I had the afternoon off work on Friday to enable ease of travel to distant Nottingham, where I was due to play an actual GIG!
It's been a good old while since I've travelled solo for a gig, so I had done my usual careful planning. I used to stay in an IBIS in Nottingham City Centre but after some Premier Inn googling I found what appeared to be my old place trannsformed into another franchise. "Oh lovely", I thought, "all the advantages of that location, with the extra delight of Premier Inn luxury. BOOKED". It was only when I was heading up there that I realised that the original Ibis was VERY MUCH still in existence, and that I'd booked myself into a Premier Inn that LOOKED similar but was about half and hour's walk away. Luckily as an INTERNATIONAL ROCK STAR I am extremely forgiving of myself as ALSO TOUR MANAGER and so undaunted I took the first of MANY tram trips from the station to my hotel and all was well.
About twenty minutes later I was out again and on the tram going in the other direction, back towards JT Soar where the gig was due to happen. WEIRDLY I had never been there before, despite the fact that it is also home to Snug Recording Co, which has been our studio home for MANY years, just not since they moved from Derby. Actually, I think we were MEANT to do a gig there the weekend before Covid, and we ended up all just coming to Nottingham anyway for FUN.
I found the venue OK but when I got there there didn't seem to be anyone around. After a short time Mr T McClure arrived and then, a short while after that, Mr R Newman arrived for a) HUGS b) soundcheck. Tom was doing a guest spot on WHISTLING and INEVITABLY the soundcheck for that took about 17 times as long as the rest of it, but by golly it was worth it. As I pointed out at the time, whistling is very much like playing TAMBOURINE - you'd never think it was possible for someone to be actively GOOD at it, but you know it when you hear it.
With that all done we strolled round the corner to Mocky D's, a vegan BURGER place with a fantastically excellent name. It is housed in an INDUSTRIAL ESTATE where there is also a BREWERY, and I was surprised to find that Tom was not familiar with this sort of thing as a concept. Round my way every second building is a brewery on an industrial estate selling vegan food! The place had been suggested by Mr N Page who had come with Mr T Pattison, who both arrived shortly after for a DELIGHTFUL early evening of grub and beer and intellectual discussion. Tim suggested that this was the first time he had EVER paid to see me play - monetarily anyway, I am pretty sure our long association has come with PSYCHOLOGICAL costs!
I picked up some BEERS from the fridge - JT Soars is a BYOB establishment - and we headed back to the venue, which was filling up with people. This doesn't take much as it is TINY, but the people it DID fill up with were uniformly DELIGHTFUL, and as well as Vlads and The Family Machine, who arrived not long after us, there were TONNES of lovely people who I had not seen for AGES. Hugs abounded, and then it was time for me to go on and do THIS:
It went well, I think! Loads of people made two (2) very specific comments. Firstly, they said "Ooh, I haven't heard some of those songs before", which I guess is true - I didn't INTEND it to be mostly new or new-ish songs, but I guess it was! Secondly, and much more forecefully, everyone said "COR! That whistling was BRILLIANT!" which is probably because it WAS. We should do more songs with Tom whistling in them!
After me it was the turn of the night's main attraction, WHITE TOWN. My booking for this gig had come about as a sort of old-fashioned GIG SWAP after Jyoti and Frankie came down and played at Totally Acoustic, but this evening was very much ELECTRICAL. Jyoti has basically reunited the original White Town band, including Mr G Thatcher on AXE, and also roped in Frankie for additional GTR and especially TRUMPET. It all sounded GRATE, not least because the SOUND was being so excellently manned, and as at Totally Acoustic the songs that were somehow NOT globe-straddling hits sounded brilliant alongside the one that WAS. That one, however, sounded FANTASTIC in the full-band arrangement, as Frankie's MAGICAL LIPS tooted their way through.
Afterwards we wafted around saying thank yous and goodbyes to friends old and new before me, Tom, Mr V Vorton and various other pals went round the corner to The King Billy pub. This had been recommended to us by Mr A Hale who, alas, was not able to attend, but I was very grateful for the suggestion as it was LOVELY, like a pub from the OLDEN DAYS of the 1990s!
All that remained was to have a pint and then wander off into the night and onto another tram. It was a pretty BRILLIANT evening - gigs, it turns out, are GRATE!
