Blog: STAT ATAK: Where?

As promised, today we're taking a look at Where THE MAGIC has happened, both this year and beforehand. As i may possibly have briefly mentioned, I've done SEVENTY TWO GIGS this year, but where, I wonder, have they all been? Here's FACT!

City	Gigs (%)
London	37 (51.4)
Edinburgh	9 (12.5)
Sheffield	6 (8.3)
Nottingham	3 (4.2)
Middlesborough	3 (4.2)
Leicester	3 (4.2)
Derby	3 (4.2)
Surrey	1 (1.4)
Stourbridge	1 (1.4)
Stoke	1 (1.4)
Peterborough	1 (1.4)
Leeds	1 (1.4)
Glasgow	1 (1.4)
Durham	1 (1.4)
Birmingham	1 (1.4)

Well, no real surprises there I guess - Edinburgh SHOOTS into second place by DINT of The Fringe, and over HALF of my gigs this year were in That London. But is that normal? Let's have a look at the SAME figures over the course of the past six years - that being the time I have been a) living in London and b) doing lots of gigs.

London	111 (39.5)
Sheffield	25 (8.9)
Leicester	23 (8.2)
Nottingham	12 (4.3)
Edinburgh	10 (3.6)
Derby	9 (3.2)
Leeds	8 (2.8)
Brighton	8 (2.8)
Cambridge	7 (2.5)
Hull	7 (2.5)
Birmingham	7 (2.5)
Glasgow	6 (2.1)
Middlesborough	6 (2.1)
Peterborough	5 (1.8)
Winchester	4 (1.4)
Stourbridge	4 (1.4)
Bristol	3 (1.1)
Stoke	2 (0.7)
Manchester	2 (0.7)
Cumbria	2 (0.7)
Oxford	2 (0.7)
Devon	2 (0.7)
Essex	2 (0.7)
OTHER	14 (5.0)

Well, there's a pretty RESOUNDING reply: NO, it's NOT normal! It does indeed look like the ongoing increase in GIGGAGE over the last couple of years has been mainly due to playing LONDON much more often (which is fair enough, I guess - the longer i live here the more ~~mugs~~ NICE PEOPLE who want to put me on I'll meet) with My Exciting Life In ROCK accounting for pretty much ALL of the increase from last year to this. A Mystery Solved!

And finally for today, it's all when and good talking about the cities I've played in, but where IN those cities did THE ROCK occur? Our PENULTIFACT is the TOP TWENTY-ISH Venue's I Have EVER played in:

Position	Venue	City	Gigs
1	University of Sheffield Students' Union	Sheffield	14
2	Firebug	Leicester	11
3	The Lamb	London	10
3	Bull & Gate	London	10
3	The Charlotte	Leicester	10
6	Fox & Firkin	London	9
7	The Windmill	London	7
7	Jug of Ale	Birmingham	7
9	Medina	Edinburgh	6
9	Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes	London	6
9	The 12 Bar Club	London	6
9	The Factory	Leicester	6
9	The Adelphi	Hull	6
9	Victoria Inn	Derby	6
15	The Durham Ox	Leicester	5
15	Carpe Diem	Leeds	5
15	Buffalo Bar	London	5
15	Jamm	London	5
19	Ray's Mum's Back Garden	Stourbridge	4
19	Upstairs At The Garage	London	4
19	The Boardwalk	Sheffield	4
22	Lee Rosy's Tea Room	Nottingham	3
22	BBC Radio Cleveland	Middlesborough	3
22	The Living Room	Cambridge	3

WHOO! GO UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD! At last the REIGN of The Bull & Gate, which has been top for SO many years, is ENDED. While it's lovely to be reminded of places I used to play all the time, like The Jug Of Ale, Upstairs At The Garage and - blimey - The Factory in Leicester, it's also nice to see NEW places like The Lamb and Bloomsbury Bowling Alley NESTLING in there with some old favourites. There's a lot of GOOD TIMES in that list.

And for our FINAL FACT, it appears that I've played in 179 different venues over the years, and have only RETURNED to 65 of them. That means that, for nearly TWO THIRDS of the venues I've ever played in (63.687%, to be precise) I've NEVER GONE BACK! Clearly, they were ROCKED TOO HARD!

And that's the FACT for today and, indeed, this year. Have a lovely time tonight, whatever you're doing, and see you in 2009 for MORE SCIENCE!

posted 31/12/2008 by MJ Hibbett

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