My Exciting Life in ROCK (part 2): 11/12/2004 - Woodhouse Eaves Village Hall, Leicester

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Some of my earliest memories of Christmas involve going to my Grandparents' church's Christmas Bazaar where, if I was lucky, I'd be able to buy some COMICS, get fed on mince pies. and see my Granddad on the stage dressed up as Father Christmas.

I'd had my first trip to a Church Hall in about TWENTY YEARS when we'd had a "dress rehearsal" for this gig in Woodhouse Eaves Village Hall. Tim and Emma live there and, as Emma's on the Parish Council they'd decided to put a Christmas Gig on to raise money for a playground. I know: ROCK AND ROLL! As soon as I walked in the SMELL of the room made me feel EXTRA CHRISTMASSY - it's that DUSTY aroma of years and years of jumble sales, WHIST DRIVES and pop in plastic glasses that gets me every time and which, I was very pleased to discover, had not changed at ALL in the decades since I was last in such a place.

Come the day of the gig itself I was feeling VERY festive despite the best efforts of the Public Transport System to put a DAMPENER on things. Our travels started BRILLIANTLY with me seeing JOHN HEGLEY on the tube - he turned out to be a very nice man who didn't mind me saying hello, GABBLING, and thrusting a CD at him - but then swiftly went downhill when we arrived at St Pancras to discover there was going to be a LIGHTNING STRIKE next day. Apparently it was a COVER for the train drivers to have a CHRISTMAS PARTY and ended up meaning that our usual 80 minute journey back home would take SIX AND A HALF HOURS. This put me in a pre-emptive GRUMP, not helped when we arrived at one of Leicester's TWO bus stations to discover that, due to repairs, our bus was going from the OTHER one. We RAN round the corner to see our bus just leaving, driven by a driver who a) knew we wanted to get on, due to all the waving and shouting b) also knew that there'd be no other bus for TWO HOURS but c) couldn't give a toss and drove on.

We got a taxi. I thought dark thoughts of DRIVING LICENCES.

In between train and bus stations I had even MORE nostalgia with a trip to Rock-A-Boom Records to see how many tickets we'd sold for the gig. Rock-A-Boom has been Leicester Institution for at LEAST twenty years - a group of us used to go in to look at a GURL who worked there, and I eventually got to speak to her when I asked if they could stock some copies of the demo cassette by my band VOON. She said yes, and so I got to go in every month or so to ask if they'd sold any. My nostalgic trip was made complete by receiving the same answer this time as I'd had then: they had sold NONE.

We eventually got to Woodhouse Eaves to find preparations WELL underway, and it wasn't long before we'd got everything sorted out and were heading off on our separate missions - some to get chips, some to wash children, and others to go to the local offy for SHANDY BASS and BEER. Soon people arrived and it all began to feel rather like a WEDDING RECEPTION - the nature of the venue would have helped make it feel like this anyway, and there were also MANY many FRIENDS who'd bussed, taxied and driven over, but mostly it was because my PARENTS had driven over from Peterborough with their BEST PALS for the occasion. I fiddled nervously through my pockets looking for a SPEECH, as a GRATE TERROR gripped me like I had not felt for many moons.

I needn't have felt that way for the gig, as that went off GRATE, things only went horribly wrong when I found myself caught up in a NIGHTMARE BEYOND CONTEMPLATION: THE RAFFLE! I have never done the announcements for a raffle before and I am NEVER doing it again, it was TERRIFYING! People who had mere moments beforehand been charming and Christmassy were now BAYING for my BLOOD. "FIX!" they shouted at any opportunity. "ME!" screamed everybody at each number, convinced they'd won, and every prize awarded was greeted with equal measures of cheers and booing, stopping only to re-accuse me of running the whole SCAM for my own benefit.

And that was just my Mum.

When that was finally done with I managed to relax with BEER and DANCING, this latter provided by the Tube Bar, another Leicester Institution. Many MANY Saturday evenings in my Dancing Days had been spent at The Tube Bar, dancing to a mix of The Modern Indie and... er... Bruce Forsyth. There was a SLEW of songs you only ever heard at the Tube Bar, like Brucie's "I'm Backing Britain", the theme from Roobarb and Custard, and an obscure song called "Show Me The Way To Amarillo" by a little known singer called Tony Christie. As soon as that song came on all the old Tube Bar regulars DASHED to the floor to sing along and CLAP in the appropriate moments, whilst everybody else backed gently away saying "What on earth is THIS?"

It was a gorgeous end to a lovely evening, but does make me wander what other songs they played that night will become smash hits of the future. I wonder what odds you can get for "It's A Leicester Fiesta" as Christmas Number One 2009?

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