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I went along to the Evolution Festival yesterday. Specifically the Baltic stage area.
All very good. Lots of very very young people in skinny jeans that made me feel old. But anyway…
What struck me most were the row of tents alongside the stages.
In order, this is what they sold: doughnuts, beer and spirits, burgers and cigarettes.
Now don’t get me wrong I had both a beer and a burger so there is no moral high ground here. But really, that was the entire choice. Nothing healthy. Nothing ethnic. Nothing veggie. Nothing spicy. No water fountain if you preferred to save your liver and your pennies.
And a cigarette counter? At an event where the average age seemed about 14? Whose idea was that?
I don’t want to be the aging grouch on this one and I know you can lead a kid to cous cous but you can’t make him eat.
But…
Nick Lowe’s At My Age has me walking on air as I listen to it on my headphones during my lunch break stroll. The track YouTubed above makes me want to cha cha cha down Northumberland Street - the thought of which, makes me grin all the more.
I can’t recall any CD since the Bacharach/Costello effort Painted from Memory that has had this specific effect on me. At the time it was released I was commuting to Team Valley everyday - and I found out that you can waltz. On you own. On a motorway. In a Fiat Punto.
Enjoy. They’re both absolutely sublime.
Inspired by this post on the Word Magazine blog, which was in-turn inspired by Nick Hornby’s 31 Songs.
These songs just about represent the 36 years I have been on the planet. They all bring to (my) mind either a period in my life, a certain event or anecdote, or are connected with a specific person.
I’ve discounted music that I no longer like and those that I can no longer face as a result of overplay. I’m happy with what’s left.
My Life in 31 Songs
1. New Slang – Shins
2. Anchorage – Michelle Shocked
3. Just a Little Lovin – Dusty Springfield
4. Killing in the Name Of – Rage Against the Machine
5. Train in G Major – Lindisfarne
6. Just Like Heaven – The Cure
7. Hell Yeah – Neil Diamond
8. I Will – The Beatles
9. Hope that I Don’t Fall in Love With You – Tom Waits
10. Man in the Iron Mask – Billy Bragg
11. Cruel – Prefab Sprout
12. Paint a Vulgar Picture – The Smiths
13. These Foolish Things – Bryan Ferry
14. Birth, School, Work, Death – The Godfathers
15. Harvest Moon – Neil Young
16. Grow Old with Me – John Lennon
17. Indoor Fireworks – Elvis Costello
18. Baubles, Bangles and Beads – Frank Sinatra
19. Solitary Man – Johnny Cash
20. Special Brew – Bad Manners
21. Tunnel of Love – Fun Boy Three (Above)
22. Save it For Later – The English Beat (Below)
23. I’m a Man you Don’t Meet Everyday – The Pogues
24. Willow’s Song – Wickerman OST
25. Joy of Living - Ewan MacColl
26. How Does it Feel – Slade
27. Mr Jones – Counting Crows
28. Bluebird – Wings
29. Self Evident – Ani Di Franco
30. Debris – The Faces
31. All Across the Sands – Stone Roses
Strange. The first time I downloaded and listened to the Word magazine podcast, I caught myself scrambling for the off button pretty sharpish.
Seeing as Mark Ellen and David Hepworth are involved (and if you remember the Old Grey Whistle Test) you might not be surprised that there’s more than a few passing references to prog rock. At times it’s more than a little embarrassing Dad-ish.
But persevere and it grows on you. The anecdotes from lives spent in rock journalism make it worth listening to on their own. A tale of Smashy and Nicey era Radio One DJs embarrassing themselves at a Manic Street Preachers gig is just priceless.
Until I wiki-ed him I had forgotten that Dave Ellen was actually in Ugly Rumours with Jagger wannabe Tony Blair.
He says of TB:
He was fantastically confident but without any arrogance or swagger. He had ambition, enormous charm. He even wanted to rehearse. He said to me: ‘What’s the point of doing it if we can’t be good?’
Our second gig was at St John’s and Tony, who was a massive admirer of Mick Jagger, was waiting in the wings. He was wearing a hoop-necked, trumpet-sleeved T-shirt, loons and high heels, with lots of bare flesh on show. He came screaming on with the classic ‘Let’s rock!’ and went into the first Stones number as if he was Jagger himself, all pointing fingers and pout.
More on Ellen, Blair and Ugly Rumours here.
Word blog here.
When talking crap in the small hours the concept of fantasy gigs comes up from time to time.
Who have you seen? What gigs do you regret missing? If you could choose any band from history who would you most like to see?
Gigs I’ll never forget include the Stone Roses at Whitley Bay, just weeks before they split. Billy Bragg at Glastonbury’s Leftfield Tent takes some beating but then again the same artist playing in Durham, at an event to remember the miner’s strike, was especially poignant.
Radiohead at Glastonbury was incredible. So were REM and the Flaming Lips. Years earlier I remember the less-well-known Jah Wobble playing a Glasto set that blew everyone away.
On Tyneside the Baghdaddies never fail to leave a room smiling and sweating. As a kid I have happy memories of the Lindisfarne Christmas concerts – a fabulous, and much missed North East tradition.
Gigs I missed? Radiohead the year the big rains came – largely seen as the greatest ever Glasto performance. I never did see The Smiths either. This year Wilco cancelled the UK part of their tour without any real explanation. For the life of me, I can’t remember why I passed over the chance to see the Stones Roses at the legendary Spike Island gig. I still would love to see the Shins.
As for fantasy gigs, that’s a difficult one. I would, of course, have loved to have seen The Beatles. Than again they split before I was born, but this is fantasy, right?
Whenever I think of that impossible gig I always imagine some level of intimacy. My fantasy isn’t going to place me at the back of the stadium watching the action via video screens. It isn’t also going to have me at the front in a sweaty crush.
I don’t want a private audience - I just want to be part of a small one.
I’d love to see Tom Waits, but in a surrounding conducive to really enjoying him. In a jazz club where smoking is not only allowed but also doesn’t give you cancer.
There are so many bands I’d love to see under those conditions (even without the smoking) from Beth Gibbons right through to Van Morrison. I should point out that I have see Van The Man three times before and he was desperate each time. At least in my fantasy gig he’d be superb and, for once, he’d be arsed to actually make an effort.
There is a point to these ramblings. Because I have actually found my fantasy venue. Okay so it’s not a smokey club and its size means only smaller bands will play there.
Having said that I saw the Cowboy Junkies there not so long ago. Seeing them singing their version of Sweet Jane in such close proximity will stick with me forever. Totally spellbinding.
The venue of my dreams is Hall Two at the Gateshead Sage. Never have I been so close to artists. Never has my view been better. Never has the sound been so good. Never has a venue felt so intimate.
I’ve booked two more gigs to see at Hall Two and I am starting to get the impression that I’m buying the tickets more for the venue than the bands.
I just wish Tom Waits would play there.
… I bought the domain.
I visited the very wonderful Sage Gateshead on Saturday to see King Creosote.
It was rather good. But even better was the support act, Pip Dylan.
Since returning home I’ve been scouring the net without success to find his music to download. It’s beautiful stuff - Americana by way of Fife and with a voice lingering between the gravitas of Neil Diamond and Roy Orbison.
So with no tunes to download and bugger all available from his record company Fence, I instead bought this:
I believe in you Pip. Now where can I buy your stuff?
Sidenote: On the way home, our taxi driver, a Scouse lady asked what we had been watching.
King Creosote, we replied.
She said she knew him.
Are the Coconuts still with him, she asked.
Update: Thanks to PT from Fence who posted this link below. Hope you like his tunes as much as I do.
Ever since reading this Sacred Facts post, while I was still in Nicaragua, I have been desparate to see The Future is Unwritten - the Joe Strummer biopic.
Finally Love Film - came up trumps and it was delivered to my doorstep.
It proved to be well worth waiting for.
The best part? The World Service bits from Joe’s own show that link it all together. What a presence. What a voice. What great taste.
Today I went out and purchased the CD.
With 25 tracks it’s a good start, but surely there’s a market for the show to be aired again. Maybe to a podcast audience?
It’d be a welcome addition to my Ipod and a great soundtrack to my morning Number One bus trips through Heaton.
So, Mr Sambrook, who do we bully to get this podded?
* The pic is one of my own. It’s a particularly colourful rendition of Sandino, the inspiration behind Nicaragua’s Sandinistas (who The Clash were to name an album after). One of the high points of the film for me was seeing Strummer and the boys sporting Sandinista style scarves, complete with the iconic Sandino image. The shot was taken in Leon, Nicaragua. More Sandino pics here.
