Justin Time

Twice now I've had tickets to see former Del Amitri frontman Justin Currie playing live in his new solo incarnation. Twice, despite the fact that he's written some of my favourite misanthropic songs of the last twenty years, I've had to give those tickets away... once because I'd just broken my arm, once because my back was so bad I couldn't stand up. (Back update - I still can't stand up for long, but using a combination of seated or partly-seated venues or painkillers/heated wraps, I'm not letting it spoil my appreciation of live music too much.)

Saturday night it was third time lucky, in my new favourite venue (and not just because it's a five minute drive over the hill), the Holmfirth Picturedrome. The last time I saw Currie live was back in 1998 when he was just a Drunk In A Band. The general consensus by all who attended that evening is that it's one of the most memorable gigs of our life. True, a certain amount of alcohol was consumed (those were the days, eh?), we were wild, we were free, we were still in our 20s... and Del Amitri looked like they'd last forever. And so would we.

In the cold light of 2011 then, when we're all starting to feel our age, there's no more Whiskey Remorse to be had (not for me, anyway), and JC's binned the band as part of "the new austerity"... how would the solo act compare with the hellraising days of old?

Well, it won't. They're two entirely different beasts. But while Wednesday October 28th, 1998, was exactly what a 26 year-old semi-alcoholic hedonist needed to blow his mind... Saturday January 22nd 2011 was much more in-keeping with the wants and needs of an occasionally morose teetotal 38 year-old. I don't care about getting old, as long as my favourite artists come with me.

The first time I heard the song below was in the early days of 1990. I was 18, hadn't yet touched a drop, and still believed my future involved spinning records and talking in between them for a living. How wrong can you be? Sitting there in the last free seat on the Picturedrome balcony, I wondered where I'd be in another ten of these increasingly fleeting years? As long as Justin Currie's still singing, it won't be too bad...

Two Gig Memories (1) Half Man Half Christmas

My final two gigs of the year... first up was Half Man Half Biscuit, live in Holmfirth. I can't tell you how happy it makes me that a band like HMHB will now play a venue less than 10 minutes drive from my front door. I'm almost smiling as I type this.

I smiled a lot on Thursday night... here's five lyrical reasons why I love HMHB...

(With thanks to The Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project.)

1.

Car crime’s low, the gun crime’s lower
The town hall band CD, it’s a grower
You never hear of folk getting knocked on the bonce
Although there was a drive-by shouting once

(For What Is Chatteris)

2.

Checkmate! Dennis Bell of Torquay
Too late with your Nxe3
Good game sir, do you want another bout?
Well Dennis ain’t replying ‘cos he just signed out

(Bad Losers On Yahoo Chess)

3.

God I could murder a Cadbury’s Flake
But then I guess you wouldn’t let me into heaven
Or maybe you would
‘Cos their adverts promote oral sex

A Romany bint in a field with her paints
Suggesting we faint at her beauty
But she’s got Dickie Davies eyes

(Dickie Davies Eyes)

4.

I stick me big nose in
When I go out
Sealed-off car park
What’s it all about?
I like an altercation with a member of staff
“That was a ten pound note!”

I ring up Dial-A-Pizza
I ring up Dial-A-Pizza
I ring up Dial-A-Pizza
And say that’s not how I would spell “Hawaiian”

(Petty Sessions)

5.

You don’t have a tree
And your smile has a fee
All the same, here’s a card
For your boring facade
Jingle Bells, piney smells
All the boys and the girls
Say it’s cliched
To be cynical
At Christmas

(It's Cliched To Be Cynical At Christmas)

The Wedding Present Go Bizarro In Holmfirth

Congratulate me, I managed to stand up for a whole gig without too much discomfort. Still some discomfort, but nowhere near how bad I felt when I saw Ash back in April. Maybe the chiropractor is having some effect after all! He reckons I have weak knees which might be adding to the pain in my back when I'm standing. So he's got me wearing knee braces when walking, which are definitely helping manage the pain. Why not try them at a gig? Hey... there might be something to this...

Anyway - The Wedding Present in Holmfirth. There's a trend at the moment towards artists with a certain heritage digging into their back catalogues and performing a classic album all the way through, just as it appeared on record - twenty-odd years later. Never one to miss out on a bandwagon (one of his new songs involves a wife cheating on her husband via iPhone), David Gedge is dragging his latest incarnation of The Wedding Present out on the road to re-present 1989's classic Bizarro - and great it sounds too.

I was disappointed to miss out on the support - particularly when I discovered it was Cinerama. That is, the other name for The Wedding Present. Damn them! (My favourite David Gedge memory is still the Cinerama gig I went to where he was running his own T-shirt stand.) Still, whether my back would have stood up to an extra hour's punishment I'm not sure. It was Bizarro I came to see, and Bizarro I got. After an opening set of new songs and a couple of classics, the repeating voice of John Peel filled the Picturedrome, an edited montage of "The Wedding Present / The Wedding Present / The Wedding Present..." before the great man himself introduced the opening track from beyond the grave. (21 years later, David Gedge is a lot more animated than he was in this video.)

Have you ever seen a bunch of late 30-something / early 40-something blokes moshing? It's a sight to lift your heart. And though I couldn't join in myself (that was never really my scene, even as a younger man with a stronger back), I cheered them on through No!, Thanks, What Have I Said Now, Granadaland and the mammoth, showstopping Take Me! I never saw The Wedding Present back in 1989 - hell, I'd barely even heard of them - but I can't imagine them sounding any better than this. Especially on the song below, perhaps their greatest single... fans of My Favourite Dress may disagree, but as Mr. Gedge was happy to point out, "I think you paid to see the wrong album - you should have come when we did George Best."