My Exciting Life In ROCK (part 1): 29/5/99 - Chris & Sharon's wedding

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I DO love a good wedding. People often say to me "Ooh" (they're usually the sort of person who'll start a sentence that way) "Why don't you get married yourself then eh?" My answer is simple - I like weddings in the same way i like pubs: a) A LOT but b) I have never felt the need to build a full bar in my spare room, complete with optics and a working temperature controlled CELLAR for the wide range of Ales I would need to STOCK. Also, i can't be bothered to learn how to make cocktails.

SIDEBAR! Cocktails are really annoying aren't they? I hate it when you go to the pub and the person in front of you decides to get some RIDICULOUS concoction that is basically FRUITY VODKA and takes five times as long to make as it does to drink. And then pays with it on their debit card. GET OUT OF MY WAY, I NEED BEER!

Anyway, as i say, I do love a good wedding and for some reason I seem to have ended up playing GIGS at some of them. The first time this happened was at the wedding of Chris and Sharon, some old friends from my student days. Part of their COURTSHIP had been attending Voon gigs and so it seemed fitting that they should ask either myself or Neil to play a song after the ceremony. At this point in our complimentary yet divergent solo careers I was mostly singing songs about emerging into full adulthood, the trouble with finding girls to go out with you, and home computers, while Neil was singing about badgers, his Nan's groin, the evils of the city council, and arse fungus. For once in my life, I was the one with the most suitable songs!

The wedding itself was lovely and the reception was DEAD POSH. It all happened at a vineyard, where the celebrations began with PIMMS on the lawn. Thinking back you might have expected WINE all the way through at a vineyard but really a Summer Wedding without PIMMS is like... well, a wedding without "Come On Eileen" i.e. NOT LEGALLY VALID. And, much like "Come On Eileen", I think Pimms is pretty much guaranteed to improve ANY social gathering, whether it is a delicately prepared cocktail of high quality fruits, soft drink and BOOZE or whether it is STUDENT PIMMS. I had this once at an all-dayer in Sheffield - to create STUDENT PIMMS simply take one JUG of pre-mixed PIMMS POP and one can of Aldi's Fruit Salad. MIX WELL.

We moved inside to the posh meal which was SO posh that they'd hired MAGICIANS to wander the tables performimg tricks, and it was here that I had a sudden realisation of Time Moving On. The last batch of weddings I'd been to had been as a teenager, when the women I'd fancied had been scarce more than GURLS and were largely unattainable due to bum fluff-faced boyfriends. Somehow when I'd been looking the other way all the women I'd fancied had become ACTUAL WOMEN, unattainable not just because of HUSBANDS but also CHILDREN. It's amazing the sort of things other people get up to when you're in the pub.

After the speeches (which I remember being of The New Style - short, and PANSY-ARSED. The best man practically KISSED the groom and there was NO swearing!) I moved downstairs to discuss things with The Wedding DJ. Wedding DJs, truly, are a breed apart. If you've ever wondered why people always seem to choose such dreadful music for their wedding receptions the answer is simple: they DON'T. At nearly all the weddings I've ever been to the bride and (most of all) groom have been at PAINS to select a playlist keenly tuned to theirs and their guests' history together, mixing old favourites and in-jokes with the songs that forged their friendships and personalities... a list which the DJ completely disregards and plays the songs HE likes instead. This is the dark truth of Wedding DJs - the terrible music they play, they ACTUALLY REALLY LIKE IT.

This also means they're always a bit WEIRD, also TRUCULENT, and tend to affect an air of IGNORANCE about any other sort of musical equipment. They especially like to pretend to have no idea how Live Music works and always seem to think that even a FULL BAND will be adequately catered for with a single crappy microphone that extends three feet from the record player, and even if you tell them a YEAR IN ADVANCE that someone will need a microphone stand they'll dismiss such KRAZY IDEAS as a DREAM.

THUS I did my set with Neil crouching in front of me, holding up a microphone which he'd DRAGGED, turntable and all, half way across the dancefloor from the PA system and GLOWERING DJ. I did two songs - one I'd written especially and, by request, my cover version of "Boom Shake The Room" - before Neil took over. He'd been DISPLEASED not to be formerly asked but played anyway, and I spent an unusual ten minutes kneeling down on the floor before him, glancing over my shoulder at the bride's family, all of whom were of a Medical Bent and so took a Professional Interest in why my friend felt the need for such a public outporting of emotion about Badgers and JAM.

When it was all done I employed The First Rule Of Wedding Receptions: always go and talk to the father of the bride. You'll find him looking KNACKERED, also DRUNK, at one end of the bar, and if you go and tell him how well everything is going and what a MARVELLOUS day it's been he will sigh MEANINGFULLY, say "Well, it ought to be for the price" and then BUY YOU A BEER.

It NEVER FAILS, and thus the evening drew to a close with dancing, beer, and general loveliness. I wish all gigs could finish up that way!

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