Blog: Peterborough

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Friday night saw The Crust On My Pastie meeting at King's Cross Station to get the train back to Peterborough, LAND OF MY YOUTH, where I was going to be playing my first gig for about 14 years, about 30 seconds away from where i played my first EVER gig.

When we arrived outside the venue the taxi driver said "You're not going in THERE are you? I wouldn't - it's full of people with weird haircuts". He said it with a smile, but still it was a VERY Peterborough thing to say. The Glass Onion was once, MANY THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO, a pub called The Fountain, which used to serve quite nice Ruddles County, but now it is VERY different. It's actually really nice, all sofas and wall hangings and the general ambience of a Festival that's settled down from travelling. We met Messrs Hare and Myland (with whom I played the aforementioned first EVER gig on my 18th birthday, just over the road when the Gaslight Club was at the De Rosalia Hotel) and then hit THE BAR. I knew they had a wealth of organic BEER style BEERS for LO! i had read about it on their website, so asked about organic LAGER, to get some for The Beer In My Pint Glass. "Oh yes, we've lots of Organic Lagers!" said the Nice Young Man behind the bar (all the staff there were DEAD nice, and were also VOLUNTEERS), before reeling off a list of the BEERS. "But what about lager?" I asked. "Oh - we've got Freedom Lager or Carlsberg." "Is that ORGANIC Carlsberg?!?" i asked - well, you can get Organic Weetabix, so why not eh? "No" he replied, and I felt bad for even asking.

We settled down for a bit of a CHAT, and I was just talking to Moony, the lovely chap who was in charge of the evening, when my PARENTS arrived. We sat around having very jolly time, enjoying the BEER, and soon it was time for me to get up and do my set, which was THIS:

The Peterborough All-Saints' Wide Game Team (Group B)

The Gay Train

My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once

Billy Jones Is Dead

It Only Works Because You're Here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Easily Impressed

Boom Shake The Room

It seemed to go OK - it felt like a TOUGH ROOM largely because a lot of the people there had popped in for a drink and a chat, rather than to be BELLOWED AT by me, so it felt like i was working quite hard to get everyone's attention. NERVES struck early on, as it felt VERY strange to be singing The Peterborough All-Saints' Wide Game Team (Group B) just five minutes down the road from where most of the action took place, and thinking about that made me cock up and attempt upon Hey Hey 16K (which I seem to mess up quite often these days). HOWEVER, i DUG IN and by the end of the set things were all going quite nicely - the room felt good, people were smiling, I was happy, and I got ANOTHER Very Peterborough remark during "Boom Shake The Room" when someone responded to "Why don't you tell the girls what you want to do?" with "Stick it in 'em!" Aaah, land of my fathers!

It was all very pleasant anyway. We watched the young lady who was on next, HUGGED our good-byes to the SMASHING people who ran the place (it really was an ACE pub, and I'd LOVE to go back, not least to try the BEERS i didn't try on that night) and popped off to The Hand On Heart for lasties. It was on the way, it was a bit quieter, and I'd read about it SO often in CAMRA-style publications that I thought it might be worth a look. On entering we found ourselves BACK IN TIME - it was VERY like The Angel, the pub in Leicester where i first attained man's estate and became A REGULAR, with very plain decoration, tables around the edges, lots of photographs and DEAD FRIENDLY people. I guess you'd call it a 50's pub, but to me it was 1989 all over again. Added to this excitement was the fact that they were serving DEUCHARS XPA - not Deuchars IPA, one of my favourite types of BEER - EVER - but XPA, which turned out to be like it, but SLIGHTLY NICER.

Ooh, it was like suddenly realising there was a Beatles b-side you'd never heard before! We left the pub in high spirits, had some more HUGS and went home to my parent's house full of the joys of ROCK, also BEER.

posted 12/3/2007 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

hahaha, that is *exactly* what i said the first time i had XPA too!!
posted 12/3/2007 by CarsmileSteve

ALAS it looks like it is only a SEASONAL beer for this month!!
posted 13/3/2007 by MJ Hibbett

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