Dave Stewart gives an insight into his forthcoming memoirs in an entertaining and revealing evening at The Hospital Club

Last night saw and evening packed full of anecdotes, stories, live performance and deconstruction of classic songs with Dave Stewart at Covent Garden’s Hospital Club.

It was great so many people from the various online forums were there last night, travelling from across the UK, Sweden, Holland and Germany to be there.

Ever the genial host, Dave attempted to answer the questions being answered as his stories weaved in and out, meandering back somehow to the beginning but taking the audience through some hilarious life events from losing songs overboard a boat to a secret plan to ensure Shakira’s recording environment created by Dave would mean she would have to have a swim.

The hi-lights of the evening were the musical interludes, and when Dave de-constructed various parts of the Eurythmics classic track Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

He explained how keyboard players struggle to play the track properly because in truth it needs to keyboards to do the song justice, and finally, those fans who knew about the milk bottles being played in the song got to hear them on their own.

Similarly Dave talked about the whole recording process with Stevie Wonder on There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart), how Dave and Annie had waited all day for Stevie to arrive, and in the end left to go back to their hotel in the early hours of the morning, only to get a phone call to say he had arrived.  Dave played Stevie Wonders harmonica track exactly as it had been recorded almost 30 years ago.

Dave peppered the conversation with short musical interludes, and spoke about the different playing styles with his guitars, tuning them to different chords, learning techniques, and how he has to adapt his work depending on whether he is writing a movie score, a theatre production, a track for an album or another artist.

Dave life is surrounded by technology, and shared with the audience a dozen short films and clips from his documented life. Everything Dave does he records even from his very early years, and gave us an insight into the craziness of some of the situations he has found himself in throughout his career. My favourite was Lou Reed, quite angry with Dave that they had arrived to play a small gig without any instruments and you see him saying “Dave has managed to create chaos and is now filming it! Technology wasn’t always his friend as Dave struggled to get to grips with the new iTunes that has destroyed his library.

On a more serious part of the evening, Dave spoke about how important it is to nurture young artists, and was joined on stage by his daughter Kaya who performed a powerful and moving version of When The Day Goes Down (take from the Eurythmics album We Too Are One).  He explained that few young artists can really understand and feel a song, and compared a lot of music today on the radio to being almost an assault on the senses, not giving the listener time to become part of the song.

Another young performer, Martin Longstaff (who performs as The Lake Poets and currently signed to Dave Stewart Entertainment ) took to the stage to perform a beautifully emotional song about his grandfather who used to be a ship builder, and the hope that he is looking down and the hope that he would be proud of his grandsons achievements.  Dave and Martin share Sunderland as their hometown, and a lot of life experiences are very similar, with a similar background and childhood.

Given the chance, I think Dave would have quite happily stayed longer, but was very gracious and spent time at the end having his photograph taken with people from the audience before heading to dinner with his family.

What really made the evening special were the friends from around the world who also attended, these events would never be the same without the friendship and shared experiences that go hand in hand with the D&A family.