Pete Turrell
Norwich’s open mic community:
I stumbled into it like you stumble into all the best things, half-lost. I was more than half-lost, living on hope and not much else. Part of my recovery was to find something regular to be involved in. Step out the house and be somewhere, doctor's orders. I wasn’t playing. I just needed somewhere to sit and listen. Something regular that didn’t ask much of me. I watched, and over the months I saw a little world tightly knit together. A circle of outsiders and weirdos. Wholesome and genuine. Norwich at its finest.
Pete was always there, in his worn leather jacket, moving through the room. You could tell he belonged to this place in a way no one else did. Moving. Always moving. Drifting between tables, adjusting cables, bringing in the next act with some story or dry joke, holding the night together.
He paid attention. That’s the thing I noticed first. Between the buzzing around, he never lost focus on the act. He found words and compliments that pierced through the armour of self-deprecation, pinpointing exactly what you needed to hear and made it undeniable.
My second introduction to Pete came sideways, through the stories others told. That’s when I began to understand how deeply he’s woven into the heart of Norfolk’s budding musicians. I heard more about Pete from others than I ever did from him.
Then came the third introduction: watching him play.
He was finally still. A guitar resting across his lap, head bowed.
“Fuck!” He cursed.
And then he tried again, and he found it... as if it had lived in the wood long before the guitar was ever strung. The kind of sound that makes the rest of the world fall away.Then, from the back a voice: “What’s the square root of 289?” A heckle. The room laughed, but Pete didn’t flinch. Just kept playing, letting the music spill out like water from cupped hands.When the last note faded, he paused for a second and said “Seventeen.”Then he stood, like he hadn’t just cracked open the world. Left the makeshift stage the way he holds it, gently, like it belongs to everyone else and went back to charmfully hosting the evening.
