Blog: Back In Brixton

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It was all a bit of a strange start to Friday evening - I almost always go off to gigs straight from work, but as I'd forgotten to take my guitar with me I had to go home first, which turned out GRATE in two ways - firstly all the Actual Work Style Work I had to do, which I'd planned to finish off by staying in the office until 8pm, I actually CONCENTRATED on and got finished by five o'clock, because I HAD to, and secondly i got to go home and see everyone and have my TEA. LOVELY!

It also meant I wasn't at the venue until just after nine o'clock, so spent the entire evening slightly out of kilter. To me it was just after SEVEN o'clock, as that's usually when I arrive, so I was surprised to find everyone slightly more DRUNK than expected. I was actually pleasantly surprised by The Albert as a whole - everyone says London is very cosmopolitan, but I personally very rarely find it to be so, as certain pubs have certain styles and ages of people in them, but The Albert was REALLY mixed - young and old, black white and other, tiddly and decidedly dodgy, everyone was mixed up and chatting to each other. It was BRILL!

I said hello to Mike The Promoter, who's also off to Indietracks (and thus felt even MORE depressed about not getting to go for the proper weekend, as I was telling him how AMAZING it's going to be) and then settled down to chat to Steve, who'd come down from Sheffield for the weekend, and his pals.

It was all very convivial, tho I noticed that when Helen McCookerybook came on it was SO convivial that it was one of those gigs where the CHAT tends to wipe out the singing. I really enjoyed her set, and it was a shame that people were too busy having a beer and a Friday Night Chat, but that's the thing about free gigs in pubs - you DO get people coming to see you by accident, but you also get people quite happily not bothering.

THUS I decided to do a set of NO QUIET ONES and NO Audience Participation, which looked like this:

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

The Gay Train

I Did A Gig In New York

Work's All Right (if it's a proper job)

Do The Indie Kid

The Lesson Of The Smiths

I REALLY enjoyed it - surprisingly a LOT actually as, as with Helen McCookeryBook, not many people were listening and MANY people were talking, but the ones that did want to watch seemed to enjoy it, and there were several people who got sucked into THE WEB OF HIBBETT as they passed by, stopping for a couple of songs to see what was going on before heading back to their pals. ALSO I think it was such a contrast to the politeness of the night before - after I'd finished various people (and it was a MASSIVELY various variety of people) stumbled staggered and strode onto the dancefloor to GET DONE to the disco. It was a brilliant MESS of MESSINESS, and I thought "Yes - THIS is the gigs that i LIKE!"

I was also thinking, as I had been since first thing that morning "We should really have a song like 'Uptight' by Mr Stevie Wonder, that's a BRILLIANT song..." at which point the DJ PLAYED 'Uptight' by Mr Stevie Wonder. Coincidence? Or MESSAGE from The Gods Of ROCK?

After me it was The Boycott Coca Cola Experience who suffered, as both their predecessors had, from the noise but also from the lack of Strange Old Guy BELLOWING One OF The Songs, which had been one of the best bits last time. They were still dead good, also DECIDEDLY DIFFERENT from pretty much ALL other bands - which you could say about the whole night really. I had to slink off halfway through their set to get my train home, and did so FULL of the joys of ROCK. Gigs, they're GRATE!

posted 31/5/2008 by MJ Hibbett

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