Blog: A Change In Direction

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Last Tuesday morning The Pillows On My Bed and I had to DRAG ourselves out of our lovely comfy Premier Inn room in Norwich in order to make our way back to That London. As we readied ourselves I asked the aforesaid Times On My Timetable what she'd thought to the gig the night before. Some might say I was actually saying "Please tell me I was BRILLIANT" but obviously nothing could be further from the truth. She reported that John and Gav had been EXCELLENT, which of course they had, but offered some THORTS on my set which gave me, well, pause for THORT.

For the past year or so I've been basing a lot of my between song chit chat on the fact that I am over forty years old (no, I am, don't be so amazed) and how that makes me feel, especially pertaining to the fact that I've met people recently who are significantly younger than me. I've thought this was a delightful accompaniment to the themes inherent in some of the songs, but it was pointed out that I'm now BANGING ON about it pretty much THROUGHOUT, combining it with a) telling the audience they're really old too and b) scratching my head and stumbling around like a Weird Old Man. Now, that final point is partly due to me wondering what I'm going to do next and being naturally DISORIENTED when faced with BOOZE, but I knew from experience that I had to take this opinions on board and analyse them. I thought I was just being DELIGHTFUL, but might I now be going too far? This was something to PONDER!

Mind ABUZZ we got home and I swiftly de-packed, re-packed, and headed out again to NORTHAMPTON. On the train there I sat in front of two AWFUL people who sat talking loudly saying INCREDIBLY THICK and/or offensive things, laced with swearing, WITHOUT STOPPING. As a veteran of train travel I knew what to do, and just went and sat in a different carriage, from which vantage point they became quite funny, as they managed to get confused by toilets, doors, and signs telling them where to leave stations. Years ago I would have sat and FUMED, shifting seats is much easier!

I arrived at The Langham Hotel to find it was much as advertised and reviewed online i.e. VERY old fashioned but perfectly nice. "Your friend is already here!" said the Eastern European NAN who greeted me, and so a few minutes later I was reunited with Mr G Osborn, TOUR BUDDY, and we were heading into town.

The day before in Norwich I'd pointed out that it was TRADITIONAL for at least one of us to visit a castle when touring together, so Gav insisted that we follow another of our traditions i.e. have our tea in Weatherspoons, before heading off to the NN Cafe where we met Tamsyn and Joe, our hosts, and got set up for the evening. It's a dead nice place, the NN Cafe, the sort of place where, as I found out, they have many kinds of tea and Soya Milk available on request.

The gig wasn't HUGELY packed but was a lovely crowd who enjoyed our chums Chris and Charlie performing "Jurassic Park: The Musical" very much. As did I - they have expanded the show since last I saw them by adding in more BICKERING. Some may have thought more SONGS might have been a priority but actually this worked really well. They were talking about making it a fully fledged show, though I have to say, a musical about dinosaurs sounds KRAZY.

Gav went on next to a room of people most of whom had never seen him before, and WORKED it to the point that everyone was singing along to "Closing Montage" at the end, which was a JOY to witness. Then, after a brief break, it was my turn to get on and do THIS:

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once

The Perfect Love Song

(You Make Me Feel) Soft Rock

We Did It Anyway

In The North Stand

Theme From Dinosaur Planet

It Only Works Because You're here

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Boom Shake The Room

I had an absolutely LOVELY time. I was very aware of the "going on about being middle-aged" thing so very determinedly did not mention it at ALL, and found the results REVELATORY. I'm sure observers might well not have noticed any difference, but I felt TALLER, STRONGER and felt my BRANE fizzing away as I had to re-route well worn intros and find new things to say. It was EXCITING!

Afterwards we sat around for a chat and Tamsyn got out THE CHEESE BOARD. This is the highest accolade that I believe the NN Cafe can give, complete with crackers and some pretty amazing WALNUT CHUTNEY. Thus our evening concluded with discussion and zinging taste buds before a COLD COLD hike back to our hotel. The tour was into its final leg!

posted 10/12/2014 by MJ Hibbett

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