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| Radiohead, Bat For Lashes, MGMT | | "29th June 2008 - LCCC, Manchester" (More) |
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| Half Man Half Biscuit |
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| Coronation Hall, Ulverston, Cumbria - 17th April 2008 |
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I have been playing Half Man Half Biscuit songs in ear shot of my son for many years and he likes singing along to them so I thought it would be nice to take him to see them in Ulverston. Especially as he could not go to the Blackpool gig a few month earlier due to age restrictions. This gig was during the Easter holidays and we where staying 10 miles down the road so it was perfect. I got out a couple of CD’s so he could familiarize himself with more of their songs. It was whilst traveling up in the car that he lets out a gasp to “Fuckin ‘Ell it’s Fred Titmus” and informs me it has a rude word in it. The great thing is he has heard this song many times before but has only just now worked out it contains a swear word. So this song has educated me on what swear words my son knows and other songs will reveal to me when he knows about sex and drugs but hopefully we are a long way from that as he is only 8. I told him if I hear him using the word or hear that he has been singing the song at school, his gig going days are over.
The gig was at the Coronation Hall in Ulverston, famous as birth place of a Mr Stan Laurel, once having a good brewery and the birth place of a Mr Barrow who has monument on a hill in his honor and the most northerly town in mainland USA named after him (Barrow in Alaska a place I have been to for lunch at a nice Mexican, in fact the only eating place in the town) I have been past the hall many times but never inside it. It was an old Quaker meeting Hall (they where formed in the area) so fairly plain and simple but what was good for us having young son was it had a balcony so he would have no problems. When we arrived at the gig the staff warned us that the show would contain swearing which was thoughtful of them.
We missed most of the support ‘Big Guns Of Iraq’ except the last song which seemed to be about shagging Heather Mils.
At the break my son and I nipped down to look at the merchandise and purchased a copy of the fantastically named new album “CSI Ambleside” (I wonder which came first the idea of a gig in Ulverston or the naming of the album after a local town to Ulverston). Whilst purchasing the album a lady asked my son if I had dragged him to the gig or he wanted to come, he explained he wanted to come to which she was impressed even more so when he told her he was only eight. We go back to our seat upstairs not knowing how significant the conversation we had just had would be later.
The band walk on and blasted straight into Fred Titimus much to the delight of my son followed by a good mix of old an new. We had a few jokes and as usual they had done their research on the town and venue for the gig, to which on punter shouts out that “wikipedia is great isn’t it”. Which then provokes a story about the fact that Stan Laurel was actually his stage name but he might have got the name Laurel from the house across the road from where he was born as it was called “Laurel View” . You don’t get that sort of info from Wikipedia.
The main set ends with a the “Trumpton Riots” and they return with a cover of SLF’s “Barbed Wire Love” and finish the night with the now classic “Joy Division Oven Gloves” which is greeted with many fans suddenly wearing oven gloves, which must go down as the strangest thing to take to a gig.
On the way out we pop back to the merchandise stall to see if we can get a t-shirt for my son where the lady we met before helps us out and asked my son if he enjoyed it and if he would like to go back stage to meet the band and get his t-shirt signed. He is a bit shy but gets braver when I am invited as well. Off to the back of the stage we go and down to the dressing room not sure what will await us in the post gig party. We enter the dressing room to an unexpected scene of quite conversation, tea making and biscuit eating. We are introduced to the band and my son gets his t-shirt signed and we chat to the band about rock’n’roll subjects like biscuits, canoeing and caravanning which prompts the unveiling of a Caravan shaped guitar. We leave the band to their cups of tea and head back to find my Mrs and home.
A week later my son still has not got over the fact he met the band and I thank them very much for really making something special, very special indeed for him.
If you ever get the chance and it does not happen very often go and see Half Man Half Biscuit, you get great music and entertaining stories.
For what they did for my son they get full marks from me.
Fuckin' 'Ell It's Fred Titmus
Shit Arm Bad Tattoo
Blue Badge Abuser
Running Order Squabble Fest
A Lilac Harry Quinn
Totnes Bickering Fair
Look Dad No Tunes
Numanoid Hang-Glide
Outbreak Of Vitas Geralaitis
The Light At The End Of The Tunnel
Twenty-Four Hour Garage People
We Built This Village On A Trad Arr Tune
Vatican Broadside
Third Track Main Camera Four Minutes
Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes
Mathematically Safe
Everything's AOR
Monmore Hare's Running
Tending The Wrong Grave
PRS Yearbook / Quick The Drawbridge
For What Is Chatteris?
Bad Losers At Yahoo Chess
Restless Legs
The Trumpton Riots
and encore...
Barbed Wire Love
Reflections In A Flat
Joy Division Oven Gloves
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andy 19th April 2008 00:00:00 |
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