London Sixth and Seventh Trip

Gill and I headed out on a Royal Scot direct train down to London on 03/08/90, which was Gill’s birthday. At the point of time it was the hottest ever recorded day in Britain with a new record temperature of 98.8 logged. The other item that was broken that day was the air-con on the train and it was subject to speed restrictions due to the heat. Rather bizarrely there was an emissary to King Hussein of Jordan in our sweltering carriage. 

On arrival we headed out to my brother’s pad in Plumstead. We perused the Good Food Guide and we booked a West Indian restaurant in Deptford visiting the Studio Bar in Greenwich en route. The restaurant had recently changed hands and as a result there was nobody else in residence, so we received platinum service and just asked them to cook what they fancied. It was a BYOB place, but the clock had ticked past 10pm and the off-licences were now closed. As a result, I piled into a local rough house pub and bought 2 litres of wine for a bargain price of £15. The cuisine was excellent apart from some very odd desserts! 

Saturday dawned with another absolute scorcher. The afternoon consisted of visiting Lewisham Library to return some records, visiting a pub next door and then onto Greenwich Park for a picnic. We were heading onto a gig that evening so boarded the 8.10pm bus for what seemed like an endless bus journey to New Cross to join a long queue outside the New Cross Venue. We gained access to the venue just after 9.30pm where the entrance price as a result had increased from £3 to £5. It was packed to the gills and stunningly hot and punters were also viewing from the balconies above.

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New Cross Venue with New Cross Inn to its left and the bus stop in the foreground. Image Credit Flickr.

We saw the support band Joyce McKinney Experience and the main band was the legendary Snuff who sounded great straightaway, it was a chaotic gig with loads of punters on the stage, it resembled a Happy Monday’s gig for a while! They played all the tracks off their debut album, however there was no encore due to the intolerable heat. I could only tolerate the moshpit for short periods and literally had to wring my T-Shirt out afterwards. We left at midnight and fortunately found a bus back straightaway.

On the Sunday we visited Camden Market where I purchased a Neil Young bootleg tape of an Amsterdam concert. After we went to a cheap Malaysian restaurant and then onto an alternative comedy night at the Kings Head in Crouch End. On the Monday we went shopping down Oxford Street and we bookended the weekend by watched Gremlins 2 at night featuring a character called Mogwai, little did I know the future significance of that name….!

Fast forward to Gill’s 50th birthday where we visited London for the weekend and on the actual birthday, we had a fun day on the South Bank before having a fine meal in Southwark that night. As is my wont, I had hunted a gig down for us and we headed out of London the following evening on the overland train to New Cross station for only our second ever visit to this suburb.

The venue of choice was New Cross Inn which turned out to be the front room of a boozer. To my surprise, the pub was located literally next door to the New Cross Venue, and I could see the bus stop we disembarked all those years ago. The coincidences rolled on as firstly the weather was as scorching as the original visit and the date of this gig was 04/08/18, exactly 28 years to the day from the Snuff gig.    

Across New Cross Road, and it appears they are very keen on original names in the area, you found the New Cross House pub which stocked some fine craft ales and appetising pizzas.

The gig was very sparsely populated, and the main band were called Captain Accident and the Disasters who were a ska band but were nowhere near as high energy as I hoped they would be.

Due to Uncle George working for Virgin he managed to poach some first-class tickets for the journey home on Sunday. Just before we departed from Euston three old rockers boarded and parked themselves in seats directly in front of us. When the guard came to check their tickets, it transpired that the senior rail pass of one of the party had expired. At that point I recognised the distinctive voice and it turned out to be none other than Bob Geldof and a couple of Boomtown Rats who were heading to play an 80’s festival in Macclesfield. Thoughts of contacting Shaun Keaveny’s Small Claims Court sprang to mind with the tagline, ‘It’s a Rat Trap and you been caught’!  

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Bob Geldof. Image Credit Hollywood.com

Shortly after I recognised New Cross Road when watching a movie on TV, after checking the veracity of my intuition it turned out that was another claim to fame for the area. So, if you are watching Skyfall and Bond has just rescued M from an assassination attempt, he drives up to his ancestral home but there is a brief snippet where they are hurtling down the road in question!

Manchester Venue 16 Academy 3 – Part 3

I have always preferred a venue where there is an accessible bar contained within meaning you do not miss any of the set whilst endeavouring to refuel and Academy 3 has always fully met this criterion

On 14/10/12 we went to see Nada Surf who have been ploughing their easy on the ear guitar led West Coast sound for many years. At the time of the gig they had just released ‘The Stars are Different to Astronomy’ which I think is their finest album.

They were an exceptionally tight band live and very personable chaps and their soothing sound was a rewarding experience. The highlight track was ‘When I Was Young’ It was also Gill’s 100th gig.      

We saw Nada Surf there again on 12/03/20 which remains my last gig prior to the pandemic. It was touch and go with the brewing global storm whether the gig would go ahead. The changing climate was emphasised by the fact that in a pre-gig meal in the Red Chilli the service staff were all swathed in face masks.

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Nada Surf. Image Credit myticket.de

Thus, my last pub pre-pandemic was Big Hands until 121 days later I entered the local Parrs Wood pub on 11/07/20.

The band didn’t hit the high spots of the previous appearance, the setlist choice may have been a contributing factor there.

On 06/12/12 we pottered over to see God is an Astronaut from County Wicklow. Trivia fact time – their name was taken from a quote in the 1990 movie Nightbleed based on a Clive Barker book featuring David Cronenburg and Charles Haid who also played ‘Officer Andy Renko’ in Hill Street Blues.

They sat firmly in the ‘Post-rock’ category and they had their moments but were a little bit too cocksure for me.

On 07/05/14 Hold Steady were back in the fair city of Manchester and were in good form, better than when I saw them in Leeds the previous week.

In September 2015 we went to see the Meat Puppets. This gig created a new personal best as it was a 28-year span between the first and second time I had seen them. The first being a spell binding show at Manchester International 1 in 1987 which was also their first ever British date.

I was very excited to see them again but regrettably, time had not been kind on them, and it was a bit of a limp performance. There are considerable merits in sometimes retaining and not tarnishing those original memories!

Four months later I went to see Snuff’s 30th anniversary tour and they were in cracking form and undertook an audience tombola to select some favourite tracks. They thankfully played ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ and ‘Likely Lads’ with me tumbling joyously around the moshpit.

On 11/03/17 I finally got to see the New York based band Helmet. Helmet were formed in 1989 and fronted by Page Hamilton. He was a former member of the Band of Susan’s, a band I sadly never got to see. Helmet are quantified as ‘alternative metal’.

They had sporadic moments but overall not as enjoyable or as loud as I expected them to be.

The final great band I saw there was the Liminanas from south west France on 07/02/19. They were recommended to me by my second North East correspondent Jamie Young who was also at the gig. The band is made up of Lionel and Marie Liminana who recruited a very interactive band of around 7 musicians for live gigs.

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Liminanas. Image Credit Ouifm.fr

There is a lot of variables in their sound combining garage rock and psych whilst also being quintessentially European. There were outstanding live and highly recommended.