Face Of Cheam

The last gig of the year and Carl Barat's last gig with his band The Dirty Pretty Things. A good atmosphere was ensured and we caught the last few songs of the support act, The Paddingtons, seen a few times by me this year. DPTs only lasted two albums and had three classic songs, Deadwood, Gin & Milk and Bang Bang You're Dead featuring a trumpet intro. These were played at the end. Although I am normally disappointed when I have seen them before no Libertines songs are played, it seemed right in this instance being their final show. Be interesting to see what awaits in Mr Barat's career now, a reunion with Mr Doherty maybe?

The Who are clearly ‘the best rock band in the world’ and these two nights at the Indigo certainly backed this up. The Indigo is a very good venue when you get there, with fantastic sound and a good view from pretty much wherever. The down side is the travel to get there. On the Monday, trains were packed going there because of Coldplay playing the main o2, and though the travel on the Wednesday to the venue wasn’t so bad, as it ended a little earlier, then the journey home was packed with Mighty Boosh fans all garishly dressed and over madeup. Horrible.
On Monday, the start was prematurely delayed as after the first number, Townshend announced he need to bang out a cold in his left year. After a ten minute delay, they launched again into Can’t Explain. The introduction to Sister Disco was funny. Townshend said it would be a surprise for most people except for the f***wits who have been to their last 67 shows, the bunch of c****. The encore provided ‘Slip Kid’ which had not been played for nearly thirty years and not in Europe before. Such a rarity Daltrey forgot the words and had to ask a member of the audience. After a Tommy medley, the show ended with Tea & Theater.

The Wednesday was a little sedate, except for Daltrey throwing his mug of tea over a heckler, and Townshend introducing Eminence Front, stating he’s a bit bored of it, but as he is in classic car this month, with the car the audience bought him, its appopiate. Slip Kid was dropped in the encore despite an audience request which Townshend replied, after hearing it on Monday do you think we want to play it again, you stupid f***. He then went on to say that Magic Bus was the second most requested Who song behind Boris The Spider, and they then played a couple of bars of Boris with Roger joining in. At the end of the show Townshend bizarrely thanked a lot of the faces he recognised from over the place.
The best rock band in the world ever!

Can't Explain /The Seeker / Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere / Fragments / Who Are You / Behind Blue Eyes / Tattoo / Sister Disco / Baba O'Riley /Eminence Front / 5:15 / Love Reign O'er Me / Won't Get Fooled Again / My Generation / Naked Eye //// Slip Kid (Monday Only) / Magic Bus / Pinball Wizard / Amazing Journey / Sparks / Listening to You / Tea & Theatre

Back to blogging about gigs then and on a Sunday night, we travel up to Kentish Town’s Forum for the Quireboys. After stopping at a few pubs including the Abbey, strangely full of attractive women, and a piano bar called Annies.
When we got to the venue a fairly pleasant female fronted support act were still on. Thought they were called the Whybirds but an internet search shows this being a hairy man band!
Unsurprisingly the Forum was sparsely populated, with the upstairs being closed. However, this provided easy access to the bar and a good view. The set was mainly their hits, with only a few tracks from their excellent Homewreckers and Heartbreakers album, of which One For The Road stood out. Surprisingly for a Sunday the show ended just before eleven meaning no chance of a beer afterwards. Still A good Rockn’roll night out!

Courtesy of facebook friends, here's some photos of my work Christmas do. Don't I look good!!!!!!!

Took the afternoon off for this one, and did a rather big crawl of Brighton, foolishly trying to drink a different draught lager in each of the 19 pubs we did. This did involve 4 different types of Kronenberg (normal, extra cold, 1664 premium and blanc). A gew pubs done had not been done before notably the ones up hill turning right out of the station. We also found a beardy-weirdy pub called the evening star where the only lager was Verhaggen Pils. The Prince of Wales pub was as good as ever, but for some reason we had Holston in here. As for Quo, not as good as they are normally, seemingly a bit rusty as it was their frist show for a month. Annoyingly, this was the first time at the Brighton Centre where they refused you to take pints of lager in the arena bit during the show. We made use of the new traintimetable getting the last train around half an hour, though this was slighly delayed meaning a longer wait at East Croydon for the bus than anticipated.

So this could be my last gig at the Astoria. Not my favourite venue, but at least centrally located. Rumours are that a new similar size venue will be built as part of the cross rail development. Wonder if they will demolish the Tottenham pub?
Anyway, a Sunday evening and Thunder are in town. Promoting their excellent self label release Bang, of which Stormwater was the stand out track, they produced a set mixing the new with classics like Don’t Wait For Me and Higher Ground, both from the Backstreet Symphony album released 20 years ago (cripes). Harry James had just recovered from kidney stones was impressive on drums and vocalist Danny Bowes was fantastic as always. Considering they have to put albums out without a record label in support, nor any media, alluded to in the song On The Radio, it seems amazing they are able to sell out here, but the place was rammed. Afterwards a few of the faithful were in the nearby rock pub The Intrepid Fox, and despite timing our journey home to coincide with the last few tubes, for some reason they had closed the station, meaning three buses back, including the last 154 from Morden at 1.54am. ouch!

Backstreet Symphony / On The Radio / Carol Ann / Low Life In High Places /The Devil Made Me Do It / Empty City / Dirty Dream / Love Walked In / Stormwater / Can't Keep A Good Man Down / Don't Wait For Me / I Love You More Than Rock 'n' Roll /////// Gimme Some Lovin' / Higher Ground / Dirty Love

My second trip to Kilburn. This time for must see pop folk muso Thea Gilmore.
Walking up Kilburn High Road from Kilburn Park, it really is an odd area of London. Some of it reminds you of the bad side of Croydon, certainly the market area. Yet some of it seems distinctly trendy. The first pub we went in was the Westgate, with pool tables but also with candles and low lighting, very odd. The second pub, The St James Tavern was a market pub and not that great, whereas the Black Lion opposite the venue was a delight. Victoria architecture, a large circular bar, Amstel and friendly barstaff. A good pub. The Luminairre is an upstairs venue that can’t hold many. About fifteen yards separate the stage from the bar at back. A sign on the wall states you may be thrown out if you talk during the acts. Support was from Joan Coffey, a irish solo acoustic semi lesbian (one of her songs was about a same sex relationship). Pleasant enough but too mellow for me to but her album. Her set included a cover of Girls Just Want To Have Fun which was good though she did talk a bit too much inbetween songs.
Thea was good as always. Another acoustic tour this was, a few new songs and a cover of Pinks Get The Party Started. As with all London shows, she commented on how quiet the audience were, until Nigel (husband and guitarist) pointed out the sign. The singalong Are You Ready though was surprisingly loud and in tune and When You’re Gone was requested by an audience member as they walked out for the encore. Here’s the set.

Old Soul, Gods Got Nothing On You, Worse Side, And We'll Dance, Rosie, Avalanche, Get The Party Started, If You Meet Me At The Back Of The Bus, Prize, Inch By Inch, Dance In New York, Saviours And All, Girl Is Taking Bets, Are You Ready ///// When You're Gone, When I Get Back to Shore, Take Me Home

Two days later I followed Thea to Winchester. The Tower Arts centre, being half hour walk from the station meant a dash for the last train but using the timings of Wednesdays gig I thought I’d be fine and was (even having time to purchase a couple of beers from the one stop for the journey home). A bigger venue than London which was sold out! A theatre type foyer was selling only bottles at £3.10, but this included a large Summer Lightning, with a choice of chilled or not chilled. The theatre bit was semi circular and I managed to get a decent view down the front on the left. Caught a bit of Joan Coffey, who explained that she does covers sets in pubs in London to pay her rent before doing ‘Like A Virgin’ in place of the cover on Wednesday. Thea was a bit different with a new song Come Up With Me described as her happy song, and it seemed instantly bouncy (poppy). The encore was different too with lots of people yelling out various titles. Nigel went to play one that was asked for until Thea stopped him saying she forgotten the words. I then yelled / requested for Bad Idea and she replied yes asking for requests was a bad idea! so she decided to choose one herself. This was her cover of Van Morrison’s Crazy Love. Also in the encore was Juliet, not played the last time and one of my favourites so I went on the long journey home happy. Set below;

Old Soul, Worse Side, Come Up With Me, And We'll Dance, Rosie, Get The Party Started, Avalanche, If You Meet Me At The Back Of The Bus, Prize, Inch By Inch, Dance In New York, Saviours And All, Girl Is Taking Bets, Are You Ready ///// Crazy Love, Juliet (I’ll Keep That In Mind), Take Me Home

The day began by going to Reading for football. Journey Planner sent me there via Dorking with a 35 minute wait between the main station and deepdene. Research showed that the railway pub the Lincoln opened for breakfast and true enough at 10.51 when my train got in I could see a group eating their bacon and eggs. In I go, “a pint of Carling please”. Barmaid looks at the clock on the wall, “Sorry sir can’t serve you for five minutes, not 11 o’clock yet”. So a quick journey to the garage to get a bottle of Kronenberg for the train and back to the Lincoln on the stroke of the hour for a refreshing pint. My train ticket was from the edge of zone six as I had a travelcard. The guard checking the ticket informed me that I should be going via central London rather than the country way but he wasn’t going to take issue as I had a beer!
Reading is not as bad as some people say. Had a beanburger in Burger King whilst they were playing Dave Edmunds ‘I Hear You Knocking’ in the background.
And did a couple of pubs. The Hobgoblin was a beard weirdy alehouse, and the Warwick had lots of strange furnishings mad of stone such as a large upright fish, and an elephant head on a mans body! The game was fantastic. Best Saints had played all season, winning 2-1 against a side who had won all bar one game which they drew this season at home. Saints had over four thousand there and although I needed to get to Brixton for the evening I had to have a couple of celebratory pints in the Three Guineas, Readings station pub!
Back to Brixton then via Paddington for Carter USM. Met my friends in the Canterbury Arms, a pub I had not been before, a large pub just the other side of the main road, left out of the Academy. Carter returned last year after a ten year lay-off. They sold out then and decided to try it again for singers JimBobs birthday this year. Another sell out. EMF were supporting and we walked in just as they were halfway through unbelievable. Silly hat from the singer but other than that song they were forgettable, though this could be as we were near the back drinking. Carter came on at 8.50 and played through till eleven. I think this was a tad overlong. The middle part from their cover of This Is How It Feels through to Only Living Boy In New Cross was fantastic, but alas over two hours was slightly too much especially with three encores, one of which included the Smiths ‘Panic’. It’s probably the folly of not touring that they feel they need to play some stuff other than the hits and whereas the hardcore Carter fan would love it, the majority here were probably here for Sherriff Fatman. Still a good show though and maybe it was being out all day and tired I felt it was too long. And David Icke said……..

Surfin USM / My 2nd To Last Will And Testament / Rubbish / Billy Smart Circus / Do Re Me So Far So Good / Midnight On The Murder Mile / While You Were Out / This Is How It Feels / Sheltered Life / Bloodsport For All / Glam Rock Cops / Lean On Me & I Won’t Fall Over / Prince In A Paupers Grave / Lets Get Tattoos / The Only Living Boy In New Cross / Anytime Anyplace Anywhere / And God Created Brixton / After The Watershed / The Music That Nobody Likes / Falling On A Bruise / The Final Comedown ////// Senile Delinquent / Panic / The Impossible Dream //// Sheriff Fatman /GI Blues ///// Shoppers Paradise