Friday, February 19, 2010

Better Get Ready For A Fistfight

New venues sometimes make me slightly nervous, whether it's a city I'm not familiar with or somewhere new to park the car, there's always the slight possibility of it going wrong. With something over 200 venues under my sizeable belt, I've mostly got used to it and on this occasion it turns out straightforward enough once I've done a lap around the block including a diversion round a building site, and the pleasant guy on the door has told me where it's safe to park. All the same I can read dire warnings of clamping on the wall and it'll be a couple of songs before I relax into forgetting that.

And to be fair, that's probably what I need. I've had a couple of difficult weeks, a couple of job interviews that have meant I've seen a few 3AMs running over interview question and answer cobblers in my head, and despite that and filling in half a printer ink cartridge's worth of forms, nothing came out of it all. So that's plenty of work and not a small amount of lost sleep for nothing, though this week has been a bit brighter, and I've started casting my net a bit wider and throwing my CV at all manner of unsuitable things. If nothing else I have the small consolation of wasting the time of certain recruitment agents as much as they waste mine!

It's only a dozen gigs since I last saw Miles and Erica, supporting The Proclaimers. Last time I saw a setlist from subsequent shows, it promised a rather more varied selection of songs and last night was to be no exception.

The support act sort of passed me by, nothing wrong with it and nothing to identify or commend it much either. Not unusually for an acoustic gig, we were treated to a couple of people who thought going to a loud environment to have a shouted conversation over something everyone else was trying to listen to. More than one person got politely requested by more than one other person to shut the hell up, and it does always put bit of a dampener on a gig, being unavoidably distracted by idiots.

Nevertheless, this was a fantastically well put together set featuring a few songs I've not listened to in ages, and the odd new story as well as some familiar favourites. I'm a little set in my ways these days, and it usually takes something truly outstanding to really affect me; nevertheless there's a shiver up my spine at the newly-bearded Miles telling the meeting Kirsty MacColl story prior to Welcome To The Cheap Seats, even though I've heard it before. And it's not the particular relevance of that song either, nor is it just that Kirsty is someone I had the privilege of seeing perform several times, but it's small consolation she remains unforgotten and rightly so. Unfaithful and Inside You sound great in that stripped down two-piece format, and Cartoon Boyfriend is another unexpected addition to a gig that turned out a hell of a lot better than it threatened to do when the conversation posse first got going. We didn't quite get as far as getting ready for a fistfight, but it's the sort of thing that it would only take a tiny bit more booze and testosterone to turn undesirably unpleasant. Instead it turned into a very good night though!

* Better Get Ready For A Fistfight is a song from The Wonder Stuff's Escape From Rubbish Island album

That setlist in full:
Send Me Onions
Not In My Plans
DWI
Fill Her Up And Foot Down
The Cake
Oars In The Water
The Sum Of Us
The Test
Plans In The Sky
Welcome To The Cheap Seats
Piece Of Sky
Sing The Absurd
Room 512
Unfaithful
Inside You
Circlesquare
Cartoon Boyfriend
Here Comes Everyone

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Saturday, February 13, 2010

Step Back In Time part whatever

So the last part of my pre-xmas activities saw me enjoying the facilities of another Birmingham hotel, but as it was the first day the nation really got going on the snow-chaos nonsense, the streets were fairly treacherous. That and the lack of proper preparation which meant I had neither ticket to go anywhere interesting nor company. So while my catsuit made its first appearance in public, it was all a tiny bit disappointingly uneventful. The following day saw me heading north on the M1, taking four or five hours to cover the hour or so needed to reach Sheffield. Not because the snow was problematic, but simply because I had time to kill. Pulling into Sheffield was both reassuringly familiar and a little strange, because I hadn't been there for some time. The previous night's uneventfulness was more than made up for by having my exhaust drop off, with a recognisable clunk-clunk-clunk audible somewhere under a sound more like a jet engine as I limped the few hundred yards to a sensible parking place. I found my way to the venue in plenty of time, and headed off for a brief wander round the city centre before returning to find I hadn't made it onto the guest list as promised. Yeah, I know, shit happens, but another £17 to get in merely soaked up some of the savings made by my unextravagance the night before. Wolfsbane were on excellent form, we had The Troggs' Wild Thing added to the set and I had a quick chat with Blaze ('did you get in on the guest list ok..?'), Jase and Steve before the Quireboys started up again. The place was rammed, I stole a poster off the wall and after getting on for an hour decided it was time to be heading home again. One of the security staff, all of whom had been pleasant and as helpful as they could about the guest list snafu, asked if I was leaving already, and I couldn't face giving a full explanation of the journey that awaited me. In the bitter cold, and with the remains of the exhaust tethered out of the way with a cable tie, I pulled out of central Sheffield and headed for the motorway south, making only the one stop for petrol when I was about an hour from home. So despite the dire warnings of extreme weather, and with the sensible use of my earplugs almost all the way, I proved that even with the added noise I can still do a 200 mile drive home in one go, petrol stop excluded. Thought I'm glad I started it at 10.30 rather than 11.30pm There aren't many bands I'd contemplate that sort of thing for, and indeed I'd decided against doing the trip to London in the week before, but Wolfsbane will always remain my first love in british metal, and where better than Sheffield for the last show if it turns out there aren't any more. Though given how much fun they appeared to be having, I'm hopeful there will be. Steve Danger Blaze and Jeff Blaze and Jase

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Friday, February 05, 2010

Step Back In Time - part 4 of nearly there now

My pre-Christmas exploits headed some way north of home, firstly to the shiny new Birmingham Academy where The Wonder Stuff's second (and weakest of the first four*) album, Hup!, was perfromed in its entirety. * complaints to the usual address! Taking over all three stages in the venue meant for high scores of the value-for-money-ometer, and a bit of a festival vibe in the moving from one stage to another to see a bit of everything. Timothy Parkes still doesn't get me hugely excited but his song Looks Like Rain is definitely growing on me. Then it's off upstairs to catch a bit of Dirty Ray, and his song The Rain Song is also a highlight, in fact he makes a far better impression on me from the stage than he does on the Shared album, which is nice. Anyone spotting a weather theme coming through? I hadn't seen Dave Sharp since he scuttled off with his hood up, the only member of The Alarm not signing autographs for the people who'd stood around waiting for them after the show on a frozen Jaunary night. On this equally snowy of nights, Dave is busier telling stories than getting on with playing songs and it doesn't feel like a shame when I'm heading off for the main stage. Main support The Twang caused a bit of dissent when they were announced as the main support band, but bringing through representatives of a new generation to introduce them to tired old hasbeens like me is no bad thing. I was pretty impressed, and writing this up has reminded me that I've still to get their album despite making plans to do so when I was watching them. A quick trip back upstairs to see Jim Bob's solo acoustic renderings of Carter USM hits and his own Touchy Feely was well worth hanging around in a draughty doorway for, the room being rammed. Great stuff, but no surprises there. And so to the main event. The album Hup! is played through in a dfifferent order to its vinyl incarnation, with some explanation from Miles about how they got the running order wrong back in the day. Because the high tech venue refurbs mean it's pretty well aircon-cooled where I'm stood, I never really get warmed up and the fact the whole thing is going down on six or eight cameras for a later DVD release means it's a bit more of a performance than the slightly more appealing shambles it can sometimes be. The post-Hup! section of the gig goes on for some time, and while it's fantastic to hear Unfaithful and 30 Years In The Bathroom and Them Big Oak Trees again, there's a couple of songs I could happily never hear again. Whatever the moans, it was a worthy occasion and a better way to do a gig with all the other acts than the lesser event it would almost certainly have been otherwise. And having a room in the hotel at only a stone's throw away from the venue was definitely a big plus on a snowy night.

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One Step At A Time

So, the long story of no job and no immediate prospect of one takes an upwards turn this week, with a couple of interviews of varying levels of amusement, comfort and hope. Can't say I'm especially bothered about the not going to work every day bit, but definitely do say I'm gradually running out of patience with the many hoops I'm jumping through in order to secure access to the limited state support to which I'm fully entitled. To say more than that risks being tactically naive, but having had enough time since the whole messy, drawn out episode of the redundancy going through, I'm pretty comfortable with it when I say I'm ready for a new start. No doubt one'll turn up before too long.
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