127: play Wonderwall!

On Thursday my gig buddy Jen and I fought train strikes and tube strikes to go and see one of our favourite bands at Wembley Arena. It’s the first time I have been back there since the Stereophonics with London sister pre-lockdown, when we fought snow and single-use plastics instead. I haven’t seen Jen since she moved to Yorkshire to hang out with birds of the feathery kind for the RSPB, so there was also lots of catching up to do.

We met at Park Royal and walked to Wembley from there, encountering the A40, some dodgy industrial estates and 1930s suburban housing developments – crossing railways on rickety bridges, wandering through new landscaped flats and generally having a good old gossip. By the time we reached Wembley (3.2 miles! It was hot!) we were very ready for a sit down so we had a milkshake and a Coke in the new shopping development before making our way into the Arena.

I like Wembley Arena as a venue – it’s big enough but not stadium-big. Over the years I’ve seen various people there: Springsteen on The Rising tour, Pearl Jam, Alanis Morrisette, Blondie, Meat Loaf, Stereophonics, Tom Jones, as well as Russell Howard on the comedy front. Usually it’s packed, but with the nationwide train strike I’d say it was about two-thirds full (which meant we could sneak a couple of blocks forward).

We arrived just in time to see the first support act, Chris Farren, whose set was very short but great fun – especially the fact that his backdrop was basically a bedsheet and a powerpoint he was controlling himself from a laptop. His final moment was a selfie – ‘look happy so my mom thinks I’m a success!’

Our gigs over the years have been haunted by a drunk (we assume) man who shouts ‘PLAY WONDERWALL!’ at any quiet moment in the show – we joke about him, but he’s been at every TGA show, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats and even at a White Buffalo show that Jen wasn’t even at. Halfway through Chris Farren’s set, there he was shouting ‘PLAY WONDERWALL!’ from somewhere near the front. One of these days I’d really like someone (not Oasis) to actually play the damn song and say ‘NOW SHUT THE F*** UP’ at him….

The second support act was The Selecter, who I last saw at Looe Festival and who are – as they should be after more than 40 years – slick and brilliant at what they do. If I’ve got as much energy as Pauline Black at almost 70 I’ll be pretty happy. We loved the security person standing near us who was dancing away during their slot. They finished up with ‘On My Radio’ and ‘Too Much Pressure’ and made way for the headliners. They’re touring at the moment, so if you want a really feel-good night out go and find your nearest show.

The Gaslight Anthem went on ‘indefinite hiatus’ in 2015, so apart from a brief reunion for the tenth anniversary of The ’59 Sound in 2018, they haven’t been touring – singer Brian Fallon has been making and touring some excellent solo albums instead. When they announced that they’d reunited this year there was much excitement. They’re a pretty straightforward, feel-good, post-punk band from New Jersey who gained a lot of fans when Springsteen namechecked them on being asked who his favourite new musicians were back in 2008. One reviewer described them as a cross between the Boss and the Ramones, and you can’t go wrong with that.

Anyway – what a show. For the interested, the setlist is here – highlights for me were Handwritten, Keepsake, The Patient Ferris Wheel and The Backseat though from start to finish there were no low points. Laura-Mary Carter of Blood-Red Shoes joined the band onstage for a couple of songs, bringing a new harmony or two to Halloween and Blue Jeans and White T-Shirts. With no new studio album release since the reunion, there was no new material so everything was a singalong moment, and the atmosphere was amazing – the kind of setlist you really want when a band reunites, or when they’re playing a festival where not everyone is a fan. You know, the good stuff. The band were having great fun on stage as well, playing off each other and generally appearing to be happy to be back together – roll on the new album and the next tour.

The low point of the evening was trying to get back home afterwards – on the day before a tube strike the service is always bad in the evening. Had I not had to get Thing 3 to an event at his new school by 9.30am the following morning I’d have crashed at London sister’s and had a lie-in, but as it was…. a 15 minute wait at Bond Street for a Central Line train, followed by 19 minutes at Leytonstone for an Epping train as they were running a shuttle service, meant it took the best part of two hours to do a journey that should have taken a little over an hour. Still, worth it for a great night out with one of my favourite people. Move back to London, Jen!

Other things making me happy this week:

fun with the Tortles at D&D this week
making a couple of crochet tops for Things 1 & 2
Swimming in the sunshine
Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series
Blackberry time in the garden

This week I am off from Wednesday for a few days, with a stack of projects lined up.

See you on the flipside

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Swell – Jenny Landreth

The Running Hare – John Lewis-Stempel

Leap In – Alexandra Heminsley

Babycakes/Significant Others – Armistead Maupin

109: wake me up for tea

You find me at the end of a week off, in which I have done very little that was useful but a lot that was good for my soul: afternoon naps, long walks with friends, family and dogs, relaxed coffees, crafting, reading and a bit of cooking. My beloved claims that there is no such thing as a day off, but that is because he takes Monty Don’s ‘Jobs for the weekend’ section to heart as well as all the other things that a garden requires. I, on the other hand, am of the opinion that if you take a day off the jobs (and the garden) will still be there afterwards and the weeds probably won’t have taken over the world. Unless it’s sticky grass or wild garlic, in which case all bets are off.

On Sunday, post-blog, I met up with a friend in the wilds of Hackney to see Damien Jurado playing at EArtH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney), a gig which had been postponed at least once and possibly twice thanks to the pandemic but which was well worth the wait. Jurado plays small, interesting venues – we have seen him previously St John on Bethnal Green church, at the Emmanuel Centre in Westminster and this time the venue was a reclaimed Art Deco cinema auditorium reached via a most unprepossessing doorway on Stoke Newington High Street. After a pint at the Brewdog bar a couple of doors along and up a few flights of stairs you arrive in the auditorium, which was locked up after the last film showed there in 1984 (Scarface, apparently) and left derelict while the rest of the building went through the usual ex-cinema permutations of snooker hall and community venue – not Bingo, for a change.

It’s a lovely space, still in need of a lot of restoration but the original Art Deco features remain and with simple bench seating and a wide stage the acoustics were wonderful. Add in an atmospheric setlist and good audience engagement and the result was a great evening. We particularly liked the young man at the end who begged for his favourite song, with plaintive pleases, and got his way – I liked the proper last song, too, with snatches of the Grateful Dead’s Morning Dew scattered through.

On Wednesday my beloved and I dragged the Things out for a family walk. Thing 1 sulked all the way up the hill but was won over by the tiny calves in the field and the friendly pig – I think we all were, to be fair. We’ve been very lucky with the weather this week, and on Friday the garden was full of one of the Timeshare Teenagers and friends, painting henna tattoos on each other and recovering from what seemed to have been a pretty heavy night out. Other walks have been in the early morning, finishing with coffee and croissants at M’s house in the garden while fending off the muddy paws of Dobby and Kreacher, who assume all laps are for sitting. These are two rescue dogs, who are now so used to the sight of me that they have given up barking when I walk in to the house for D&D sessions. M and I also had a mooch around North Weald Market yesterday, where we marvelled at the sheer quantity of polyester neon on display, pondered the possibility of all the blingy pictures refracting sunlight and starting fires, and were bemused at the current fashion for wearing fluffy mule sliders out in public with socks.

I’ve also been messing around with making some very geeky earrings from D20s and meeples, am up to date on the Temperature Galaxy and ‘Travel by Tardis’ is halfway done. There’s half a simnel cake left (it was a most welcome apres-swim treat this morning!) and Thing 2 and I tried our hand at making macarons the other day as well. I did do some gardening, weeding the wild garlic out of my little patch and planting a couple of saxifraga and a Bleeding Heart. I can see the shoots of this year’s physalis coming up, hollyhocks are poking through, and I don’t seem to have killed the hydrangea so with any luck I’ll have a nice show this summer.

On Tuesday I am back to work, so I am off to top up my nap. I blame my father. I must also do my Easter bunny impression and distribute some eggs, as the natives are getting restless.

See you next week!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

In a Dry Season/Cold is the Grave/Aftermath/The Summer That Never Was/Playing With Fire/Strange Affair – Peter Robinson

Insidious Intent – Val McDermid

Doctor Who: Tenth Doctor Novels vol 4 (Audible)

95: hello North Weald…again

This week started with the postponement of the final night of The Socially Distant Sports Bar’s live tour, which had been scheduled for Cardiff Motorpoint Arena the night before the Wales vs Scotland game of the Six Nations. My gig buddy Jen and I were looking forward it it: a night away with comedy and perhaps one (or two) drinks, and a good catch up since she has left London and is now living in the frozen North and watching birds for a living or something. It’s not the first thing that’s been put back a few months – Damien Jurado was rearranged for April, for example, but I was really, really looking forward to a night of belly laughs and to being somewhere else again.

I like live entertainment – whether it’s a decent pub band or Bruce Springsteen at Wembley, a small folky gig or a comedy night, a play or a musical. The best gigs – no matter how big they are – give you a sense of intimacy, a shared experience even in the most soulless of venues (the O2 at Greenwich, for example). Generally the people around you are fans too, or at least music fans, and they are willing to be carried away on the same wave: the roar when the intro of a fan favourite kicks in, or the big hits. There are shared moments from previous experiences: Jen and I were haunted by a very loud drunken person for several gigs, who we never saw but we knew he was there by his frequent bellows of ‘Play Wonderwall! Play Wonderwall!’ in between songs or when the singer was chatting. Jen and I have never seen Oasis together, so we are always a bit mystified by this. He was at a gig when I was there but Jen wasn’t, which felt quite wrong and I had to text her so she could share.

I’m not surprised the gig was postponed and I know it’ll be great when it finally happens, but I’m so tired of not being able to look forward to things any more because it just makes the disappointment of postponement that much worse. If Covid could sod off now I’d really appreciate it, please and thank you – that’s something we are all looking forward to.

Who doesn’t need a mini-me?

Just before Christmas, in an issue of Inside Crochet (issue 143), there was a little pink haired doll who reminded me of my last line manager Andrea – knowing she had a birthday coming up in January I made it and packed it off to sunny Leigh-on-Sea.

I’ve also been messing about with some jewellery ideas, so watch this space – I really shouldn’t be allowed unsupervised on ebay, but there we are. Ten more pigs in blankets are underway, a neon Pikachu cross stitch, a couple more snowy owls – not enough time in the day, it seems!

See you next week, when I might be a lot less disgruntled. More gruntled?

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Glass Gargoyle/The Obsidian Chimera/The Emerald Dragon – Maria Andreas

Torchwood: The Radio Dramas/Torchwood Tales (Audible)