Blog: Day 4: Brighton

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It was a LATE night after Leeds, and a fairly early morning too. The Vlads arrived Chez McClure, we loaded up, and sped away again for DISTANT BRIGHTON. As I may have said before, it was a lovely week to have off work, but perhaps not the ideal conditions to be sat for 4-5 hours a day in a VAN. We was WARM. I compensated by instigating BEER O'CLOCK at 1pm, utilising the beers that Tom's dad had so kindly given us. It was a TOUR TRADITION which I would come to love.

Tom was especially KNACKERED from the lateness and heat, so Messrs Machine and Pattison were in the front, where their EVIL SCHEME was becoming clear: on the very first day they'd forced us to listen to MARILLION (Marillion!!), after which they could get away with playing ANYTHING as long as it wasn't that. I seem to recall the trip South being almost entirely soundtracked by The Fall, The Wedding Present, and light chat about B-Sides WAFTING from the front seats.

Eventually we got to our hotel (oh yes! we're DEAD POSH), checked in, variously SHOWERED, and set off for the venue. The Prince Albert is a LOVELY pub, reminiscent in some ways of The Mag in Leicester, except with even nicer beers. Emma had stayed at the hotel to get dressed up (as she does) so it was only the three of us who were regaled by Tim's tales of WOE about his LOT vis a vis Having To Set Up The Drums. THUS once we'd unloaded and he'd gone to park the VAN Mr Machine decided to help him out and set the drums up for him...

TOUR SHENANIGANS! What he did though was to set them up HILARIOUSLY WRONG - TOUR LARKS! How we chuckled as he GOGGLED at the almighty WRONGNESS at what had been wrought - it was, we agreed, a Valuable Lesson, and it must be said Tim did not bemoan his lot any more during the week, possibly because he did not wish to encourage anyone to try PLAYING his kit as well.

Soon Phil The Promoter arrived, who was a lovely guy, bringing with him THE RIDER. It was DELICIOUS, especially the GRAPES and BAGELS, which I had a lot of because The Validators didn't seem to believe it was all for US. HA! It was all a bit cheesy for Tom (NB i mean ChEESY, he has a slight DAIRY INTOLERANCE) so we then went down the road to a Vegi Pub to get him FED. We sat and had a DISCUSS of various TOPICS, and then I DASHED OFF back to the venue, much to the amusement of The Vlads who accused me of wanting to get to see Mr Everett True and do the vaguely agreed INTERVIEW with him before they got back... i mean, REALLY!

We never did that interview, although ET was very much there when we arrived, it was just that his soundcheck melted gently into the gig itself, which was Surprisingly Good. I say "Surprisingly" because somehow, from what I've read of THE LEGEND!, I was expecting it to be a Right Old Racket, but actually it was LOVELY - reminded me of Songs For Drella, in fact, and there is little praise higher than THAT.

However, just before they went on, WEIRDNESS commenced. We were sat watching people coming in, and said "Look at that tosser coming in, who does he think he is? Nick Cave?" ANd then realised it actually WAS Nick Cave! He strolled in, followed by SHANE MACGOWAN! The room ERUPTED with people trying to send text messages, shortly after which the weirdness got GREATER when they and their families (who had also come in) got up and started DANCING to the pre-band mix tape. STRANGENESS.

At this point the pub owner (i think) came in and said hello to me. "I recognise you from the posters!" he said. THUS, for the time it took this conversation to occur, i was more famous than Nick Cave and Shane MacGowan PUT TOGETHER.

After THE LEGEND! finished they all left, shortly after The Bobby McGees had become - thereby proving that WE can stay out drinking LONGER than Shane MacGowan - which was a shame for THEM, as they were GRATE. This time they had DRUMS as well as bass and double UKE attack, and it made it even better - as I have doubtless said a million times, when it's just the two of them it's a bit too twee, but this night they were JAZZ, also ROCK. Tim pointed out that they were sort of like a PROLAPSE from a Parallel Universe. This was a good description.

Soon it was time for us to go on, and we NOTED that there were quite a few people who hadn't turned up - actually NONE of the people I'd thought would come actually did, which was something of a pattern for the first half of the tour. The nice thing, however, was that a roughly equal number of people we DIDN'T know seemed to come along, purely on the basis of having heard us on the radio. This was LOVELY.

Anyway, we went on and had a LOVELY gig, as follows:

The Gay Train

The Saturday Lunchtime Wrestlers

Fucking Hippy

Things'll Be Different (when I'm in charge)

Quality Of Life Enhancement Device

Born With The Century

Better Things To Do

The Fight For History

Leave My Brother Alone

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Easily Impressed

You may notice the lack of ENCORE for a change - Brighton gigs ALWAYS seem to be like this, people are dead nice and say they've enjoyed it afterwards, but GOODNESS ME it's always a TOUGH CROWD - "Oi Hibbett" was quiet, "You don't really mean that" was SILENT - they tend to make LONDON look like SHEFFIELD. It was another stern lesson in the dangers of PRESUMPTION from THE GODS OF ROCK though, as we'd actually left Hey Hey 16K off for an encore. We learnt that lesson WELL.

We had a lot of fun though - best bits for me were Fucking Hippy EXPLODING from Drum Issues Fill-In Song to FULL ON BAND ATAK, and Frankie's slightly tiddly attempts to introduce Easily Impressed himself, at the request of a Gentleman Of HippieNess sitting down the front. When we came off stage the ALso Hippy friend of this gentleman went and sat at the piano. INternally we all GROANED with DREAD, but actually he turned out to be a LOVELY PIANIST, and they were actually jolly nice chaps too, and suddenly the AFTERSHOW became DEAD SOPHISTICATED.

My enjoyment was helped by Will The Landlord deciding to by me a BEER, and then me he and Phil having a lengthy discussion about possible gigs on Sunday afternoons. We also enjoyed the FREE BEER we'd got with The Rider, which had come in mini Coca Cola sized cans, and which would sustain us on the road for days to come. Also during this time we looked at the VIDEO Tim had got Mr Michael Larkin to shoot, which looked like REVERSO ROBERT PALMER, with Emma centre stage all glamorous surrounded by four SWEATY BLOKES in black, showing a bit of leg.

As mentioned and as ever in Brighton, we had several people come up afterwards to say how much they'd enjoyed it, and how they'd come because of Radio One (which, by the way, demonstrates how EASY life must be for Coldplay etc - we got about 5 people PER GIG just because of ONE Radio 1 play, it must be PEASY for them to fill those stadiums with the THOUSANDS of plays they get!), and it was a very happy band of Validators who piled back into the van, in search of KEBABS. We got our various kebabs and/or chips, after which a beautiful moment occured: Rob let loose an enormous BELCH, which was answered by one of even more TITANIC PROPORTIONS from Emma. At this point we had to stop what we were doing and have a group hug, for LO! truly now we were A BAND.

posted 29/7/2006 by MJ Hibbett

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