“The first time the Biscuits have played the Uni since 1986”, according to local contributor Bobby Svarc. First gig since the official release of the new album too. What was it like?
“The first time the Biscuits have played the Uni since 1986”, according to local contributor Bobby Svarc. First gig since the official release of the new album too. What was it like?
Jordan
First hmhb gig tonight and was blown away, brilliant from start to finish . got a hand written setlist but there are a few on there that weren’t played, left lyrics and NSD , trumpton is stated as last on the list but it was played before the encore and trad arr tune was the finale .
23 October 2014
bobby svarc
A Polish fella. Went for eye test, “can you read the bottom line for me please” said the optician? “Read it!! …I know him” said the Pole. (c) NB10
24 October 2014
BananaYogi
Terrible venue. It is part of the University of Leicester – very convenient for the students there – but for any one else… Parking was ample, but all behind barriers that were firmly down. Double yellows most everywhere else. Eventually found a place to dump the motor, but it was a bit of a walk which as I am quite asthmatic was a bit of a bugger. Signposting to any parking was non existent.
The ‘O2 Academy’ itself is a high-ceilinged ‘school hall’ rather than a proper gig venue. That lead to some seriously boomy and muddy sound. The support act really suffered from this. So much so that I couldn’t even make out what they were called, never mind what they were playing. It seemed like country influenced rock. I think they said they are from Liverpool. I hope they get to play some more sympathetic places, they got decent applause, although to me (probably due to the appalling accoustics) they seemed out of time with each other in places. They probably weren’t.
Our lads took to the stage with all the customary razzmatazz we have come to expect. I’ll leave it to people who know more to provide setlists etc. The sound started terrible and improved somewhat as we went along. I wouldn’t class it as good though. Nigel gave us some tips on making sure spreadable butter was neither too soft nor too hard, filled us in on some of his song writing influences (the bloke upstairs with a 12 string playing ‘Northern Lights’ by Renaissance), had to stand in the spotlight of shame when he thought the female singer of the said group was Maddy Prior only to be reminded that it was Annie Haslam, swapped guitars like a proper rock star and initially asked Neil to turn his amp up for him. ‘You’ve changed’ a wag in the crowd admonished him. Laughter ensued. Nigel seemed to get more into the gig as it went along, pitching for Lenny Henry’s Premier Inns gig by recommending their beds (he was funny in the eighties for about ten minutes. On Tiswas.) . Nigel cocked up Totnes Bickering Fair by somehow singing the first two lines at double speed, and The Light at the End of the Tunnel by starting the singing in a variety of keys – none of them the correct one. However, as we’ve come to expect, the occasional shambles can’t really hide the fact that the band is as tight as a salad dodger in a stand seat in the away end at Mansfield. (Do football clubs get seats made somewhere people have legs half the normal length and arses like Kate Moss?)
There was no cover version in the encore, and I made our way out for the trek back to the car, inhaler in hand.
Thoroughly enjoyable despite the venue, which put up stiff resistance early on but couldn’t resist the superior silky skills of our boys.
Final score – Biscuits 4 Oh 2
24 October 2014
toastkid
Is this the same venue described by Mark E Smith in Words Of Expectation (c1985)?
And I am here to enable everybody to say yes, no
Or I don’t know even
Like “Leicester Polytechnic
Is scheisse, is scheisse”
These are the words of success expectation
These are the words of dead direction
24 October 2014
Bobby SVARC
You’ve more or less summed it up perfectly there Bananayogi, The O2(2) was the original Percy Gee building for years, The gaff was a Mecca for bands in the sixties like Hendrix, Zeppelin, Who, Beefheart, 10 Years After etc. unfortunately it hasn’t stood the tests of time too well as it? And is only known as the O2 Academy2 by name, ie same old caper different paper!. As a privileged guest of the band I was a first hand witness of the trouble the band were having in the sound check, Geoff was not not happy neither were the band.
I was perched up in the gods for HMHB in the official “disabled viewing area”!! what a load of bollocks, that was dangerous to the extreme but after using a few good ropes, block & tackle and some sky hooks I was just about able able to watch the gig. Geoff was there for the first few songs to try and sort out the sound which was like Geezer Butler’s bass in Mob Rules, After a bit of tweaking it seemed to get a lot better and Nigel’s voice was coming through OK. The support act ‘Black Snow Rodeo’ came up and sat near us and the girl singer looked a little upset, which was a shame because I thought they put on a decent effort as a support under the circumstances.
I’m afraid to say that decent medium sized Midlands venues are becoming hard to find with only The Robin and The Assembly any good in my honest opinion, Let’s hope they can book them again in 2015.
All in all I thought it was a good gig and the Biscuits were on top form, The Leicester crowd looked a little bewildered at first and it took the usual suspects to get the pit started.- So no more gigs for me this year with Bilston again being the best one. Sorry I didn’t see you last night Brumbiscuit and hope you found the pub and Indian to your satisfaction and that you’re not reading this in the shitehouse!!
24 October 2014
BrumbiscUit
I was near the front from the start – which we only just made – and thought the sound was pretty good there. I’m surprised you got put in the gods, Mickey, as there was a girl in a wheelchair near the front and she didn’t seem to suffer any moshing excesses.
The Harry Quinn was locked up outside, so I was very happy when A Lilac Harry Quinn was played. The stewards were very hot on the more exuberant moshers. FFS couples, if you stand right near the front of a gig, you’re going to get jostled; get over it!
The Kings Head was good. I sent Jeeves out to hunt down a sweet shop and he duly returned with abundant samosas and bhajis. Top lad. The pub next to the Travelodge, The Richard III, is very much a football fans’ place with dozens of pennants adorning the walls and a friendly bunch of people.
It was a much better gig than The Robin one, even though my blurted out answer to the TISWAS question was wrong. Jon Asher, indeed, what was I thinking of? Macintyre was Davitt-less last night as the newly acquired DP home shirt got an airing.
Thanks go to Dave Harris for his inately brilliant sense of direction. That walkway through the centre of Leicester is an excellent thoroughfare. We were regaled in the Kings Head post-gig by a friendly local of how his ex used to work with the band. He told us the character on the front cover of BITDHSS was called Wackup, or something like that. Tales like that make a good night even better.
24 October 2014
Bobby SVARC
@Brum: Was his name Stu?
24 October 2014
GRAHAM paine
Time for the set list (26 in 97 minutes
1 A Lilac Harry Quinn
2 When The Evening Sun
3 Old Age Killed My Teenage Bride
4 Fred Titmus
5 Lock Up Your Mountian Bikes
6 Turned Up…
7 Bob Wilson Anchorman
8 This One’s For Now
9 99% of Gargoyles…
10 Bottle Neck At Capel Curig
11 1966 And All That
12 Running Order Squabble Fest
13 Fix it so she Dreams of me
14 Totnes Bickering Fair
15 Paintball’s Coming Home
16 Outbreak of Vitus Gerulaitis
17 Dukla Prague Away Kit
18 Look Dad No Tunes
19 JDOG
20 For What is Chatteris
21 Vatican Broadside
22 Light at the end of the Tunnel
23 Trumpton Riots
Encore
24 Westward Ho!
25 Everything’s AOR
26 We built this Village
Great gig although the Leicester natives appeared a little bemused by it all!
24 October 2014
Bobby SVARC
I thought they opened with Foam Party?
24 October 2014
Killingjoker
Having been to the O2 (a couple of times) and the ‘old’ Uni venue more times than I care to remember, I was very disappointed to discover which stage (there are several of varying size) had been picked for the Biscuit to play on, as previous gigs had been in the larger halls / stages. Bananayogi has summed up the situation well as it def had a school hall feel to it and the acoustics were dreadful!
I didn’t find out who the support group were at the time (thanks Bobbysvarc for clearing that one up!) – not my cup of tea I have to say, but ok all the same. The boys did remarkably well considering the ‘quality’ of the venue and thought the set list was a good mix of old and new. Nigel’s comic interludes and observations were as good as ever adding to the bands allure as always. The crowd generally were a bit inanimate compared to other gigs (discussed with a mate who thought the same) and it was almost as if some had never been to a live gig before – let alone seen the Biscuit!
All in all an enjoyable night (nice to have them show up at a local venue to me) marred only by the poor venue considering there are other stages at the O2 (Uni) they could have used.
24 October 2014
BrumbiscUit
Harry Quinn was in the middle of the set.
24 October 2014
BrumbiscUit
@ BobbyS: we didn’t swap names, sadly. Mid-/late-thirties, wearing a parka sort of coat. Shortish light-brown hair. Broken front tooth. Blimey, I’d be good on Crimewatch.
24 October 2014
Bobby SVARC
@Killingjoker. The hall that we were in last night was the original uni one, capacity of 500, The O2 No. 1 has a capacity of 1400 obviously miles to big, It’s pretty clear that No.2 hasn’t had much re-vamping done in the 15m project, If it had some money threw at it I reckon that it could be a decent mid sized venue. Parking is a joke though, basically non existent.
24 October 2014
Bobby SVARC
@ Brum: Did they play “Look Dad”?? If so I’m packing in the herb cause I never heard it.
24 October 2014
Killingjoker
@Boobysvarc – I used to go to a great many rock nights (Discos) at the Uni back in the late 80’s early 90’s and the room used for that was certainly bigger than the one we were in last night, but take your point on a bigger room perhaps being a bit overkill capacity-wise. It’s such a shame The Auditorium in Leicester’s Market Place didn’t last – it was an ideal size and a venue the Biscuit played a few years back during it’s brief existence – such a shame as it was a bit of a ‘mini Rock City’ which had the potential to attract a few other well known bands.
I also don’t think “Look Dad..” was played either as I commented about that to my wife on my way home as being one they usually play but didn’t this time.
At least the Liverpool Echo have given the new album and the band in general the thumbs up 😀
24 October 2014
BrumbiscUit
No, no Look Dad. I may have had several Vanilla Porters – 6% – in the KH, but I didn’t hear that one.
24 October 2014
Bobby SVARC
@Killingjoker, That hall that we were in was part of the original building the rest was demolished, shame they couldn’t lower the roof and that’d be a start, but it’ll be a while before they return to Leicester, if ever.
24 October 2014
twistedkitemike
I suspect that the running order was tampered with and not in line with the handwritten set-lists. Nigel did change one or two round via a verbal exchange due to guitar “issues”. I’m sure Roger’s notes will confirm in due course, but here is the order: –
1 San Antonio
2 Evening Sun
3 Old Age Killed My Teenage Bride
4 Fred T
5 Mountain Bikes
6 Turned Up
7 Bob Wilson
8 This One’s For Now
9 Bob Todd
10 Capel Curig
11 1966
12 Squabble Fest
13 Fix it
14 Totnes
15 Paintball
16 Vitas G
17 DPAK
18 Lilac HQ
19 JDOG
20 Chatteris
21 Vatican
22 Light Tunnel
23 Trumpton
Encore
24 Westward Ho!
25 AOR
26 Trad Arr Tune
Mike………………………………………..
24 October 2014
Delmarkmike
Jordan, You might have been standing next to me when you got the set list from the drum kit. I asked but the man said there is no more. “Could I have the drum sticks then?” “No, they are the drummers”. fair nuff. “What about the guitars?” No response as he walked away so walk of shame for me.
Good gig, really enjoyed it. Thought they were better at Cambridge last year but then again so was I.
plenty of space near front of stage. Bouncer a bit jumpy.
24 October 2014
Lee the Miller
gig great, venue wasn’t that bad, the only thing missing was the lack of support, with more fans there, would have been a greater atmosphere.
Didn’t get home until 4.30am as the midnight train to Sheffield was delayed by 2 hours then subsequently cancelled so had to get to Derby as someone saw the light at the end of the tunnel unfortunately.. Taxi from Derby was then needed which was provided by BR and the likes…
Roll on Manchester 🙂
P.S. Please can the guys play Bad loser’s on yahoo chess as ive bought a Torquay shirt and had Dennis Bell printed on the back:-)
24 October 2014
GRAHAM paine
I stand corrected!
24 October 2014
FOR o2 I’D LOSE MY ROGER GREEN
O2 Academy Queens Hall, Leicester, Thu 23rd October 2014
Roger Green wrote (only with more random paragraph breaks – don’t say I don’t give you nothing back Roger):
A minor technicality to start with. This show was not, as on the tickets, at the O2 Academy. Instead, things were shifted round the corner to the Queens Hall. This provided (presumably) a more compact venue and (I’m afraid) bottles of water at £2.40 each. The place was situated in the middle of Studentland, a healthy walk away from the city centre. On our way there, Karen and I spotted a statue of Thomas Cook (surely one day Leicester will pay a similar tribute to Showaddywaddy). And one of the many eateries had some clever marketing in its window. “Leicester Mercury Restaurant Of The Year” it said in bold letters, with the word “Finalist” in much smaller letters underneath.
This was a wristband gig, although staff seemed to have a very liberal approach to checking them. We met up at the front with Phil from Portsmouth, and Tony. There was much chat about the appearance of Urge For Offal at number 35 in the midweek album chart. Would it still be there at the weekend? Or had the initial surge of orders on release cause it to peak already?
We discussed what to expect from the support band, Black Snow Rodeo. They advertise themselves as gothic country”, which implies a mix somewhere between Dolly Parton and Sisters Of Mercy. That, in itself, would be worth seeing. What we got was perhaps not quite at those two extremes. They are from Liverpool (part of the Probe Plus empire?), and bits of their set reminded me of Helen And The Horns from years ago. Tony, with his wider musical lexicon, was reminded of the guitarists Chet Atkins and James Burton. It was all very listenable stuff, and I would give them another go.
HMHB were on stage just before 9.00. It did not strike me as a relatively large crowd for these things, but I could not back that up with statistics. And there was not much of a mosh pit to start with, although things livened up in the second half of the show. HMHB had wanted to play Korngold’s The Sea Hawk as the walk-on music, but the venue was unable to supply the gear to play the bloody thing. Perhaps there is a lesson there for the band. Nigel picked me out and told me that they had again made use of the M6 Toll Road “because he (gestures towards Ken) wanted to stop for a piss.” Need to know. There was a conversation about margarine (or “spreads” as Nigel corrected himself). Nigel explained that you can fed up of these, resulting in a wish to go back to butter. This appears to cause great difficulties at the Blackwells home, particularly with the supposedly spreadable format. If you leave them in the fridge too long, Nigel’s observation is that “they are not spreadable at all”, causing the bread to break up. Whereas if you take it out of the fridge, it turns to liquid. The key to success is to keep the foil on top, instead of throwing the foil away. It’s not a problem I can say that I have ever encountered. But I’ll bear it in mind. The final line in Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes was “That’s when I was saying that a re-make of The Wicker Man won’t work”, followed by mutterings of words like “futile” and “shite”. It would be good to hear Nigel’s thoughts on the re-working of Dads Army sometime soon. Nigel asked Tony where he was stopping. “Travelodge” was the reply, which led to Nigel’s appraisal of these hotel chains. “You get a better night’s sleep at a Premier,” he said. “I know I’m starting to sound like Lenny Henry. B He’s not funny. But he’s right.”
99% Of Gargoyles was written by The Leicester Tygers Of Pang Tang (that is the correct spelling, isn’t it?). Tony spotted a new amp on stage. The band seems to have invested in a Vox, replacing the previous Marshall that was situated in the middle, behind Nigel. There was a bit of chat about the guy at the Bilston gig a fortnight previously, who had heckled Nigel for not playing 27 Yards Of Dental Floss. “I was going to play it tonight, because I knew he wouldn’t be here,” Nigel said. And he was reminded about the guy at the Ashill/Ilminster gig who had pressed him to play National Shite Day. “He was a character”, noted Nigel. “Not if you were stood next to him,” replied Tony. There was also something about the bloke at Ashill wearing a Ramones t-shirt, but not being able to name his favourite song by the band.
Nigel shared with us the story of the beginnings of 99% Of Gargoyles. Nigel used to live next door to a fellow guitarist. This guy started to play a guitar riff which sounded a bit like what we now know as the opening to “Gargoyles”. But the way this chap played it, it sounded more like Northern Lights by Renaissance. So, inevitably, we had a follow-up question. “Who was the singer with Renaissance?” Two points to the guy half way back who shouted out “Annie Haslam”. Nigel raised a glass (well, a plastic bottle) to Alvin Stardust (aka Shane Fenton aka Bernard Dewery) who had gone to the great Top Of The Pops studio in the sky earlier in the day. At one point, Nigel put his capo on his guitar and said “You’ve changed” before telling me that this had gone right over my head. He was right. Joke time followed a shout from a crowd of “Specsavers”. Nigel said that Specsavers was “a bit ITV” and told us that he uses Boots Opticians instead. He was in there the other day. A Polish chap was in front of him in the queue. The optician asked the Pole if he could read the bottom line on the chart. “Read it? I know him!”
Nigel broke a string on his guitar, at which point Ken handed over the replacement guitar. “I’m the most important guitarist in the band, so I get the spare,” he said, before treating us to an impromptu version of Paintball’s Coming Home while Ken replaced the string in a timely and efficient manner. Nigel appeared to have forgotten some of the words, but was sharp enough to refer to the Joy Of Sex DVD rather than video. Later he handed over one of his bottles of Strathmore water, obviously in sympathy at the venue’s pricing structure. He said that tap water is better for you, something to do with the plastic of the bottle affecting it. This turned into a conversation about milk. I lost the thread of this, but thanks to others was told that this was about “semi skilled” milk giving you brittle bones. So therefore full fat milk is better. There was a useful pointer from a guy in the crowd about putting full milk on your corn flakes but skimmed milk in your tea. It could have gone on for hours like that.
There was a shout of “Are you knackered, man?” where Nigel replied by saying that they had only ever played it once. He demonstrated the folk singer skill of playing chords while introducing a song, “this is about a girl from the Fens”, before they played Chatteris. We just got the first few seconds of Theme Tune For Something Or Other before they gave it up as a bad job, but I included it in my list nevertheless. There were a couple of false starts to The Light At The End Of The Tunnel. You would have thought they would know how that one goes by now. Ken was the winner of a competition where he won a jar of Marmite, which is apparently a lifetime’s supply. And Nigel was wearing a “cima coppi” t-shirt. Is that “cima” as in Chartered Institute Of Management Accountants, I wonder? He left us guessing.
The set was:
San Antonio Foam Party
When The Evening Sun Goes Down
Old Age Killed My Teenage Bride
Fuckin’ ‘Ell It’s Fred Titmus
Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes
Turned Up Clocked On Laid Off
Bob Wilson – Anchorman
This One’s For Now
99% Of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd
Bottleneck At Capel Curig
1966 And All That
Running Order Squabble Fest
Fix It So She Thinks Of Me
Totnes Bickering Fair
Paintball’s Coming Home
Outbreak Of Vitas Gerulaitis
All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Kit
A Lilac Harry Quinn
Joy Division Oven Gloves
For What is Chatteris?
Theme Tune For Something Or Other
Vatican Broadside
The Light At The End Of The Tunnel Is The Light Of An Oncoming Train
The Trumpton Riots
And there were three in the encore
Westward Ho! – Massive Letdown
Everything’s AOR
We Built This Village On A Trad Arr Tune
31 October 2014
dr desperate
The Cima Coppi is the highest summit (cima) in each year’s Giro d’Italia, named after five-time winner Fausto Coppi. It’s also the name of a manufacturer of custom merino wool cycling gear, based in Vancouver.
31 October 2014
Bobby SVARC
Great report as usual Roger, I would like to see a statue of Family, The Deep Freeze Mice, Rabid, Crazyhead or even Kasabian erected in honour of our music history, There’s more chance of plating sawdust though, especially when our City Council are hell bent on blowing millions on a bag of bones.
31 October 2014
EXXO
Can’t tell if you’re being serious there Mick but ideas for statues like that always remind me of a thread my dad spotted on a forum which was largely populated by ancient mariners retired on the south coast (for he is one such).
You might not be aware of the huge resentment that the Port of Southampton always feels when it perceives itself as losing any cruise liner business to Liverpool, but my dad reckoned he saw a serious suggestion from someone who thought Southampton could rival Liverpool’s musical fame and attract more tourists by drawing more attention to the fact that Craig David, Aqualung and the drummer out of Coldsore all grew up there. “Three lads that shook the Solent” would make a lovely idea for a statue.
31 October 2014
Bobby SVARC
We had a fantastic tribute to one of the City’s great politicians recently, “Keith Vaz is a knob” was painted onto the side of a tranny van and parked up in New Parks, it was there for ages, funny stuff.
My main gripe is the fact that tributes to Gandhi (Statue) and Nelson Mandela (Naming of a park) were greeted with much gala and back slapping and yet our shitehawk of a council leader still refuses to acknowledge the fact that our City’s football team supplied the goalkeeper for the most famous day in the nations footballing history.
31 October 2014
dirk hofman
David Icke..?
31 October 2014
Bobby SVARC
Great Cyclist
31 October 2014
dirk hofman
If you scroll two thirds down this page to see a small town in southwest Wales’ tribute to that son of Leicester. A mate went to uni in Leicester ’79-’82, I visited a few times saw some good bands – Roger Chapman and the Shortlist being a memorable one, de Montford Hall, I think.
31 October 2014
Bobby SVARC
Interesting Dirk, My old workmate Stan (RIP) used to live in the same road as the Icke family on the Goodwood.
Leicester has always been a good City for bands with plenty of venues, Granby Halls, DeMont, Uni and the Poly and of course the Charlotte all had top acts on there weekly, Apart from the DeMont and the O2 there’s a couple of decent venues now, The Musician and The Donkey both are smallish but good.
31 October 2014