My Exciting Life in ROCK (part 2): 24/6/2004 - The 12 Bar Club, London

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Every now and again an EXCITING email pops up offering the thrills of a LAST MINUTE GIG. Last Minute Gigs happen when another band suddenly drops out at (as the name suggests) the last minute, and so by doing the gig not ONLY are you a) doing a gig but b) doing the promoter a BIG FAVOUR so that he c) may look kindly on you for future bookings and d) NOT get all upset if, as is inevitable, pretty much nobody turns up to see you. It's an ALL WINNERS situation!

This particular gig came in a couple of weeks before it was due to happen so wasn't all THAT last minute, but it took me until a few days beforehand to work out WHY not one but TWO other bands had dropped out. June 24th was the date set aside for one of the European Cup Quarter finals, the one which would feature the runners up in England's group... who would, in all probability, be England themselves.

I thus spent the group stages hoping even MORE fervently than usual that England would actually play PROPERLY and NOT muck it all up, so that they'd be playing the day AFTER my gig, but as usual my inevitable reward was DISAPPOINTMENT.

I BUCKED UP when I found that the 12 Bar Club had got in a GIANT TELLY in for the evening and as it happened we had a BRILLIANT time watching it - OK, the game itself was the usual CRUSHING END OF ALL HOPE, but sat in a really nice pub with LOVELY people all SHOUTING together was fantastic. Football in the pub is usually spoiled by PILLOCKS getting LAIRY, but in this case the evening was NEARLY spoilt by quite the opposite - WAZZOCKS being SNEERY. I am sure you are aware of the sort of thing I mean - people who sit through an ENTIRE game of football going "It's just a bunch of men chasing a ball, it's BORING" and making rubbish REMARKS throughout. I have some sympathy for them because I used to BE one of them, but then I passed gently through ADOLESCENCE and came out the other end realising that a) just because other people like something, doesn't mean I have to SNEER at it b) and in any case The Football is actually dead good c) and ALSO, if you really don't like it, DON'T SIT AND WATCH IT. This last point is especially valid, and it is one I remind myself of EVERY time RUGBY comes on the television screen.

Also included in these moaners were Friends Of The Headline Band, who thought it was MUCH more important that we all went into the other room and watched THEM. Disrupting everyone's enjoyment of the evening, slagging off everybody else in the pub, moaning and generally being an ARSE is probably the LEAST effective means of persuading people to come in and see your friends' band, and yet it is also the MOST common attempted methodology. In an effort to make them JUST BE QUIET WE ARE WATCHING TELLY myself and the other act agreed on a compromise, that if we could just sit and WATCH THE TELLY then we'd both do really short sets, so that the final band could get on earlier so that everyone could watch them before getting the tube home.

The plan worked perfectly - I HAMMERED my way through a truncated set, which included a PLAINTIVE version of "The Fair Play Trophy (again)" which, I sincerely hope, will be the LAST time I ever do it live. SEVEN versions of the same song, that's enough! The other act ALSO did their set at high speed, and that left plenty of time for the whinging final band to play for as long as they jolly well liked.

And I'm sure that they did - the rest of us buggered off to the pub!

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