Blog: Hello Derby

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I set off for St Pancras last night in GOOD time, nervous as i was about getting my pre-booked tickets out of THE MACHINE. All was well, and we stood and watched our train being cleaned and reservation ticketed, happy in the knowledge that it was there and all was well. Then we watched it go off without us. Ten minutes later it came back, having been "checked", we got on, and set off, having JUST nudged ourselves in behind the slow train to Bedford, and off we CRAWLED. It was all LATE anyway, but obviously not enough, as we ground to a halt just past Loughborough - an announcement came on saying "Unfortunately this train will now be terminating at Derby". Hey! Bad luck for most of the other passengers, but for me FINE! Just let me off and all will be WELL! However we then SAT there for twenty minutes, making us a full HOUR late getting into Derby, and making ME a bit RATTLED.

However, I didn't seem to have missed much - no-one had soundchecked, and Rob, ever AWARE that he MUST be the last to arrive at any gig, had quickly gone home, to make sure his record REMAINED. Actually he'd gone off to collect the final bits of "Warriors Of Nanpantan" and BRISKLY put it all together so's i could take it home this morning, but that need not tarry us here. We got set up and soundchecked SANS FLEAY, then i got some CHIPS, and we sat and waited for the CROWDS.

There were a good few YOUNG PEOPLE there for the first band, but WELL WE KNEW that they would probably not stick around to see us, we could tell by their shiny hair and unscarred countenances. When we got on stage there were only about 10 people there, which beats our LAST performance at the VIC by 400%, so WELL DONE US! We got going and by JIMINY it was good fun - the new songs sounded GRATE, the old ones did too, and all was SATISFACTION and RELIEF... except for in some cases where SOMEBODY managed to forget the words, ESPECIALLY for a song where a) he and Emma had to sing together and b) Emma had gone through the words to that one ESPECIALLY before hand to check he'd do them right. BAD whoever it was who did that, BAD!

Here's what we played:

The Fight For History
Hey Hey 16K
Never Going Back To Aldi's
The Gay Train
Breaks In The Journey
Easily Impressed
Quality Of Life Enhancement Device
Things'll Be Different
The Symbol Of Our Nation
The Lesson Of The Smiths

It all FLEW by, so much so that we CUT a couple of songs, then got the most REASONABLE "encore" ever - someone shouted (actually, said loudly) "you've got time - why don't you do another one?" and so we brought "The Lesson Of The Smiths" back. HOORAH!

We then reconvened in the Dressing Room for a general band chat, and all seemed WELL. The Validators, as I may possibly have mentioned before, are a LOVELY band, and it must be nice for them to, every now and again, do a gig like most of my SOLO GIG CAREER has been. Possibly. Everyone then sped off into the night, safe in the knowledge of a job well done and a BATCH of songs GIGGED, and I returned to Chez Fleay for the evening.

Tonight I'm putting together the final version of "Warriors Of Nanpantan", whilst The Ribbon In My Typewriter proofreads the sleeve-notes, then hopefully tomorrow I'll be sending it off to be MADE! WHOO!

posted 12/1/2005 by MJ Hibbett

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