Blog: The 8-Bit Paul McCartney

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Myself and The Trains On My Tubeline went to a GIG on Friday night - Banana & Louie (featuring members of A Fine Day For Sailing), Lisa Bouvier and Model Village, all accompanied in parts by A Little Orchestra. With basically THREE out of four acts as Totally Acoustic veterans it was impossible to resist, and a delightful time was had by all concerned. The sounds were GRATE, it was nice to see a whole bunch of the Indiepop People (it feels like AGES since I'd seen any of them) and it was EXCELLENT to go to a gig in Mile End, so near to Leafy Leytonstone.

It was thus a bit of a shame that I had to LEAVE slightly before the end, as I had to get up DERANGEDLY early the next morning. I was booked to be the opener at the Spectrum 30 event, a weekend conference sort of thing celebrating 30 years since the release of the ZX Spectrum, which meant being in Cambridge for nine o'clock on Saturday morning. I rolled up at the venue a bit bleary eyed to find things progressing nicely, especially in the demonstration room where LOADS of old computers, games and add-ons were being laid out. It's odd how some things never leave you - even now, seeing a copy of UNDERWURLDE fills me with ENVY. It's the one Ultimate game i really wanted but could never ever afford (NB i couldn't afford ANY games really, but managed to save up pocket money/get birthday presents for Ultimate ones). Mr P Myland had it, I think, and I taped it off him (PIRACY!) but i always wanted my own. I know full well that I could actually BUY it now if i really wanted, but the REGRET still lingers.
ANYWAY, things were gradually set up and with about fifteen minutes until start time Thomas The ORganiser came over and suggested a slight change of plan. "I'd planned to have you play in the big conference room", he said, "But everybody is in the demonstration room and nobody wants to leave their exhibits unattended, so they want to stay there." I did wonder if MAYBE some people also wanted to avoid having ME bellow at them, but agreed that it'd be easier all round if i just went and sang amongst the hardware.

So that's what I did, and here's how it went:



Two different camera angles for twice the fun!

I tell you what - being STONE COLD SOBER doesn't half make it easier doing gigs, I must remember that when I'm back on the road again. As you can see from the above, I was moved to do a MINI-SPEECH, and then THOROUGHLY enjoyed belting out The Hit, and everyone was very nice about it when I'd done so. GOOD TIMES!

I was planning to zoom off fairly soon afterwards - as said in the previous blog, i had plans for gig attendance later that evening - but stuck around for a bit to... well, all right, I ADMIT IT - I stuck around for a bit just in case anyone wanted to say anything NICE to me. I even did the old trick of Wandering Round Looking At Displays, and had a LOVELY time as lots of people did indeed come over to say nice things to me. It was GRATE! Everyone was very pleasant indeed - it was a room rammed with MEN, and had a gentle odour of Various Deodorants, as if EN MASSE everyone had decided to do their best NOT to comply to stereotypes of Computer Geeks by being a) FRESH b) CHARMING, which everyone very much WAS. That doesn't mean there weren't a lot of GEEKY T-SHIRTS on display - there were MANY, and I was very proud to see at least one Hey Hey 16K t-shirt in the mix, sported by Mr J Pennycook. Excellent work sir!

Soon it was time to go - I took a while over the farewells as I was reluctant to drag myself away, but was wise to go as, by the time I got home, I was POORLY and ended up spending the rest of the weekend in BED! I was very very glad to have been there and PROUD to be invited - one day I hope that WHENEVER something related to the ZX Spectrum occurs people will feel DUTY BOUND to ask me to come along, like an 8-bit Paul McCartney, and sing Hey Hey 16K. I hope always to be able to say "YES PLEASE!"

posted 12/9/2012 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

I was surprised that no one was singing along, not least to the chorus - surely that's the whole thing of having The Hit, right? :) Looked like it was all good fun though!
posted 12/9/2012 by Warren

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