They love challenging venues for the away supporter in December, don’t they? It’s about two years to the day since the band last played here, when the road through from Saddleworth to Holmfirth was closed and Nigel suggested that everyone saw it as “an expedition”. Over to you for the reviews.
jitsu_g
Awesome as ever. Opened with Irk the Purists and didn’t let up. Rhinestone Cowboy to finish.
8 December 2012
DIGGLER
Agree, top gig. I stood just to the right of mosh pit, which was at times very boisterous indeed. The guy in the red “turned up” t-shirt was crashing into anyone he felt like. The Stuart Hall joke went down very well. No 24hr garage people. Complimented Roger on his reviews, purchased another lighter for my mate Paul and got a copy of Nigel’s (cryptic) set list …
8 December 2012
Jamie
I was stood alongside the lads who had not witnessed the wonders of the caravan guitar before. Tried to advise them against the chant but they wouldn’t listen!
8 December 2012
Kendo Nagasaki
fantastic gig again. loved the whole thing. it felt like the played some slightly less performed songs, which was nice. still wish they would learn some godcore to perform.
very nice to not be ripped off for drinks unlike some venues
8 December 2012
twistedkitemike
Another good set. Did they stick to the (handwritten) set-list, Diggler? Here is a note of the action: –
Irk
Evening Sun
Yipps (Yipps verse only)
Quality Janitor
Mountain Bikes
Bob Todd
Leeuwarden
Dean Friedman
Best Things in Life (Slippers verse only)
Ex Rita
Light End Tunnel
Asparagus
DPAK
Shite Day
Wrong Grave
Bob Wilson
Vitas G
Evil Gazebo
Monmore
Chatteris
PRS
Bad Wools
1966
Trad Arr Tune
Slipknot
Fix It
Trumpton
…………………………….
Cynical
Rhinestone Cowboy
JDOG
Some good lines, as ever. Nice to see Evil Gazebo run out again.
Mike………………………………………….
8 December 2012
Antony Silson
So much better than our last gig at Kendal Arts Centre which had the unique selling point of a stage too low to see the band and a sound system that meant you were unable to hear them.
Excellent drive over to Holmfirth , stopping at The Grove in Huddersfield for a few pints ( Durham – White Velvet being the best) and then onto Fish N Chips in Holmfirth.
The police using their Joker on Stuart Hall, the kids who’d stole a crate of Red Bull ( ‘How do they sleep at night) and responses to requests with ‘That’s one of ours , yes’ , made for an entertaining evening.
Baby Blonde behind the bar and reasonable prices , for a change. What could kick off the festive season more than ‘It’s Cliched…’. Happy now.
8 December 2012
ThrustingSi
First ever HMHB gig and jolly good fun. Some songs, some gags, some drinks, a caravan guitar, a bit of a singalong, and Rhinestone Cowboy to finish. What’s not to like?
8 December 2012
99%
Brilliant gig. Excellent start with Irk, Bob Todd was pure quality as was the Bastard Son Of Dean Friedman, DPAK, Shite Day, Trad Arr, Trumpton and Rhinestone Cowboy and Joy Div Oven Gloves.
Flicking the ears of plastic fans and NB getting his Monther In Law UK Subs Stranglehold for Christmas- classic
Did four gigs in 2012, roll on 2103. .
9 December 2012
99%
One of my videos from the gig http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKnqumRTWa0&feature=g-hist
9 December 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
Panic not @99% et al. – as soon as CtSO nearly gets through updating the lyrics pages to include videos, he’s going to find a whole load of new links in his inbox (hehehehe). Just stick your videos up YouTube, I’ll find ’em.
10 December 2012
YeltzDoc
Meant to comment earlier but, “time’s winged chariot” and all that..
As a sort of mid-table veteran of 30 odd gigs, this provided the perfect opportunity for me to invest in the next generation of Biscuiteers.
My in-laws live up the road, so with a bit of to-and-fro I was able to get a few beers in The Nook, then have my kids delivered down to me, for them to see their first ever gig.
We managed to get on the rail at the right hand side of the stage and they seemed to thoroughly enjoy it all – my 8 year old son was very keen to get involved in the mosh but that seemed like taking my parenting responsibilities a bit too lightly.
Both son and daughter were word perfect on everything from Bisodol and knew a fair few others – I’m so proud.
But, the main reason for posting – at the end of the encore, Carl shot straight to the front and gave my sprogs a pair of drumsticks each and a set list.
It left a tear in my eye and a memory for my children that should hopefully keep them away from One Direction arena gigs for a few years.
If it was possible for my admiration for the band to get any higher, it did.
What an absolute gent.
17 December 2012
Mark
Yeltzdoc – I think I was stood next to you at first. Brilliant gesture ftom Karl. Neil gave my young ‘un his set list and pick at newcastle which was very well received. Its not easy being at the front with kids but it was definitely worth it. I clocked one of your lads gleefully singing “some are just a crock of shit.” Heartwarming stuff
21 December 2012
MikeyP
I was right next to you and your kids…they seemed to have fun! The guy next to me got very excited when ‘Oven Gloves’ started and immediately whisked out his very own pair of JDOG and waved them around furiously. Top effort that man! Loved some of the between song jokes as well….went into the off licence, bloke said some lads had stolen some crates of Red Bull…I said “Tsk..I; don’t know how they sleep at night…”
22 December 2012
Charles Exford
Wanted to get my ‘thank you’ letter in while it was still the same calendar month (and year) so here goes….
“I’ve been walkin’ these streets so long, singin’ the same old songs. I know every crack in these dirty sidewalks of Boar Lane. Where hustle’s the name of the game, and nice guys get washed away like the snow and the rain.” That’s the sort of thing my mate Ben says all the time. Everything he says does sound vaguely familiar somehow, but then he has borrowed most of my CDs over the years and I haven’t had many of them back. And he’s possibly the only person I know who’s more bah humbug & Scrooge & cynical than me about life, Xmas, support bands & everything. The cards and letters from people he doesn’t even know are usually job rejections and final reminders, and the only offers coming over the phone are from dodgy PPI claim firms. But when I told him I’d sorted him a ticket for HMHB in Holmfirth on the first Thursday of Advent, Ben’s morose little face lit up like Tiny Tim upon being told he’s in a muppet Christmas story, instead of a Dickens one.
Our Holmfirth story very nearly took an early twist into pantomime. The imaginary unofficial HMHB 2012 calendar in my head said “Thursday”. These days when you’re off to a gig there isn’t usually even a ticket on the mantelpiece to put you right. And it’s usually Thursday for HMHB, isn’t it? [oh no it isn’t!”**] So that’s what I told Ben, and when somebody – you know who you are – very luckily relieved me of this misapprehension with just a couple of days to go and informed me that in fact the gig was on Friday, Ben and the rest of the party (i.e. Mrs. Exford) were all even more grateful. We’d certainly have been down if we’d been ridin’ the train that’s takin’ the long way on the wrong day. Especially cos there’s usually as many people packed in, squashed together and having to stand up as there are sitting down on the trains from Leeds to Huddersfield at that time of day, so we were all mightily relieved we didn’t have to do it twice on consecutive nights.
So there’s been a load of diary revisin’ on the road to our horizon, but we’re gonna be where the lights shine on HMHB. Along the way, our route to Leeds station takes us via the legendary chambers of The Grove Inn, where we notice that Kirkstall Brewery are flogging two new beers for Christmas: Bogus Official (4.2%) and Contemplation Old Ale (an impressive 7%). Alas, the latter is sold out, so Ben has a rather splendid old mango and passion fruit J2O. Nah, you’re right, we all had a pint of Bogus Official even though it’s well under the 5% mark. It’s OK, is the old Bogus Official, but I do wish I’d kept a note of all the HMHB-related real ale names I’ve encountered over the years. Then I’d probably have had enough for a decent effort in the “lists” thread on The Lyrics Project.
The bus route along the A616 allows an obligatory ‘Satin Black Tour Jacket’ sketch when one is accompanying one’s partner at the front of the top deck, featuring a railway bridge where the driver has to remember to swerve across and straddle the two carriageways. The locals on their way home from a hard week at t’mill are not amused by my piercing (and, I would like to think, eternally haunting) shriek of “HELEEEEEEE-EN !” from the bottom of the stairs. Nor is Mrs Exford, who isn’t called Helen. I just breathe a genuine sigh of relief (I really did go down the stairs ‘cos I didn’t trust the driver) and I dream of the other things I’ll do, with a bus ticket and an inflatable seagull tucked inside my shoe.
Not much to note at The Old Bridge Inn, and to report on Holmfirth’s hallowed Hollowgate chippie again would be too repetitive of my 2010 effort, so let’s cut to the support band Roja, shall we? Yes, I’m afraid we do have to. All waistcoats and linen jackets and panama hats, they look as if they have spent too long as foreign correspondents in a Graham Greene novel. Ben reckons they look like they are playing jazz at an expat garden party in Panama, but I reckon that’s just by association with the hats. I ask Ben when he’s ever been to an expat garden party in Panama anyway? “I met you when you supposedly came on my course to teach English overseas, what about 15 years ago now, but you still haven’t been anywhere, have you?” Ben just shrugs resignedly. Mrs. Exford reckons they look like they’re out of that Python sketch where all the toffs’ arms fall off and spout blood and all that. I point out those were entirely different sort of jackets. But it must be said that this band’s sound is the least compatible with HMHB of any band who have ever supported them in the fifty or sixty gigs I’ve seen. Can’t remember what they sounded like now though, ‘cos we were too busy bitching about how out of place they looked.
At the last gig I attended, the Lads’ walk-on music was Tchaikovsky in honour of Neil’s birthday, but tonight it’s the Watersons ‘Holmfirth Anthem’, in honour of, errm, Holmfirth. But also for Norma Waterson (Nigel mentioning when we spoke to him beforehand that he’d been to see Norma & family at the Liverpool Philharmonic earlier that week).
The set got off to a storming start with ‘Irk’ and then ‘Evening Sun’, though it took a while to get used to how bloody quiet the overall sound was going to be, with the vocals possibly even quieter than the other stuff. This probably affected the mosh, which was close to non-existent for the first third or half of the gig. We were then treated to rip-roaring renditions of relative rarities: ‘My Baby Got the Yipps’, ‘Quality Janitor’ and ‘Best Things’ were particular delights. I’d earlier had a wager with Ben as we supped in Huddersfield: Nigel having changed the final line of ‘Lock up your Mountain Bikes’ at the last gig in Newcastle to “that’s when Neil first said DLT”, would he do the same for Stuart Hall tonight, arrested in similar circumstances with similar just-pre-gig timing? I said no, but Ben said yes, which soon earned him a pint. Limited selection at the venue, Tim Taylor’s Landlord the best on offer, but at least it was still pub prices.
All the band seemed relaxed and genuinely enjoying themselves tonight, with some effusive solos flowing from Ken’s mighty axe. And as for Carl …. looking so much better than he did at times earlier in the year and fit run a Mexican revolution or front a directory enquiries company with that impressive Movember monster. Nigel said something about the moustache being an entry for a Hitler lookalike competition or something, but there was maybe slightly less of Nigel’s banter & improvisation than usual, partly because there wasn’t a ‘24HGP’ or ‘A Country Practice’, but also because neither Ken nor his dad were the first man in Wallasey to do anything tonight. Most of the quips have been faithfully recorded by others above, and by Roger Green in his hmhb.co.uk review, so I won’t repeat them myself. I’ll just point out that one of your song titles is a bit wrong Roger, that the “shy minah bird” was a present for his _mother_-in-law, and that as well as one Huddersfield Town legend, three of the great Burnley squad of the early-to-mid 70s also got mentions tonight (during the Ken’s bird noises solo in ‘Wrong Grave’).
I would furthermore like to apologise for shouting out more than my usual quantity of inebriated drivel at various points: from the snippets I can remember, these included me loudly asserting that Roger’s beloved Doncaster Rovers would be top by Xmas, that a horse called Sir Des Champs would win the Gold Cup in March and that Tranmere might win 13-4 on Boxing Day. Fortunately only the latter comment, because it was the most probable of my predictions I reckon, was heard from the stage and received any sort of reply, with Nigel telling the tale of how Oldham beat Tranmere 4-1 on Christmas Day 1935, and how his grandad (who was present) reckoned the Oldham team were still all pissed when they lost 13-4 in the return match at Prenton Park the next day.
So anyway, I thank Nigel B. for his patience and I thank The Ghost of Christmas Past for the rare songs, as well as for the brilliant cover of ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’, a song with a lot of family history for me personally. I thank The Ghost of Christmas Presents that my 2006 ‘Asparagus’ protest at the same venue finally paid off with a fine rendition of that classic for the good folk of the Pennines, and we would all once again like to thank The Ghost of Christmas Future, for warning us that we were almost set to be there on the wrong night.
Just like they did two years ago, they play Sheffield exactly nine weeks after Holmfirth. See you all at that one and even more HMHB gigs in 2013, Biscuiteers! Support bands you have been warned – sort those jackets and waistcoats out!
**Footnote: I like to count things too. So I checked, and to my surprise only marginally over 50% of HMHB gigs over the last 10 years have actually been on Thursdays. Never assume – it makes a mess with u, as a crossword compiler once texted me.
1 January 2013
Charles Exford
Ha, the site clock is an hour ahead, but that post did appear on the site with nearly an hour of December left, honest.
1 January 2013
Chris The Siteowner
Great stuff Charles, and apologies for not being arsed to change the blog clock every six months. While I’m here, apart from the usual New Year Wishes to all Lyrics Project contributors, lurkers and occasional visitors, a big thanks to everyone who’s chipped in this year, especially our most prolific commenters Charles, Acidic Regulator, John B, Vendor, Brumbiscuit, Chigley Skin, Third Rate Les and Paul F. Let’s hope there’s some good stuff to talk about in 2013.
1 January 2013
Rubber Faced Irritant
Happy 2013 to CtSO and all contributors. The quality of the posts and CtSO’s mediation and arrangement of videos/listings etc (for no apparent reward) make this the most engaging, erudite and entertaining site on t’internet. Chapeau and thanks to you all.
1 January 2013