My Exciting Life In ROCK (part 1): 13/7/99 - The Victoria Inn, Derby

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Bands come together for many different reasons. For some it is INEVITABLE - the members are the misfits, the outsiders, the new thinkers of the tribe who are forced together by the oppression of others, able to find solace only in each other. Sometimes it is a plan of shining genius, developed by a svengali who picks only the perfect members to express his perfect vision. More usually it is an expression of adolescent creativity, as drinking friends get together to go off on a quest for booze, girls, and rock and roll glory.

In our case it was so that we could get into somebody else's gig for free.

As previously stated, by 1999 our label Artists Against Success was in full swing, and we'd earnt the right to ponce around in pubs saying "I am a record company" by signing two local bands, Stumble and Lazer Guided. I was over in Derby to watch them one night when I got into conversation with Tom Rose, of Reveal Records Fame. Nowadays he is actually a proper bona fide Record Company of some repute, with Joan As Police Woman as his lead act, but back then he was just the bloke who ran the local indie record shop, although even at the point he was trying to branch out. One attempt at this was to have a go at Gig Promotion, and Frankie had discovered that he'd booked one of my favourite bands of all time, Half Man Half Biscuit.

I'd first heard them in sixth form, when every single lunchtime my best friend Mr Paul Myland ("Mileage") insisted on playing their first album "Back in the DHSS" on the old stereo in the mouldering mobile classroom we used as a "common room". Roughly once a week we'd walk to Our Price in Peterborough's Queensgate Shopping Centre just to LOOK at the song titles on the back of their second album, "Back back in the DHSS (again)", which he was saving up to buy. I still have the tape he did for me, including a Peel Session with John Peel saying over the end "my brother-in-law Alan has peaches on his cereal. And yoghurt." Twenty years on I can remember the inflection on every word of that statement, yet not what it was I came into the kitchen to get.

THUS I was incredibly excited to find that they were GIGGING somewhere that I'd be able to see them, and it didn't even OCCUR to me that we could SUPPORT them until Frankie pointed it out, and then shoved me over to Tom so we could ask for the spot. Tom was an old friend of Frankie's who, crucially, had never seen me play, so it wasn't too difficult to persuade him to let us do the gig, especially when we told him I had a full band. This wasn't exactly a fib - in amongst all the people currently recording my debut album there was at LEAST one full band, it's just that we'd never actually all played together in the same room, let alone at a gig. Still, how hard could it be?

As it turned out, not very hard at all - I knew Tim'd be up for it as he is a MASSIVE Half Man Half Biscuit fan (as demonstrated by his SCORN for my inability to recite ENTIRE SONGS from memory) and Frankie had only made me ask so that he didn't have to buy a ticket, so all we needed was a bass player. Although I was playing bass on the recordings I would need to entirely RE-WIRE MY BRAIN if I was going to sing AND play bass at the same time (it's HARD, ask anybody!), but luckily surgery was avoided due to the presence of Young Ollie over at the bar. He was the bass player in Lazer Guided, one of the bands we'd come to sing, so I bought him a drink and told him what a good idea it would be, and he was IN!

We had nearly TWO practices, one without Tim (TOURING COMMITMENTS) and then one altogether, and we got just enough songs learnt to do an entire gig. We got to Derby VERY excited to be seeing Half Man Half Biscuit, with only the slight annoyance of a gig to get through first. The year before Tim and I had been to see them for the first time playing at The Charlotte in Leicester, and got very impatient with the road-crew, who seemed to be taking FOREVER to set things up. "What are they doing NOW?" we asked as the slightly doddery, balding, pot-bellied group of roadies took ages to tune up before plugging things in... and launching into the set. Ah. That wasn't a bunch of middle-aged roadies, that was THE BAND! It ended up being one of the best gigs I've ever seen in my LIFE. After the first encore The Management decided enough was enough and turned the PA system OFF and the lights ON. Nigel (Blackwell, singer and HERO) came back on anyway and sang "All I Want For Christmas (is a Dukla Prague Away Kit)" unplugged, with 200 burly and slightly moist eyed MEN BELLOWING it back at him. Surprisingly, it was beautiful.

Anyway, we waited for The Biscuits to soundcheck, did ours quickly, then went and HID in the pub bit of the venue. We were FAR to scared and awed to try and SPEAK to them, and as it slowly dawned on us that we were going to HAVE to do a gig we got more and more nervous. We were CORRECT to be so - the HMHB audience is not like the audience you get for most bands. For a start, they're significantly OLDER, and thus less likely to take NONSENSE, and they've got a much greater tendency to be season ticket holders than, say, Manic Street Preachers Fans, and season tickets at lower leagues more often than not too, so they do have a tendency to be a little DOUR and hard to impress. Thus our efforts didn't go down particularly well, with our inability to play any song all the way through without cock ups NOT viewed as "charming" in any way whatsoever, and even our obvious devotion to the main band going unnoticed, partly due to the Ropey PA, mostly due to everybody leaving halfway, just my mid-set attempt at BANTER - "You all had to pay for your tickets, we got in for FREE! HA!"

Once the set had finished we were tactfully ignored as we put our gear away, before settling back into the body of the crowd to watch the mighty Biscuits. Honestly, they are one of the best live bands you'll ever see, with a HUGE and BRILLIANT back catalogue, a whole LOT of CHARM, and a huge LAKE of goodwill which they draw from GENTLY. They are ACE.

After the gig we went to get our gear, with Tim and I hovering nervously near Nigel, trying to work up the courage to speak to him. We didn't need to - he came over and offered me a throat lozenge. I was so overcome with hero worship that, for a moment, I didn't know what to do with it. Should I PALM it, to save for veneration later? Surely I couldn't just SUCK such a gift from the Gods? I took it as offered and managed to force it into my mouth, simultaneously maintaining a fairly normal conversation, chatting lightly about their plans for a new single. All the while Tim stood next to me, DUMBFOUND. Tim is no shrinking violet nor is he usually short of opinion, but this time he just stood there with glassy eyes, grinning madly until I managed to turn him around and propel him back into the pub, where we both SQUEALED at each other. We were VERY excited.

We got all our gear packed away and bundled into the car, just as The Biscuits were emerging. Nigel waved to us, "See you mates!" he said and we waved nonchalantly back. Emma, Tim's fiancee, had come to pick us up, and she was just saying "How did it go then?" as she turned the corner, at which point we were fairly sure we were out of earshot. "EEEEEEEE!!!! HE CALLED US MATE!" we screeched, and spent the ENTIRE journey back to Leicester SQUEALING and GIGGLING with GLEE. Nigel from Half Man Half Biscuit called us "Mates"!!!

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