The Tales We Keep Telling, 2: Audience of Psychopaths

So I went to see Laura Marling at the Sage the other day (my life is a whirlwind of fun and excitement, except for the three-day bouts of depression and the knowledge that it will not be 13 people leaving my team of 33 people in September next year – it will be 15). It was a good night, despite the fact that Ms Marling was battling the forces of illness and failing musical equipment. 

It is a tribute to her musicianship that she played an entire one and a half hour set entirely on her own whilst having to make up the set list pretty much as she went along, since her main guitar wasn’t working. She was also suffering from the after-effects of the incompetence of whatever restaurant she’d eaten lunch at – she has coeliac disease and, as she put it “They glutened me, the bastards!”

Nick Mulvay, the support act was pretty good too, although I couldn’t help fondly remembering the support act last time around, Timber Timbre. This was basically one guy and a guitar, and I (perhaps unfairly) remember one thing about his act. You have to imagine a man, sitting on a stool at the front of the Sage’s Hall One stage, spot lit, strumming a guitar and singing a romantic ditty…

Timber Timbre, tunefully: “I’m coming to Paris… to kill you…”

Audience laughs, musician stops singing and playing and looks around thoughtfully.

Timber Timbre, matter of factly: “I have an audience of psychopaths”.

(Begins singing again) “I’m coming to Paris … to kill you…”

We Are the Motherfucking Eels (at the O2 Academy)

So, taking a break from Glastonbury, I went to see the Eels on 4 September, and they were good. Here's where I owe my friend A a big vote of thanks. Had it not been for him, I'd never have really got into Eels, so top marks to A for lending me their entire back catalogue, and also buying the tickest.

There's a really good review of the gig here, which saves me having to do any musical criticism. Instead, I can just say that I enjoyed the gig, apart from the O2's famously awfully-high prices for awful beer. (Thank God for hip-flasks; you didn't read that here.) The support act had listened to a lot of Laura Marling, though it could have been worse; it could have been Kei$ha.

Eels themselves were excellent. I'd forgotten how much a band can ROCK when they play live, or maybe I've just been listening to "Blinking Lights" a lot recently. "Tremendous Dynamite" was awesome, although I must admit to a slight twinge of disappointment that there was "Last Stop: This Town". Also, it is very cool when people play guitars and sing when wearing sunglasses indoors, and always will be.

I also got to see an unusual sight. Eels had a bit of a theatrical thing going on at the end of the show, with a (I'm guessing) fake tour manager who kept doing the "one more song and NO MORE" routine. This happened, we assumed the encore was over, the house lights came up, people starting heading out of the doors.. and then Eels stepped back on stage for one final song. I really wished I'd had my video out and pointing forward, because the sight of people streaming back into the fully-lit O23 arena at the end of a gig was memorably surreal.

It was a good gig. Next: Laura Marling.

Glastonbury 2013, Day One, Part the Second: Keeping Up the Proud Traditions of Arriving at Glastonbury

The coach limped into the service station and wheezed to a stop. We got off, got and settled onto the grassy verge to await the arrival of a coach with a non-broken battery. Fortunately it was quite a nice day.

One hour and several frantic messages to the people waiting in the Clowne Tesco’s car park later, the coach arrived, we loaded ourselves and our gear onto it, and set off to retrieve the Clowne people. I retrieved the Magic Piece of Paper (in whose powers I was rapidly losing face), and waited to tick people onto the coach.

One stop in Clowne and several apologies to the people who’d been forced to wait in the Tesco’s car park later, we were on our way! The coach rolled past the familiar landmarks, I explained some of the history of Glastonbury to the new guys on the team, and we tried to take photos of the Glastonbury signs out of the windows.

Soon, we were stuck in another Glastonbury landmark; the queue to get onsite. The coach drivers looked increasingly annoyed, as their hours of work were running out and they needed to get back to Leeds. Alas, things were not to get better, as the stewards at the festival had no idea where to send us. Despite my best explanations, and several frantic phone calls to the WBC staff, it took another hour before we were in the right place and had been given our wristbands by the management staff. I handed over the Magic Piece of Paper, and my work was done.

Now all I had to do was lead my team to the campsite, get our ID badges, and get the tents put up in the dark. Fortunately, I’m not unfamiliar with this, having had to do it a few times at Glastonbury, including one memorable occasion in 2009 when we arrived at the site at 2.30am. This time around things were better, because a) having learned from bitter experience, I’d insisted we eat something at the service station on the way down, and b) the bar was still open. Half an hour later, the tents were up and the beer was poured. We toasted our safe arrival, toasted the festival, and awaited our first day on site.

First, though, we had to get through the night…

Glastonbury 2013, Day One, Part the First: Coaches and Mayhem

There is an old saying that stress is what happens when your instincts shout "NO" and your mouth says "YES I'D BE GLAD TO". I should have remembered that when I agreed to count people onto the coach to the Glastonbury festival from Leeds.

Yet again, a troupe of trusty Newcastle volunteers were travelling south to volunteer for our union with the Workers Beer Company at the Glastonbury Festival. We'd got six places, I was one of them, and despite a minor hiccup over a railcard on the train, all was well. The sun was shining, and we were waiting on the grass near Mecca Bingo, over the road from Leeds Bus Station, listening to the alcoholics fighting.

I can only assume there's a wet hostel nearby, because they were there three years ago (possibly not the same people, but who knows), the last time I was waiting for a coach to Glastonbury from Leeds - next time we'll sit in the bus station. I'd already had to go in there and get first aid assistance for someone who'd collapsed. I get the feeling this may be a regular occurance, as the security guards took their time getting the first aid kit and wandering on out. By the time they'd got out there, the ambulance had arrived, unlike our coach, and half the people I was expecting to be on it.

At 1.30pm, we had a false positive as a coach drove past us without stopping. As it got round to 1.50pm, I started muttering words in my head that I wouldn't use in front of my mother*, told everyone I was off over the road to check if it was waiting for us in the coach station part of the bus station. It wasn't, but I did find all the other volunteers. Still not quite as many as I had listed on the magic piece of paper with the list of people I was supposed to count on, but it was a start.

Even better, as I started to lead the way over to the grass, the coach we'd seen 20 minutes earlier pulled in haphazardly at a bus stop outside the station. I waved frantically and ran over to ask the driver if this was the WBC coach to Glastonbury. It was. I signalled my volunteers and began counting people on.

I'd been assured that the magic piece of paper was up to date. I should have remembered that where festivals are involved, this can actually mean "four people decided at the last minute to drive down, and there are two people who aren't on the magic piece of paper". There was no way I was telling people they weren't going to Glastonbury, so I let the two people on, reassured them it would be fine, and prayed very hard that I hadn't just booked them a one-way ticket to the outside of the Glastonbury festival wall.

As the coach headed out of Leeds, I got a phone call back from the WBC to confirm that the two people were indeed registered volunteers, and would be allowed in. I leaned back in my seat, mentally thanked God that my team were all reliable, calm people who had loaded my gear on the coach for me, and exhaled for the first time in about two hours. We were running a bit late, so I texted the people we were due to meet in a Tesco's car park in Clowne (coach pick-up points are always such glamourous locations), and told them we'd be a bit late but not to worry.

It really shouldn't have surprised me when, 10 minutes later, the driver turned round and, in tones of deepest gloom, informed us: "Sorry, the coach is broken - we're going to have to stop at the next service station and wait for a replacement".


* mostly from the family of the word "Fuck".

Narrative Inevitability at the Boiler Shop Steamer.

So, earlier this month, I roamed with some friends down to the Stephenson Works, to enjoy the Boiler Shop Steamer. One of my friends, A, had been raving about this monthly event for weeks, and it did sound good. Music, my favourite pubs (Wylam Brewery, the Cumberland Arms), my favourite types of food (who doesn't love a chilli paneer wrap?) and a great venue.

We arrived, settled ourselves at a table with pints from the afore-mentioned Wylam Brewery, and after half an hour, I remarked "Well, this is unusual - an Ouseburn-themed night in Newcastle and I haven't yet met anyone I know". We nodded, and commenced enjoying the night, which was not difficult. It was a great night, sunny and warm, the beer was flowing, the food was great, A was persuaded to go on a sponsored cycle time trial*, and we were entertained by the Most Unrehearsed Cajun Band in Newcastle, AKA Bob Stork and the Heaton Playboys, aka "Rob Heron of Rob Heron and the Tea Pad Orchestra's other band".

We'd seen Rob Heron performing at the Cumberland Arms a month ago as part of the NARC festival in the Ouseburn, and it was great to hear "Danse de la Limonade" again. The evening wore on gently, punctuated by debates over tattoos, which Wylam beer was best, and how long it would take a man wearing a black t-shirt and shorts to wander up a ladder and fix the lights when they went out half-way through and left us with only the emergency lights. (Twenty minutes, but we didn't much mind.)

As the evening ended, we stood, we danced our last jig, and we prepared to leave, when I glanced to my left. And turned to my companions.

"You know what I was saying earlier about not meeting anyone I know here, and how unusual that is for Newcastle?"

"Yup."

"You know my blog, you remember that post I put up recently?"

"Yup."

"Well, there's a very familiar back brace to my left."

We turned our heads.

Newcastle really is a very, very, small town sometimes.


* I was also invited, but declined on the grounds of having been to two circuits classes led by sadists in the past two days, and being physically incapable of generating speed due to having fuck-all glycogen left in my leg muscles.

Randomly Overhead Weirdness at the Olive and Bean

The Olive and Bean Cafe is one of my favourite hangouts. It inhabits the weird hinterland at the back of the Grainger Market, a strange mix of the posh - the Olive and Bean itself, the wool shop over the road, Cafe Royale round the corner - and the vaguely disreputable - the cheapie clothes shops, Poundland, and the infamous Black Garter pub. I rather like it (the cafe and the area) and can often be found chewing a panini there on a Sunday after church, alongside most of Newcastle's middle class.

Today I happened to be sitting on the big table in the middle, when two large, fresh-faced ginger-haired chaps dropped into chairs on the corner opposite. One was clearly a student, the other older, and they looked as though they might be related. The student fella was, apparently, also an organ scholar at Oxford. (I learned this from both their conversation and the fact that they'd left papers about an upcoming service on the table in front of them, and like many people involved in politics, I can read upside down). He had been doing a risk assessment for an upcoming service, which the older chap then proceeded to evaluate.

OLDER CHAP: "This really is very open-ended, isn't it? What they're asking? I mean, for risks, you could put 'Gas explosion', 'Meteorites', 'Terrorists running in off the streets with guns, bullets flying around'..."

YOUNGER CHAP: "Yes, it is a bit like that, they like you to put follow-on actions on there as well".

OLDER CHAP: "...'Strip-searching choristers', I suppose the associated risk would be 'grinning whilst strip-searching choristers'..."

I resisted the urge to chime in with "Volcanoes exploding...". At this point, a young woman in a dress and a knitted sweater with a picture of a monkey joined them.

OLDER CHAP: "Ah, [YOUNG WOMAN], you're going to be taking care of [YOUNGER CHAP] aren't you, I've got to go soon, show him round the town?"

YOUNG WOMAN (grinning): "No, I'm planning to eat him as soon as your back is turned."

OLDER CHAP: "Well, in that case you'll still be showing him round the town, albeit with him being inside you."

The young woman pulled off her sweater.

YOUNG WOMAN: "Did I tell you, I recently grew my armpit hair to raise money for research into polycystic ovary disease?"

At this point, I made an excuse. And left.