When they chucked us out to set up the gig we milled about again outside and Twistie said the stoic Mr Twistie was sat in the car and was gonna wait till the end. He’s a lovely fella is that Mr Twistie, there should be more of him about coz I want to know where’s mine? I said ‘are you coming to the pub’ but she wasn’t, she queued instead. Me, DeeDee, Alicia, Merce, Ladyflame, PurplePauline, Saraz, Cal and K all meandered over in the direction of Tesco which Teebs and Will, who were looking for a bank, pointed out to us.
We had a mill about there, some of us bought sarnies and stuff and then we sauntered over to this very nice bar with thankfully a ramp for the wheelie girls and we all used the facilities for a while and then sauntered back to the queue. We should have stayed in the pub coz it was perishing. While we were waiting a young man arrived and one of the girls said he had Angel hair but he looked more like TinTin to me.
Apparently this was James’ guitar man though I didn’t know it at the time. I was in no mood to be impressed anyways coz it was freezing. Merce was snuggled into my back for a while. She’s from hotter climes and must really have been feeling it. The girl from Finland looked okay though.
Thank goodness I was with DeeDee and them coz I could not have waited another minute, not even for James…well maybe for James. I was about to collapse with the cold and having nothing to eat and general exhaustion and malaise. I’m not as fit as I was…
We fell in the door when the security guards waved us in and fell onto the bench, me and DeeDee both, with heartfelt sighs.
As we passed the cloakroom that JMLive gel with the long hair and the snazzy line in tops says something about we’d need earplugs coz the warm-up band are so LOUD they’ll make your ears bleed. Geez, I forgot my earplugs. I mean really. After FourStarMary at the Roundhouse, Manchester I was deaf for two days! Mind you I was stood under the amp.
We sat in the same place as last time, the bench against the wall. Perfect viewing for me, uninterrupted view of the stage and great for taking pics if I had a decent camera. So first up are Disgracelands which Gareth really hyped to us before they came on. He thinks they’re the bees-knees. The lead singer chappie is going to LA to sing with someone famous and is a genius and stuff apparently. He wears white trainers with Velcro fastenings. (I have a thing about feet and footwear).
He sang all sortov rappery and it was good but some of the laydeez thought not fitting for this type of gig. I wanted to dance around like a monkey and bang my head around. It was that type of music. I don’t think DeeDee was impressed though.
And Az certainly wasn’t. He only sang the two. I liked the blue laser lights. I love the lighting at the Point, with those red flickery wall sconces and then with the lasers and the dry ice it was all pretty cool. IMHO. Both music and ambience. All pretty colours and red lit stage.
And the two side fellas playing guitar were superb. And the drummer was fantastic. He did this solo bit and Gareth went and stood beside him, giving him all the attention and the guitar fellas stood to the side while he did his thing. That was cool as well. There was this other fella sat down beside the drums. I dunno if he was something to do with the sound…he must have been wearing earplugs or maybe he was stone deaf.
It pretty much rocked really.
The lead singer kept plugging the MySpace site (www.kudos06.something) and then waited while peeps got pens lol and then later when that nice guitarist with the reddish sneakers and the long feet was asked for the website addy he got it wrong, so the audience read it back to him. Heh!
Then the lead singer went off and the group remained onstage with Gareth. Hubba hubba.
He belted it out like last time. All shouty and grrrr. The vibrations came up through the bench and all through my body. Agh. Like I said…hubba hubba. There was some noise off to the side quite near where all us ol’ crocks were sat and I don’t know if they were heckling or whether it was just appreciation, but I got the impression it made him a bit nervous, but maybe not. He seemed to get a bit…not stuttery…but hesitant when he talked into the mic after that. I wanted to go and dig them in the back and say shurrup but maybe they were just liking the show. The first guy who sang tried to make us all more noisy so that worked. Gareth says Johnny Cash rocks!
I like Gareth’s stance when he’s singing, he’s all raunchy and thighs. I can quite see why peeps get all unnecessary over him. He’s much more solid in RL than onscreen where he’s just another personable young man. On stage he has a sortov animal magnetism and stuff. When he’d finished he introduced James with a twinkle in his eye. I often think maybe the younger men wonder what James has got that makes us all so gahgah over him.
James
comes on all happy and Tiggery with those huge boots and a white T-shirt and blue denims and looked simply gorgeous. The TinTin young man came on as well and played the guitar for him coz he has that poorly hand and James’ was salaaming him and stuff. I never realised he was playing too fast till I read other more knowledgeable reports...it all sounded smashing to me but what do I know? Nothing obviously!
Coz James
couldn’t play the guitar he was dancing around onstage. This was my fave bit…the highlight of the weekend him dancing around like that. He is so funny. And then he nearly fell over. And his lace came undone at one stage but he saw it in time. If he’d tripped off the stage I’d have been waiting with open arms.
But then he got that pretty blue sparkly guitar and started tuning it up and had to get that other fella to come up and help out which he did, but I thought what the hell is James doing? He’s never gonna play with a broken hand? But yeah he was. What was he thinking for goodness sake?!
He got Louise to come onstage and cut the dressing off and he knew we’d all be freaking coz he’s assuring us like we’re his mothers that he’d be okay and the doc said it was alright and stuff! I thought he was just gonna sing and dance. I’d have been more than happy with that. Anyway it all went angsty and he was fretting and stuff. Peeps were shouting ‘just sing Jimmy and we’ll sing along’ and stuff but he wasn’t having any. He’s a perfectionist and just wouldn’t give it up.
He tried to sing ‘Dangerous’ saying ‘this is about Michele Trachtenberg’ but had to give up halfway through. That’s one of my faves as well. He did sing another fave ‘Katie’ and ‘Louise’ and somebody said to sing ‘Smile’ but he said he couldn’t play that one with his bad hand. He was thinking of songs that he could play and it was all excruciating for us and him.
And I liked it all anyway apart from him angsting coz it’s James but that’s no good for him, he wants to do it well and he just shouldn’t have pushed it. He ended up with another gem ‘Up On Me’ moreorless saying it’d have to do though ‘it’s not a crowd pleaser.’ He’s kidding right? That’s another fave. Then he went off to applause. I hope he was partying with Gareth instead like peeps said he would be.
We all piled out of the venue again and after hugs to some peeps and goodbyes to Merce who was staying at the St David where James and them allegedly stay ::is impressed:: we mooched off up the road. Then I spied a Caribbean restaurant so after jumping up and down a few times (I was rather peckish) and pointing it out to the girls we all piled in there.
I had lamb curry with rice and peas and dumplings. Yummy. Also I had a pineapple punch. I should have had another one as it was the best taste ever. Me and Alicia were expecting the peas to be green but they were red! PurplePauline had sword fish in batter with a special sauce made by the lady chef called Dorit or something. It was all the real deal. The waitress was really nice. All in all a nice end to the day.
We got taxis back to the Future Inn and went straight to our rooms (after Ladyflame’s slight altercation with that Irish guy!!!) as we had to get an early night due to having to be up early for the 7 am taxi tomorrow but I just wanted to talk and talk coz of having such a good time. It was midnight though so I had to bite my tongue. Afterwards DeeDee said she felt like talking as well. James makes us verbose. Roll on the next gig...
PK delete any or all of this as it's so long and waffley.