overlap

This evening I was expecting to go and see Boo Hewerdine. If the name means nothing, you'll probably know at least one of his songs, and in most cases that's Patience Of Angels as done by Eddi Reader. Otherwise he's best described as being in the similar literate adult pop vein as Aztec Camera, Prefab Sprout and all that sort of thing, rather than the modern version of pop which appears to require little more than young women in beachwear with a dance routine. Imagine my surprise then, to turn up at the venue, wander inside and find a crowd where most of the people not working there were twenty years younger than me, or so it seemed. I kinew I was expecting a completely unknown support act, though all the same the one on stage when I got in was a bit lively, and finished after I'd been inside barely thirty seconds. So, a quick trip to the t-shirt seller at the back of the venue revealed a range of merchandising with band names that definitely were not on my agenda, and looking round every wall seemed to be covered with Kerrang! promotional material. Now, as has recently been mentioned, I am no stranger to Kerrang! and in fact I have a near complete ten year run of it spread across half a dozen boxes upstairs, but it was only when Stuart Cable appeared on stage to announce the next band and talk about what a great night it was, and how good it was of Kerrang! to put on a free gig that the pieces started to fall into place. And then I realised that one of the band names was ringing vague bells, and yes I was in the right place to see, among others, the current band of Charlie from Busted. And then I sort of understood the demographic of everyone stood around me, and the unexpectedly high proportion of young women therein. Having got home and eventually tracked down the news that despite the lack of advertising at the venue itself, Boo's gig is rescheduled for next week, so I've not missed out on that, I can report that Charlie from Busted rocks like Ben Fogle (no, I can't really picture it either), and that I'm really glad that I didn't choose tonight to pursue my longstanding hope of attending a gig en femme - even if within the sensibly mature Hewerdine audience it would still feel like a very bold step, as things turned out it would have been quite something else!