overlap

I'm a little way behind, so I'm adding this stuff in bits as I get the
chance to do so. More will undoubtedly follow.

There's really nothing to put me on edge as being in possession of a
ticket on which the start time (not doors) is clearly indicated, while
being stuck in heavy traffic less than twenty minutes before the
stated time. When the first band on is one I especially want to see,
and would be disappointed to miss any of. Nevertheless, after a quick
sprint across town and anxious minutes queueing with my camera
secreted about my person, I'm inside with three minutes to spare.
Naturally start time turns out to be 15 minutes later, but you know…

I only really made the effort to smuggle the camera in in response to
the fact they are theoretically banned and I'm always up for a
challenge of that sort! Making it in before the masses in the pub
round the corner means I can get very close to the front, and so me
and the camera will turn out to be at a useably close range.

With four people between me and the barrier, there's a few changes to
the cabling and an effects pedal gets swapped over, then suddenly
there's a guitar tech stood in front of me holding a guitar, and the
lights go down.

Gorham, Sykes, Mendoza, Aldridge then – I don't feel comfortable
calling it Thin Lizzy for obvious reasons, but all the same it's a
mighty thrill to be stood no more than four metres away from Scott
Gorham as they rip into Jailbreak. A substantially rocky set follows,
and fantasy setlist games aside, who really wants to hear Suicide when
they could have any one of a number of better songs, but in any case
they've only got forty minutes to pack themselves into, and more to
the point, I've got Scott Gorham stood almost within touching
distance.

I've seen this act twice before, though both times with Michael Lee on
drums, and I don't think I've ever seen Tommy Aldridge play live
before, so in between photos I was watching Tommy quite a bit. For a
guy of 57 he thrashes his way around the kit with the energy of
someone a third his age, and is clearly having a ball doing so. In the
understandable absence of Still In Love With You, Waiting For An Alibi
and watching Aldridge drumming are probably the highlights for me,
that and being sufficiently close to watch the fingers that played so
many of my favourite guitar lines move around the frets. Bigger versions of these are on flickr - see link to the right.

Poor tour planning sees The Wildhearts coming to my city on the same night that I've already had my ticket for another gig for months, so it's a short trip up the road and a reminder that making an early start on driving over is a necessity for almost every gig there these days. Last time I was over there was a special gig for very other reasons, and this is almost as much obligation or habit as something promising new and exciting delights. With the new album released the day before and having not had time to let it fully grow on me, anything is possible. * G U Medicine, the first support band have nothing all that special to commend them, beyond being remarkably loud, but they're out of the way soon enough. * Sign, remarkably poor name for a band. The lead vocals are a slightly strained mix of Klaus Meine of the Scorpions and Jon Deverill, but there's something else in there that I can't quite pick out. "Hello, we are Sign and we come from Iceland, and yeah we live in snow houses and shit..." Suddenly it all makes sense! They play a little over half an hour and are clearly having a ball, and the other thing they remind me of becomes clear when they do a cover of Skid Row's Youth Gone Wild - you can see how the roaring/screaming vocal style has more than a hint of Seb. A band that I end up liking because they amuse me rather than one that has me rushing to buy the whole catalogue, though I may well nick a tune or two off their myspace. * The Wildhearts then - turns out they've been through about fifteen different line-ups now, and though I've seen them more times than that over the years, I've probably only seen about half of those line-ups, and I'm also not completely up to date quite who's the latest recruit to the revolving line-up. And if I had been paying attention I might have known to try and get a couple of pictures of new bassist Scott Sorry for the amusement value of the fact he has his surname tattooed in inch high letters across his throat. No, quite. It's a substantially more hits-based set than it might have been for a band with a shiny new album freshly released, and it's a cracker. I don't listen to them much from one gig to another these days, so it's really nice to be reminded what cracking rock-pop stormers songs like TV Tan and Vanilla Radio, Sick Of Drugs and I Wanna Go Where The People Go are. Scott Sorry fits in fine, Ritch being back on the drums makes a thunderous racket, and both CJ and Ginger look like they are entirely happy to be there, which bodes well for the tour being completed with this line-up at least, but nothing can be taken for granted with this bunch. And if this wasn't an extra super special show, I was particularly interested in messing about with the camera and reasonably pleased with the results, and the sensible curfew that saw me out and in the 24 hour supermarket at ten to eleven, and home just before midnight.

Labels: Ginger, The Wildhearts

I've just received an email that's made my day, from a musician in a band I saw live a number of times back in the early/mid 1990s. Our paths crossed several times, in fact I'm fairly sure it was his girlfriend we got into a sold out show when we had a spare ticket having been lucky enough to be put on the guest list as well, but in any case it's all rather a long time ago. Which is why it amuses me greatly for him to say he remembers me. More importantly, he's also given me some information on which website I can get his newest band/project's album from even though it's only available by retail in the States, so that's already been ordered. Given that they are playing in Philadelphia tonight, it's fair to say that in the old world there would be no chance whatsoever of me tracking down this information without stumbling across it at random somewhere, and it's a fine example of how the ever-changing modern world of technology can be a source for good. And in the meantime, if you wonder exactly what flavour of multi-harmony country rock has brought me to this post, you can click on the title of this post and check out some tracks on myspace if you feel so inclined.

Labels: Dave Gibbs, Gigolo Aunts, Low Stars

For reasons best to known to somebody somewhere, it has been decreed
that it's high time we had photo-id issued by the owners of the
building we work in. This is how I've just come to have my picture
taken with my best sort of expressionless expression as is currently
de rigeur for those sort of shots. Scary monsters indeed.

Knowing this was in the pipeline, it will remain a source of private
amusement and entertainment for the duration of this id card that I'm
wearing half the contents of my travelling make up bag in the picture.

I should try to remember next time I fly out of Stansted that I need
to think slightly differently about what I'm shopping for - and
particularly that it's the MAC concession that appears to have a full
range of products and colours where my favourite brand has a far more
limited selection. That said I did pick up the collection of miniature
perfumes that I couldn't find around Christmas time, and given how
infrequently I use perfume that'll keep me going for years. And
despite turning up with a thoroughly researched but ultimately useless
list of shades/products I still picked up my new favourite neutral
lipstick, which is indeed the one I'm wearing right now and in that id
card pic.

Even if making the decision on the spot about precisely which shade to
get did delay me till the last call for my flight, some things are
worth taking the time over to get right.

Yesterday was a great day, starting with a very pleasant drive through the countryside with the distinctive scent of oilseed rape wafting into the car from the bright yellow fields. It's also at this time of year I become aware that I'll shortly get a break from that particular journey for a couple of months - which is a great chance to save on the petrol money, the time and the stress my football team conspires to offer me at regular intervals! I also got to catch up on the story of what I missed. As is probably inevitable in this sort of situation, there were a few bits of information that had come up over the course of events that shed a bit more light on the bigger picture - for example I'd always known my father was engaged to someone else when he met my mother, but it turns out to have happened in a slightly different way to what I naturally imagined. And although it was news to me, I wasn't entirely surprised to find out for the first time that my father was born a couple of months premature. Placed in its wartime context, it's hardly likely that he got the full benefit of the recommended five portions of fruit and veg a day, and it doesn't take a genius to suggest some sort of link between an early development limited by circumstances and various ensuing medical difficulties. I'm pleased to hear he had a decent service and so on. The slight turn in the weather means today is the first day this year that my legs have seen daylight, and a relatively easy 26 miles on the bike makes for a small start in the summer's fitness efforts. Of course the subsequent calorie-laden intake more than makes up for it, but you know, you've got to start somewhere!

... from outer Spain - doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? I had an exchange of text messages on the day of the funeral that hugely upset me, though in the right way if there is such a thing. It surprised me to find myself quite so very upset, and while I could write that off as part of the long way from home, not enough sleep, not enough to eat, generally out of sorts thing, the truth is that I'd be fooling nobody by that, and certainly not myself. I made a few pages of notes at the time, but I'm not going to repeat them here and now. Suffice to say that I'm entirely clear that I don't need the rituals of the Christian church to sanction or validate my feelings, especially not regarding someone whose interest in matters churchly was non-existent for as long as I can remember. It suits me fine to be able to concentrate on remembering my father alone, rather than have the whole thing coloured (and indeed tarnished) by the inevitable disagreements with the other people I'd have had to deal with if I had been there. That said, I was trying to think of the last time we spent any meaningful, constructive or positive time together, and I came back to two examples - bunking into a motocross event where it was a pay on entry to the car park thing, so me being driven in in the boot meant getting away with not paying full price for two adults, and me cataloguing a bunch of machine tools that he'd 'liberated' when he was being made redundant. The motocross I can date at around April 1991, the machine tools almost certainly a little earlier. Ever wondered where I got my complete lack of integrity and moral probity? :-) My father's life probably informed my class consciousness far more his own, and I'm lucky to have known his father too, a quiet man, never without a crossword and whose temperament I most closely inherited. In understanding my father, and where he came from, I know where I come from, and that's all part of anyone's self-knowledge and family history, but there's nothing to say it's obligatory to carry on along the same lines. It would be easy to get into more detail and at greater length, but for now it's enough to say that I just spent a week away with some pretty close friends who had no idea what had happened just before I left home, and I'll be going back to work tomorrow with a bunch of people who are equally none the wiser. When it comes up that I'm apparently being cryptic or less than clear, as it does from time to time, it's much more an expression of the fact that I tend to keep my business to myself than that I'm deliberately trying to mislead or confuse. And that's as much a feature of growing up on the defensive as anything. My father was a simple enough man, and one with human flaws and limitations. I prefer to remember him in his 30s, when I was young enough not to question, and he was plenty fit and well enough to do stuff like fall through windows into plates of baked beans, and drive around rugby fields with me on his lap doing the steering. That was my dad.