Blog: Tour Diary 5: London

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Sunday found me back on the road, heading all the way into... well, Central London, where Mr G Osborn, Ms G Petrie and I were due to continue our tour with an afternoon show at The Lexington, arranged by those fine fellows of The Hangover Lounge.

Things got off to a delightful start when I STOMPED up the road from Kings Cross, stopped, turned, and realised I had just passed Mr S Lamacq, who was also on his way to the gig. Bumping into marvellous people would become something of a THEME for the afternoon, as when we arrived there were yet MORE, not least organisers Mr J Jervis and Mr B Clancy and , shortly after, my colleague Mr S Hewitt. Also in atendance was BEER, of which I would enjoy quite a bit.

Gav was already there, and Grace was Running Late - this has happened with MOST gigs so far, though this time it was due to a Rail Replacement Bus Service. They're like flares, Rail Replacement Bus Services - they always seem to come back into fashion.

At about quarter to two I went upstairs to sort out chairs, only to find that Jerv had already been up and DONE it, becase he is so ACE. All that was left to do then was to wander round downstairs HERDING people up - we had to start at 2pm because we had to finish at 4pm prompt, and I was KEEN to get people in. I expected about 20 or so people, but in the end there were over EIGHTY! It was PACKED!

Gav decided to go on first (we argued the point for Artistic Reasons, and not at ALL because we were both aware of Afternoon Drinking occurring) and was ACE. I badgered him into doing his "Over 30" song, which he's not done on this tour so far because, he said, it overlapped rather with my 20 Things To Do Before You're 30. He was sort of right, it does SHARE THEMES but with a different TWIST. Also I like the bit about going "Unh!"

Then it was me, and I did THIS:

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

Strangely Attractive

(You Make Me Feel) Soft Rock

That Guy

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

It Only Works Because You're here

IT Guy Addendum

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Boom Shake The Room

I think maybe doing Strangely Attractive was a MIS-STEP - I had a NARRATIVE worked out in my BRANE which required something to be done from Dinosaur Planet but it meant I was doing a Rather Quiet song right at the start - but otherwise I had a GRATE time. The "stage" area (i.e. one end of the room) was large and I'd had a couple of beers so there was quite a lot of DANCING ABOUT, and also REMARKS and VALID POINTS. It was HUGE fun, especially having such a large group of people there to tit around in front of, most of whom had never seen me before. Hoorah!

And then it was Grace who was, as per, BRILL. There was a group of Noticeably Younger people in the room who we'd (correctly) identified as Grace Fans and they WHISPERED along to nearly every song. It was wonderful - at one point Grace stopped and gently encouraged them to sing up a bit, and they did in choruses, but every now and again you'd catch a trace of some of them WHISPERING along with the verses. It was beautiful!

And after THAT we returned downstairs for a couple more hours of DRINKING. When introducing 20 Things To Do Before You're 30 I always say that there are some things you SHOULD do before you're 30, as you won't be able to do them half as well later on, and GOOD LORD but this is SO TRUE of afternoon drinking. By 6pm I was a COMPLETE WRECK and had to tell myself to STAGGER OFF HOME, though not before a) hugging everyone b) knocking a pint of BEER over a pair of Producers talking to Grace and c) hugging everyone AGAIN.

When I got home I had to have a BATH and a NAP, which only really helped insofar as they kept me CONTAINED for a couple of hours when I might otherwise have been FALLING OVER things. When I eventually went to bed properly I didn't get to sleep until nearly 3am - this might have been partly because of the NAP, but it was largely because my BRANE kept remembering bits of the day just gone by and thinking "HA! That was BRILLIANT!" I'm really going to miss this tour when it's over!

posted 2/6/2014 by MJ Hibbett

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