I am heading over to the East Midlands this week to cover a further two gigs in that area, namely in Derby and Leicester.
On 20/02/09 myself and my brother headed out to Derby on the train from Nottingham for a pub crawl incorporating a gig at the end of the evening. We did a circular monorail route starting and ending at the train station and found some decent old hostelries en route.
Our gig destination was Derby Victoria Inn, handily placed opposite Derby station. It was a traditional pub with a bar area and a function room at the back where the venue was located. It looks like the future of the pub is currently in doubt and is up for sale.
We arrived a tad later than expected but it worked to our advantage as we managed to wander straight in the gig without paying and the main band Switzerland were just about to start. They were only young scamps, but they created a hell of a racket and they were very good.
The only other attendees were patently friends and family and they were looking at us trying to work out if we were perhaps agents hunting for new talent, so we played on that clear misunderstanding and maintained an enigmatic presence at the back of the room. Unfortunately, the band due to their age and other constraints split the following year.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/derby/hi/people_and_places/music/newsid_8877000/8877874.stm
My only other visit to Derby was on another pub crawl spoilt in the middle by watching North End being battered 5-1 at Pride Park!
Husker Du were a seminal band of my youth and it is widely acknowledged that they were grossly underrated at the time. They broke up in 1988, and the two songwriters Bob Mould and Grant Hart subsequently produced sporadically decent solo material.
Bob then put together another three-piece combo called Sugar circa 1992. Their first album ‘Copper Blue’ was by far his most commercially successful record which was named the Album of the Year by NME. I distinctly remember hearing the chiming chords of ‘Changes’ for the first time and the album also contained their jaunty single ‘If I Could Change Your Mind’ which surprisingly but deservedly received airplay on Radio 1. I remember driving out at lunch one day and even that pillock Simon Bates was playing it!
The commercial level they reached was exemplified by a couple of reverential students approaching me around the time in the Exchange pub in Preston to wax lyrical on my Husker Du T-shirt.
So, we decided to stalk Sugar on their first British tour starting with a gig at Leicester Princess Charlotte on 25/09/92.
I set off to my brother’s current girlfriend Fiona’s parents house in Nottingham about 1pm on the Friday of the gig. On arrival I became the designated driver so drove the 30 miles over to Leicester in torrential rain with the Allegro making strange noises on the way over.
The venue was an old Victorian boozer and the music/gig room within opened in the 1970’s. It was a famous stop on the toilet circuit and Radiohead and Oasis played early gigs there, the venue finally closed in 2009.
The music venue was a cellar at the back with shared loos and a capacity of about 250 and served some very watery Ansells. Venus Beads supported with an ok set.
I was very excited as it had been 5 years since the last Huskers gig. They came on at 10pm and in true Huskers style launched the set with the first five songs played non- stop. Bob still had the lowest strung guitar I have ever seen as it was virtually down to his knees.
Unfortunately, it was marred by an awful sound system, which the band picked up on and started to play louder which covered some of the impurities. I recall they played ‘Hoover Dam’ and then a couple of tracks off upcoming album ‘Beaster’. The bassist David Barbe had a great voice on a couple of tracks. They finished the set with ‘Man on the Moon’ and came off about 11.15pm. Fiona and Steph were completely bladdered and fell straight asleep on the back seat and we arrived home about midnight.
Sugar released a total of 3 albums before splitting in 1996.
My only other subsequent visit to Leicester was to visit their curry mile and I remember seeing a shop there with the fabulous name of House of Sarees!