Blog: Leicester Telling Me Something

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I arrived at The Musician in Leicester last night to find THE TIGER already in attendance, along with our evening's promoter Mr Edward Goodson. The Pattisons arrived shortly afterwards and we were, sadly, as QUORATE as we were going to get, as Frankie was POORLY and IN BED with TONSILITIS.

We had a (necessarily more TREBLY than usual) soundcheck, during which we practiced Leicester's Trying To Tell Me Something. We'd agreed to have a go at it during pre-gig setlist emails and had been a bit worried about how it'd work without BASS, but it seemed OK... although we DID agree to do it a) a bit faster and b) with shorter Instrumental Sections. It doesn't half go on otherwise!

Job done we popped out for TEA - Tim was lobbying for CHIPPY CHIPS, but we ended up going to a Hotel Restaurant in The Phoenix Quarter. To be honest it was like a slightly posher Weatherspoons meal, but it was a nice place to sit and have a CHAT - we have got into a bit of a habit of having A Reasonably Nice Meal before gigs these days, it feels sort of WRONG, like we should be eating GINSTERS in a layby instead or something.

Back at the venue we were joined by PALS, including THE WHITAKER and Mr Mark Collins, and LO! there was much DISCUSSION, also DELIGHT. It was nearly 9pm when we rolled in - the evening had been advertised as starting at 8.30pm, but the first act was still on with FOUR more to go to us. Earlier on Ed had told me we'd be on by 10pm, which I'd smiled KINDLY at (it was, apparently, his first time as promoter) but we knew the venue's curfew wasn't until MIDNIGHT, so we'd be FINE.

I think my favourite act of the night was Ed himself. I stood watching him thinking "Good lord, this reminds me EXACTLY of MY first solo gigs, up to and including a Billy Bragg cover". Mr Collins came back from the bar and said "This reminds me of the VOON days", and he was not wrong. We rewarded Mr Goodson by a) telling him this b) REPEATEDLY saying "Of course, that was before you were born." It turned out that MANY of our gig anecdotes actually DID date from before his birth. EEK!

I also really liked Different Fish, who were a right shouty jump about lot, especially at the start when they "jammed" (as I believe it is called) bellowing "HOW LONG WAS I ASLEEP?" It sounds, typing it out, a bit RUM, but it was EXCELLENT!

They were on just before us, so we felt we'd better get on stage QUICK and do THIS:

Billy Jones Is Dead

Don't, Darren, Don't

A Little Bit

Do The Indie Kid

Leicester's Trying To Tell Me Something

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Easily Impressed

It all seemed to go all right - Leicester's Trying To Tell Me Something got ADDED to somewhat, as the fact that I had to change some of the words to reflect new developments (e.g. The Royal Mail is no longer a Parking LOT, but is now an Office BLOCK) meant that I ended up EDITORIALISING about some of the old venues in the second verse. We also integrated "HOW LONG WAS I ASLEEP?" into Do The Indie Kid, adding helpful hints about how to gauge sleeping time in future.

We'd lost a bit of the audience by the time we'd finished - most of the YOUNGSTERS stuck around, but some of the OLDER types slipped away. During the first half of the evening I'd remarked how nice it was to see some OLD FACES from BACK IN THE DAY in the room... and it was, of course, these old faces who buggered off home before we played. Just like old times!

Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and there was MUCH hugging and Thanking-For-Coming. It's always nice to get back to my former adopted hometown, and as ever I regretted the fact that we had to clear off, rather than sitting around having a NATTER, but that was pretty much the only downside to what had been a rather lovely night. I hope all of Ed's promotions in future are as enjoyable as his first one was!

posted 21/6/2012 by MJ Hibbett

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