Ah, Sheffield. “Shine your shoes and head for the Crucible, brush the baize and keep the crowd in check…”
All reviews and comments, however long or short, more than welcome. And reviews of reviews…
Ah, Sheffield. “Shine your shoes and head for the Crucible, brush the baize and keep the crowd in check…”
All reviews and comments, however long or short, more than welcome. And reviews of reviews…
Charles Exford
It’s great that Chris has agreed to try out a “gigs” thread on here. Mrs. Exford and I got our last-minute tickets for the Sheffield Boardwalk gig by asking for spares this site, and I reckon I should be able to say “thanks for your help and nice to meet you Ben” on this thread, as well as telling everyone that the Banana Bread Ale in the Banker’s Draft (Wetherspoon’s) round the corner was… interesting, and the special offer bourbon was good value (Mrs. Exford was driving). And also how the gig went and stuff. And then you can slag me off for being all mixed up and unchronological and a pompous tw*t and stuff, which you can’t do on hmhb.co.uk, great though Gez’s site is. So here goes, then.
It’s two weeks since the gig and I make no attempt at mere prosaic chronological order this time. You see, a few days ago I fell off my bike, trying to read a blue plaque about Hedley Verity whilst cycling round a corner past his birthplace. Got scraped off (without a silver spade), fixed up, am still mixed up about the order all of the following happened in. Though I did pinch a set list at the end of the gig (see below).
I think it was Dr. Johnson who called Shakespeare’s shows “a map of life”. But if it’s a map of England and North Wales you’re after, you could do worse than the shows of Half Man Half Biscuit. At this gig, for instance, we learned that “Wrong Grave” was, of course, as it aways is, a “true story.” But this time it “happened to a woman from the village of Mere, in Cheshire. Where Graeme Sounness used to live.” But then again the bird noises in Ken’s errm, ‘solo’ featured both “zebra finches and great skuas”, and “even the glebe cow started to wish she’d bought a new effects pedal”, so who are we to trust?
This, after all, is a band who have recently described themselves in gig-venue-blurbs as this brass-tinged five piece from Rhosesmor, named after a little-known Tarkovsky film, who have recently toured with the likes of Chris Rea and Patti Boulaye as well as being the subjects of a documentary on cable channel E! Entertainment entitled ‘In Transit’. Never knowingly in tune, Half Man Half Biscuit are performing various dates around Salop in order to promote their latest album ‘What Dread this Upon the Spume?’ The band can boast three sessions for online Radio station ICF and can count amongst their fans TV’s ‘Mr Orangutan’ Terry Nutkin and the Mayor of Cirencester.
This is just one example of a recent trend towards such obfuscation by the man himself, so you see there are solid reasons to distrust everything we are told.
A few songs in, I shouted something about wanting to hear material from this mythical “new album”, or else some George Formby covers, as mentioned in another NB57 self-spoof elsewhere on the web. “Oh that,” said Nige back at me, “that’s just ‘cos you’ve got to have some control, or else they’ll just write the same old thing all the time.”
But the distrust now extended to almost the entire audience, personified by one punter who shouted, right after “Wrong Grave”, that “Mere is in Staffordshire!”
“That’s a different Mere,” Nigel retorted, gazetteer-like, pausing to consult the tiny writing on the tiniest set-list ever. Good quality stationery shortage, as ever. “My dog’s from Staffordshire, though. Not a Staffordshire terrier though. Female golden retriever. Best dog you can have.” We can perhaps at least trust this, because he’s mentioned her in an interview before. A bit later on, he tells us his dad is also from Staffordshire. The town of “Stone” in fact, he says. Makes plausible genealogical sense to me because it’s only 20 miles from one of the two Derbyshire villages of Blackwell, though there are many others elsewhere. Or was he still talking about his dog? It’s the wax in my ears again, and now you see we’re in trouble because you’ve got an an unreliable narrator and an unreliable reviewer.
Nigel’s tiny set list, unusually, was also covered in tiny notes. Reminders of things to remember to mention, it transpired, especially during 24-hour Garage People, but more of that one later. He had seemed flustered when arriving on stage unusually tardily at almost 9.20 after a pleasant enough set from harmless stablemates Sonnenberg, and then some John Peel tribute album type tracks from the resident DJ.
“No soundcheck,” Nigel apologised, with something a bit later about “after the kind of journey we’ve had…” And it showed, at first, till the sound man got a grip, a few tracks in. So most of us spotted the obvious contradiction when Nigel claimed to “have been enjoying your botanical gardens. Take the 81 bus.”
It wasn’t all geography. We had fragments of history, too. I honestly have no idea why, between songs quite early in the gig, he announced “Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley. It wasn’t just those 3 though, there were about 300 of them.” Perhaps the reason the band were late was they’d stayed behind to watch the end of Fifteen to One. I dunno – is Fifteen to One still on these days? Or do they have a quiz in the hire van on the way over?
From Cranmer to CAMRA Man, which interestingly enough Nigel introduced as being “about me, and it’s probably about you as well.” I think it is at our peril that we assume that all the objects of satire in the works of Blackwell are actually disapproved of by our narrator (and yes, the bloke who reviewed the audience in Edinburgh last year, I’m talking to you. It seems that Mr. Blackwell can poke fun at CAMRA men whilst respecting CAMRA men, and at obsessives whilst being an obsessive).
After the betting shop delights of “Monmore”, Nigel was clearly thinking about horses, and announced simply “Denman!” as if expecting us to give three cheers for what had certainly been one of the great carrying-tons-of-weight-through-the-mud performances of all time at Newbury the previous Saturday. Or perhaps this was a suggestion for our votes in “Sports Personality of the Year”? I couldn’t resist a mischievous heckle of “Kauto Star!” – Denman’s great rival – of course. Big mistake. I was then regaled with what seemed like a full three-minute lecture on the role of Nigel’s great-grandfather in caring for the stricken Emily Davison at the 1913 Derby. A lot of us would doubtless like to know if this is true, Nigel, and I think at the moment my money says it is, but after all you’re the boy who cried George Formby, Hilary Clinton, Chris Rea, Terry Nutkin and the Mayor of Cirencester, so how can we trust you now? I discovered at the end of the gig that there had been a potential record-setting thirty songs on the setlist, but only twenty-eight had actually been performed. For the record, it was “Problem Chimp” and “Look Dad No Tunes” that were omitted – at least one of these omissions must have been my fault for somehow provoking this three-minute history lesson. Sorry folks.
This time we have no YouTube to consult for 24-hour Garage People, during which even Nigel had to fall back on his notes. Pringles were a record £2.38, the metal drawer thing “separates us culturally as well as physically”, one of the pre-arranged friends in the queue, the fifth one back I think, wanted Doritos and petrol, the hapless chump puts down a word-search, which he’s actually quite glad to stop, and a Robert Ludlum, and a laptop on which he’s asking ask.com about crop yields in some sort of farm game on spacebook, where the rest of the staff have him on ‘ignore’ or something, and he’s got a t-shirt on with an arrow pointing upwards saying “I’m with this idiot.”
Unlike professional hmhb.co.uk dreadnoughts Roger G. or Mike C. who both stand still and cheat with their pencils and notepads, and unlike Nigel himself with his own notes, we in the moshpit use a complex system of ultimately useless mnemonics in a futile attempt to remember the onstage banter without ceasing from mortal mosh. This is why I can remember that one song was introduced as originally being by the Sutherland Brothers and Quiver but I can’t remember which one (note to self: if that comes up in a pub quiz context, the answer is probably “Sailing”); this is also why I can remember that earlier in the gig Sheffield’s Mayor Graham Oxley got a mention, but I can’t remember in what context. Maybe he was “spotted” in the audience? I can remember that Nigel announced “Jeremy Kyle and Molly Dodds – same person!” and I didn’t know who Molly Dodds is, but I do now, and I can remember that the band’s former keyboardist supposedly sold his house to Ronnie Moore and that it was number, well I won’t tell you which number, Weatherfield Road. But isn’t Weatherfield in Corrie too? So I don’t trust a word of it.
Of course the last piece of information was prompted by a heckle from the Rotherham Postie himself. One similar heckle was met by a classic “you should finish the whole course you know”. Little did we know what a treat awaited TRP later on in the encores, and indeed as the set came to its wonderful climax with a tremendous “National Shite Day” and a crescendous “We Built this Village”, nor did we know what a treat was awaiting us.
Because, as the band re-appeared after two minutes or so with Xmas lights on the monitor and silver tinsel around the mic stand, yes it was true, we were about to join the privileged club of I’d guess probably less than a few thousand lucky souls who have ever seen “It’s clichéd to be Cynical at Christmas” played live. As the moshpit swayed and chimed in with the children’s choir bit, Nigel sang mystifyingly “I saw Kate Bush and the ICF on Christmas Day in the morning.” Sometimes it’s like the whole HMHB opus is a series of clues to find a holy grail, a golden hare or perhaps a golden biscuit, buried somewhere in ancient England.
Then suddenly the band are chanting at the audience, in tribute to one lucky audience member in fact, something like “One-two-three-four, Rotherham posties know the score!” (or something similar), and then we’re straight into “God gave us life”. What did God give us Neil?
He also gave us (because this was one of only two fragments of this gig that I’ve managed to find on YouTube) Omid Djalili, Yvette Fielding, Jethro the Cornish comedian, Patrick Kielty, Gok Wan acolytes, The Football League Show (“just show us the goals!”), Jenny Éclair, Lionel Blair. Bloody hell I’ve actually heard of more than half of them lot! Then in the coda the old favourites: “Gordon Jackson, Pontius Pilate, Bobby Charlton, have a banana!”
The final song was a wonderful rocking version of “See That My Bike’s Kept Clean”, though it was inevitable that whatever the last track was, the moshpit was going to go wild with the tinsel robbed off the mic stand. After all, I do have quite long arms. Little did I know that when we’d done with the tinsel a couple of minutes later, a once-in-a-lifetime dipping, swerving long range shot would see it land perfectly to drape itself around the neck of the famous caravan guitar which Nigel wielded throughout the encores. More predictable was Neil’s grumpy lack of interest when Nige then chucked the tinsel his way. “You can piss me off with your silver snake” I sang rather stupidly to myself, and was still singing it through the fog on the motorway half an hour later. Brilliant gig.
Karl’s set list that I nicked off his drumkit at the end (I wouldn’t normally bother but I thought it might be the one with all Nige’s notes – it wasn’t) had the tracks abbreviated as follows. The two asterisked tracks were not actually played, but otherwise it’s pretty much as things came to pass:
Evening Swing
San Antonio
Irk
Bad Losers
Bob Wilson
CAMRAman
Light tunnel
Girlfriend’s Finished
Petty
Monmore
* P.Chimp *
R.Legs
W. Grave
Squabble Fest
Valium
T. Riots
Lark D
3rd Track
PRS
*Look Dad*
M-6ster
Slipknot
Chatteris
JDOG
24hr Gge
Shite Day
Village
? Christmas
God Gave
Bike
18 December 2009
Ignatius Spoons
its Carl…with a C…tut tut…
23 December 2009
ultimatekev
RE: 24 hr Garage People, I seem to remember being informed that the hapless cashier had written ” I wish my wife was this dirty” in the layer of dust that had accumulated over the years on the till drawer to which the ‘ day-shift lad ‘ had scrawled, in return, ” what wife? ”
30 December 2009
CharlesExford
Looking back at the above 3 months on, things that one one way or another I now know to be bollocks are (i) of course the 1913 Derby story wasn’t true – I’m so gullible (ii) of course NB57’s dad isn’t from Staffordshire and (iii) it’s not Weatherfield Road, it’s Wethersfield, but that story was probably true.
Right, where’s this Cambridge gig thread then ? Bit of pre-gig banter ?
It doesn’t look much like punting weather but I’ll bring the axe and we’ll split the crate of Becks.
Earl of Derby is it ? We’ll deffo be in the Salisbury early doors if time allows. What time in the Derby ?
23 March 2010
Chris The Siteowner
Hah! I deliberately scheduled the Cambridge and Shrewsbury pages to appear, ready for comment, during the gigs themselves. I thought that was clever. Shows how much I know. OK, here they are…
23 March 2010