately, these are typical symptoms of playing a historic venue and the patient soon declared himself fit to play. He opened with Awakening, the eponymous track from his debut album. Awakening is a fitting first album title, conjuring as it does the idea of musical birth and arrival. It is also an apt metaphor for the album’s aesthetics: the record reminds me of that feeling when you’re emerging from sleep, caught in a Neverland of sleepy dust and sun-dappled curtains, when you are neither here nor there; it is gorgeously dreamy.

Dec then launched into a percussive piece Crystal. I forgot to mention that Dec is a percussive guitarist. He can play the guitar like a drum. Witnessing this phenomenon up close is truly awe-inspiring: seeing his arms juggle between the guitar's fretboard and body appears impossible yet through a combination of God-given talent and superhuman focus the feat is achieved. It is this kind of multi-tasking that has earned Dec the moniker, 'the octopus of sound.'

After, Dec performed Angel, which is always a personal highlight for me. The late Eric Roche composed the song for his sister, and Dec’s playing really makes a statement of the piece’s understatement. If I wasn’t already in love, I could imagine falling in love to it. It really is a beautiful serenade of a thing; a twinkling, spine-tingling swoon that Patrick Swayze’s your soul. I rather like it.

Following this is Koyunbaba, a Turkish folk song by Carlo Domeniconi. Performed over four movements, the piece is an exercise in tension, building gradually to a frenzied finish. In fact it reminds me of an old western standoff: initially the combatants stalk one another, daring the other to act, only for the heat of inaction to prove too much as the thing folds into a supercharged gunfight.

Later, a dewy-eyed Dec introduced Philomena, a song written for his mum. Last year he raised over a £1000 for the Philomena project, a charity that attempts to right the wrongs of the Catholic church by re-uniting mothers with the children forcibly removed from them. Dec’s Philomena is so called because Judi Dench’s portrayal in the film reminded Dec of his own mother. Introducing Philomena we’re told that Dec’s mum plays the bodhran, an Irish drum, so in tribute he has built a section into the piece that replicates its sound. His ability to make the guitar malleable is illustrated again later when during the middle of Broken Rhapsody he detunes his guitar to create the sound of a double bass. This experimentation marks him out as a showman, and in an art-form that can be a little po-faced this is wholly welcome.

If you’re going up to Edinburgh this year, I recommend you see Dec. Last year, his show was so well received he ended up on Radio 3 and BBC 4. Witnessing his current show, I think his live performance is even better. If you can’t make Edinburgh, buy the album and listen to a true artist at work.

Declan Zapala’s album can be bought here: http://declanzapala.com/shop/

He can be seen live at the Edinburgh Festival, St Columbus by the Castle, August 8-31^st at 5.45.