My Exciting Life in ROCK (part 2): My Exciting Life In ROCK: 12/10/2003 - The Adelphi, Hull

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This was the gig that we got booked for without knowing it when Tom and I played a birthday party a few months beforehand. We'd both gone on and ON about how brilliant it'd been so were hoping it'd be AS good when Tim and Frankie came up to play with us.

There was no Emma this time as she was rather too Pregnant to travel, so I ended up cadging the spare seat in The Pattison Wagon and heading North with Tim. On the way there we had a LENGTHY discussion about British City Centres, or rather about ANNOYING OPINIONS on the same. There'd been an article in The Guardian magazine (YES we both read it, WHAT OF IT?) parroting the idiotic idea that "Ooh, all city centres look the same these days, because of the same SHOPS." This, in my [CORRECT] opinion is a bloody stupid thing to say - if you live in London and only visit satellite towns and THEN only ever go into SHOPS on the high street and don't look ANYWHERE but straight ahead and don't TALK to anyone or indeed LOOK at the faces of the staff then possibly, if you're incredibly thick/lazy/annoying then MAYBE you might get horribly confused. But otherwise - for GOODNESS SAKE there's a lot more to a city than whether the big newsagents is WHSmiths or not. You know - landscape, architecture, accents, the weather, AND SO FORTH.

We got quite worked up about it (so much so that next day I'd write a song, "City Centres" all about it, which is probably the LEAST understood song I've ever written as every time we'd play it someone would ALWAYS say "Yes, it's all these chains pushing out the local grocers isn't it?") so that the journey FLEW by and pretty soon we found ourselves stood in the chip shop. THREE things to note here - firstly, if you're in Hull it should be ILLEGAL to NOT visit the chip shop, as they are the best in the WORLD. Secondly, it was LOVELY to see that the opening times were labelled "Dinner" and "Tea". Third and finally the chip shop we always went to is called "The Chip Shop". It's a few doors up from the corner shop, which is called "The Corner Shop". The shopkeepers of Hull are much too DIRECT to be part of a chain!

We got to the venue to find the legendary Mr E Bewsher waiting for us. He had been VERY busy, presenting us with features in the local paper, posters plastered all around the building (some of which said "PJ Hibbett", but this time it didn't really matter) and fairly soon a HUGE CROWD of people. Even more excitingly than this, however, was our RIDER. I'd recently heard a RUMOUR about The Smiths that when they started playing gigs they'd demand SHRUBBERY on their rider, and the bigger they got the bigger the vegetation required, until they were demanding a TREE for each gig. Thus when Eddy emailed to ask what our RIDER requirements were I replied "A Tree!"

I thought I was being HILARIOUS. I didn't expect to GET one, but there it was, on the stage waiting for us. A TREE. Dave The Gardner had selected it especially and brought it in for us - AN ACTUAL TREE! Astounded we decided (also "hilariously") to mike it up for the PA and afterwards found ourselves having to take it all the way back to Tim's house with us where I believe it still lives, but at the time our main reaction was "WOW!" Eddy: TOP PROMOTER!

We popped down the road and through the Ginnel (LOCAL SLANG: Alleyway) to a nice pub to do our setlist, and returned to the Adelphi to find it PACKED. We were shocked, and our surprise only grew when the gig itself became one of the BEST we'd EVER done. The reticence of the audience at me and Tom's debut was forgotten as Eddy's enthusiastic PIMPING of us to everyone he'd ever met bore fruit in a MASS SINGALONG. For the first time ever it felt like we were PROPERLY HEADLINING, as everyone danced away and, also for the first time ever, we got a MASSIVE "OI HIBBETT!" in the song "Easily Impressed" which nearly blew us off our feet.

There was also a lot of Stage Business with some Christmas Cake - it wasn't anywhere NEAR Christmas, but someone had brought it specially so when it was offered to the stage we all had a bit, and there seemed to be enough for EVERYONE in the room to have some - it was that kind of night. For the encore (oh yes!) we did "Fat Was A Feminist Issue" a song on which I don't play guitar, but this time DID do RATHER A LOT of MIME. I also managed to pull off the CLASSIC trick of The Man Who Has Been In Bands A Long Time: at one point I LARFED at how much Frankie was LARFING at my Actions, and forgot the words. Rather than looking sheepish I turned round and GLARED at Frankie - THUS making the entire audience think that HE had cocked up, not me. GLARING, it never fails!

Afterwards Tim, Frankie and I sat in the dressing room (i.e. The Toilet That Doesn't Work Anymore) backstage GASPING for breath, looking to each other for confirmation that this had actually HAPPENED. Tom, having been talking to his sister out front, came RUNNING back in at this point shouting "CDs! We need CDs!" The chap doing the door was also, thanks to Eddy, a BIG FAN and had been pretty much FORCING people to buy our album as they left, and he'd RUN OUT.

That pretty much NEVER happens, but then we pretty much NEVER get a tree on the rider either. Maybe I should start demanding one again?

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