(not-so-) Bored (ex-) Teenagers

Thursday was a long day but a (mostly) good one, right up until the very end...

For the last few weeks I've been meeting up with Stuart the guitar repair man for a coffee and a rant before going to The Dominion Theatre and working on the 'We Will Rock You' guitars at our leisure. This week however was different- I had to be back at the shop for 2p.m. as there was no one else available there so we were a bit pushed for time. When I got to the theatre just before ten Stu was already hard at it; with a superhuman effort we'd wrapped it all up in just over 2 hours. Pausing only to have our pictures taken for i.d. cards we were back on the Central line in no time, and sitting in the Coach & Horses opposite the shop by one o'clock. All well and good- when Stu got a voicemail message from Brian May. He could come down to the theatre if we were still there (he must have called while we were on the train?) to see how things were going... but we weren't there.

An odd moment.

Meanwhile I made it to the shop, where my first customer was ex-Price drummer Mick Francis who wasn't happy- he'd found the Price website (I thought he'd seen it ages ago!) and seen last year's re-union gigs which he hadn't been part of...

To the 100 Club then, to see the mighty T.V. Smith and his band The Bored Teenagers perform the 'Crossing the Red Sea with The Adverts' album in it's entirety for the first time in nearly 30 years. My brother Terry and Big Andy turned up at the shop at closing time and after a quick bag of chips we were (back) on the Circle line heading (back) into town and to The Intrepid Fox in Denmark Street (pausing to admire the Keith Moon 'Pictures of Lily' drum kit in one of the shop windows on the way) to meet up with Andy Knight. After a quick drink with him we all made it down to the 100 Club in time to catch a few numbers from the War Machines of Love who sounded ok 'though I must admit I didn't pay as much attention to them as I might since it was already pretty crowded and I was too busy trying to get a drink! I bumped into ex-Cheap bass player Andy who I hadn't seen since our 2 bands played together- about 15 years?- and said a quick hello to T.V. though him and Gaye seemed to be mobbed every time I saw them. And why not?- this was a night to be part of, a night to remember with a performance from T.V. and the band that was as good as any of us would have, indeed could have hoped for. Fantastic.

Isn't punk rock brilliant?!?

Incredibly we were back in the Coach & Horses before closing time. Pete from The Lurkers was in great form- he's finally got a publisher for his book 'God's Lonely Men' which should be out in the summer- and there were high spirits all round. I was just talking to Terry about having a PUNK ROCKARY in your garden- instead of a few bits of plain stone around a pond or flowerbed, how about putting the logos of The Clash, Pistols etc on them (it had been a l-o-n-g day!) when I heard a strange sound- as Terry put it afterwards, 'like a wet slap'. It's not a sound I like hearing too often. It's a bad sound. A very bad sound.

It was the sound of a glass hitting someone's head. A few yards away from us, just around the corner of the bar, a fight had broken out. We left just as the police arrived. Goodnight Ickenham.

http://www.tvsmith.com