Life's a gig(gle) - part 1

It should have been 3 gigs in 3 days, but work and the dawning awareness that I'd be zombie due to lack of sleep meant that The Coral @ UEA bit the dust. They had rearranged some tour dates but unfortunately not Norwich - I never realised that east anglia had such a high level of respect from The Coral. Hope it was a good gig and that people enjoyed that extra body space caused by me not being there.

Thursday being John Peel day meant that everywhere seemed alive with music, hopefully those sessions badged as being JP specific were actually that and not just a clever, cynical wheeze by some knuckledragging promoter into thinking "aha, I have a sub standard stable of artists playing Thursday, I'll stick a John Peel flyer on it".

This certainly wasn't the case for Gig1 - the set put on by The Elbow Room, Islingon as the "headliner" was none other than Misty's Big Adventure (that's just the 3 times I've seen them then, poor compared to some I know). The support bands worked well, with The Bishops being particularly slick and The Rumble Strips well worth a listen.

Misty's were just mindblowing. To avoid entering the realms of hyperbolic descriptions, I'll maybe sling in awesome. Or the dogs, or whatever the is the right phrase to use to describe a set that made me feel that the world was OK and my own bit of personal universe couldn't be better. Started to recognise some of the faces from the Camden gig and chatted to a couple who freely admited to being Misty groupies (including having seen them at Bestival) and who summed it up as "they make me feel like I'm 14 again". I'd go along with that.

It was fascinating to see the reaction of the "misty virgins" as one referred to herself, when the band kicked off and more importantly when Erotic Volvo launched himself at the crowd. Most people were just gleefully happy and there was uncontrolled lunatic bopping happening throughout (and yes, I do mean more than just us). Even the geezers & cue-elfs playing pool decided that it would be worth having a watch and had a break from making breaks.

The cover of Rebellious Jukebox (as discussed post gig at purple turtle) was a good thing, both as a standalone track but also as a non mawkish link to John Peel. Be interesting to see MES covering Two Brains perhaps...

Grandmaster Gareth had said that he'd wanted the night to be a shambles and he was happy how it went. Shambles in this case obviously meaning "spot on performance with plenty of energy given and received between and crowd".

The fun of the evening didn't finish there - due to Misty's not being on until well after 11 and playing a full set + the required recovery time from all that frotting around - I now have to admit a grudingly admiration for the late night bus network out of London. It was quite calming to realise that staring at a lit but locked Liverpool Street station meant the fun of the night bus network and that it wouldn't cost the fortune cabbing it would have. Way to go Mayor Ken.

And Gig2 - Some weird co-incidences happened that Friday....