Right, back to Birmingham!

Plans for Oxjam Brum 2010 are well underway and the preview events have begun. Yesterday I stopped by the one and only Urban Coffee Company for an evening of music and arts, supported by Oxjam Brum, INKwell Print, GotSeeN and Mostly Jazz Festival.

Live acoustic sets in a coffee shop can work really well and Urban Coffee is an ideal location. Couple that with the perfect start time, 5pm on a Friday, and you have the ingredients for a great evening.

Unfortunately it was way too hot inside, even with Urban Coffee’s fabulous new coffee ice-cream, chilled Pimms and Cofftails on offer! There was also limited seating upstairs, so I only stuck around long enough to hear Alex Moir.

You don’t expect such powerful gravelly tones from one so young and the songwriting shows real potential too. It’s definitely worth your time checking out his MySpace.

Despite having to leave, it wasn’t the end of the evening for me. The Oxjam team covered the event online with live streaming, regular tweets and photos hitting the interwebs all evening. So the remaining acts Eliza Little, Marlem and Tom Peel weren’t complete strangers to me! Good job, folks.

I hope this is something both Oxjam and Urban Coffee look to continue, but perhaps ordering slightly cooler weather next time?