Tag: NME

East Midlands Gigs

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.

Victoria Inn pub in Derby. Image Credit whatpub.com

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.

See the source image
Princess Charlotte in Leicester. Image Credit Flickr.

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.

Leicester legacies: The life and times of The Charlotte
A fascinating back story to the venue

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!

Gig Miscellaneous – Part 2

So, once I had identified a band, how did I go about to listening to them as there was no Spotify in those days. Even though I had never heard one note of the bands I had become interested in, the only option was to buy a plethora of LP’s which involved many enjoyable Saturdays skulking around record shops. Thankfully most of the records were good, but naturally there some duds. Initially these were purchased from John Menzies and Brady’s. I then discovered Action Records, a jewel of an independent record shop, down on Church Street in Preston which has become a staple for me, and the indefatigable owner Gordon Gibson and his loyal staff have provided top customer service for over 35 years.

Action Records in Preston. Image Credit Yell

Having purchased and listened to recorded output from the band, how do you know when and if they are touring? In those days NME was an essential purchase in this regard and on the day of its weekly release (Wednesday) I scoured the upcoming gig list for likely suspects. I managed to catch a very early Strokes gig by being on the ball in this regard. Another source of fruitful information was from On the Wyre, a 3-hour Sunday afternoon programme on Radio Lancashire which played a wide range of obscure material. Also, when I began attending gigs the upcoming lists distributed by the venues were highly useful, the International and Academy in Manchester were especially key players in this.  

Word of mouth information was valuable, especially in relation of local gigs, and I garnered and utilised these communications to catch quite a few gigs. However, it could be erratic, and I recall somewhat annoyingly gigs were missed, namely early Wedding present and Mogwai gigs, at the Caribbean Club and the Adelphi respectively.  

How and where to buy tickets was the next conundrum. For Preston gigs Action Records or even picking them up from the venue box offices was the best option. For further afield, mainly Manchester in the early days I visited House of Records above the market in Preston who for a short spell were an agent for Manchester tickets. However, the main source of Manchester tickets was always Piccadilly Records who in the late 80’s were located on the corner of Mosley Street near Piccadilly Gardens. I used to obtain a suite of tickets from them and I was on first name terms with the lass who issued the tickets and my method of payment was the rather archaic cheques in the post!

Piccadilly Records. Image credit Local Data Company

In latter years, I tend to favour ENTS24 and SEES as reliable ticket agents, I am not a great fan of Ticketmaster and only use them I have no other choice.

Now people who know me will tell you I am generally chilled to the point of horizontal, however over- zealous unnecessary officialdom is a grouse of mine, so I have had the odd mild altercation with unreasonable bouncers.

My chief irritation though is saved for ticket touts. To a degree, I understand their function and accept that unfortunately sometimes they are a necessary evil. What really shakes my tree though is their complete inflexibility and greed. My absolute nadir in that regard was when I had a spare ticket for a  Black Rebel Motorcycle Club gig and the negotiation resulted in them offering me £15 for a face value £25 ticket for a sold out gig and they had the temerity to suggest I was being unreasonable to have the expectation that they would make a higher bid. My reaction was to outline to them unsavoury alternate uses for the ticket rather than them obtaining it! Later in the pub opposite the venue we encountered a girl who needed a single ticket which I sold at face value and it was patently clear she was a fan of the band. She had approached the touts who quoted her a mind bogglingly inflated price of £60. For the touts out there, I would quote a James line ‘You can do better that that’!