'Hello Harlow!'

It's sad to hear that Michael Foot has died - he always seemed to me to be a decent, honest man who wasn't afraid to have an opinion and stick to it, unlike so many of the careerist, self-obsessed clowns and thought criminals that attempt to pass themselves off as politicians these days. I remember the Cenotaph donkey jacket incident well - I thought at the time that he was the only person laying a wreath who had done anything to promote the cause of world peace through his support for nuclear disarmament; he also referred to Norman Tebbit as 'a semi-house-trained polecat' and said of Margaret Thatcher 'she has no imagination and that means no compassion'. It's a shame he couldn't have worn an actual donkey jacket to her funeral.

Back in mad-guitar-land there have been a couple of good gigs since the last posting...

After a busy Saturday in Balcony Shirts it was off around the M25 and up the M11 to Harlow for a Chicago Blues Brothers gig at The Playhouse Theatre. Myself and the long-suffering Shirley arrived in the pouring rain which proved to be a minor annoyance for your humble narrator who had to get out off the car to open the car park barrier. Bah! After a bit of Spinal Tap-style backstage meanderings we eventually bumped into Phil the soundman who very helpfully directed us to the stage. It's an A-team gig, the first with Tracy this year and indeed our first theatre date of 2010. It's also a couple of days after Pete's birthday (I'm sure he won't mind me mentioning that!) and much subterfuge had gone into planning a surprise celebration for before the show, all of which was sadly thwarted by the health and safety regulations which were rigorously applied by the staff at the venue. Oh well, maybe next year? (We did manage to lure him into one of the dressing rooms 20 minutes before the show to give him a card and present so all was not lost.)

The show's a sellout (yes!) and featured the BB's coming up out of a trapdoor at the start of the show, something which worked really well - except the chain on their briefcase got caught as the trapdoor closed... the band were a bit loose in places (as I say it's been a while since the last show) but it was an energetic performance which went down a storm with the audience. Marc said afterwards that he'd felt himself flagging towards the end of our second set as he'd not had enough water and was feeling dehydrated and he only revived after a bottle of water before the encore. (His exact words were 'if I played like a cock, I'm sorry'. He didn't!) Oh and I managed to cut my right hand during my solo in 'Green Onions' - as I said to someone afterwards, by 'windmilling and being silly'. I really should know better by now!

Then there was a rare Monday night gig at The Bulls Head in Barnes with The Ali Mac Band. Ali's put a new line-up together for the gig - next to him on vocals and regular guitarist Simon (from The Good Old Boys) there's Hannah on bass, Bob on drums, Freya and Elkie on backing vocals with Y.H.N. on the 6 string razor. We had a quick rehearsal on Friday afternoon during which we ran through most if not all of the songs Ali had come up with for the show, a mixture of songs from his regular set and others that he'd 'always fancied singing' along with a song or 2 from each the girls. Thus we wrestled with songs as diverse as 'Walk On By' and 'Long Train Running' and came up with rough arrangements for two 45 minute sets.

The Bull's Head is a classic London pub venue, with music 7 nights a week - mostly jazz but The Stormy Monday Blues Club is run by George who also runs Tropic At Ruislip. After a few anxious moments involving a grand piano in the middle of the stage (the pub guv'nor apparently goes mad if anyone touches it! George moved it anyway..) everybody gradually arrived in time for a quick soundcheck before the doors opened at 8 o'clock. We were due to start at 9 and with 5 minutes to go before showtime there was a grand total of 2 people in the audience 'though thankfully more arrived before we went on. We played 2 sets to a small but appreciative crowd, and very good fun it was too despite the odd mad moment here and there - maybe a bit more rehearsal might have been a good idea?!? Mind you that was nowhere near as mad as when we had to stop the van just after we'd left for home when we noticed that the sliding side door was open - we pulled up outside Gustav Holtz's old house. Now there's something you don't do every day. Well, I don't anyway.

Must go - am off to Worthing to rehearse with The Price...

Tonbridge 2, Harlow 1

What do you think of sat. nav.'s? They're clever aren't they, if a little sinister- 'they' can know where 'we' are at any time can't 'they'? We've only had one for a short while and they're certainly useful enough- when they work that is...

Thursday and the long-suffering Shirley are on our way to Tonbridge (not Maidstone- but more about that in a minute...) for 2 Chicago Blues Brothers shows over 2 nights at The E.M. Forster Theatre. The afore-mentioned sat. nav takes us straight there- the disembodied female voice says the words 'you have reached your destination' just as a sign advising us to turn right for the theatre appears in front of us. Aren't sat. nav.'s brilliant?!? The theatre is actually part of the Tonbridge Boys School which I'm told is the second most expensive private school in the country at £28,000 a year (I wonder what the most expensive one is then? Someone mentioned Eton which was met with a derisive 'Slough Grammar?' from John the theatre boss.) The novelist E. M. Forster attended the school, hence his name adorning the theatre- and what an excellent little set-up it is, with facilities to rival many of the 'real' theatres that we find ourselves playing in. It's small enough for us to use Mario's P.A.- when we arrive he's more-or-less set up and ready to go. It's the first A-team show for a while; Mario & Mike are Jake & Elwood, Squirrel & Marc are on bass & drums, Dave & Richard are on trumpet & saxophone, Ian's on keyboards, Tracy's on vocals whilst your humble narrator opts for his white '60's Classic Telecaster instead of his Baja model (you can't have too many now can you?!?) Pete's on hand to direct operations, and soundcheck rather unusually consists of Squirrel singing 'Some Kind of Wonderful'- I'm not quite sure how that happened but it sounded pretty good to me.
8 p.m and with the theatre looking to me to be about 3/4 full (with 70 or so in the audience- it's open to 'real' people rather than just the school boarders and staff) it's showtime. Shirley and Nadia (Ian's wife) watched us on the T.V. in the foyer- they were on merchandise duties both nights- and both said that it was a good one; it certainly felt like it from where I was standing with the band sounding good and Tracy winning friends and influencing people amongst the teenage lads in the front row.
Since we're doing 2 nights we can leave everything in place overnight; although it's not that far from us Shirley and myself decide to stay away for the night, and to that end get ourselves a Travelodge in... Medway, 20 miles away. Why? Because we were originally told the gig was in Maidstone, that's why. I won't bore you with the details but the agency involved may or may not have been to blame... armed with the Travelodge's postcode we set the sat. nav. and get going. Before long we're winding our way to the middle of nowhere along roads barely wide enough for one car let alone two, and it's been ages since we've seen a street light, and surely this can't be the way... suddenly the disembodied female voice says the magic words 'you have reached your destination'- and there, incredibly, is the Travelodge. Aren't sat. nav.'s brilliant?!?

Er, no, actually they're not. Well, they weren't the next day when, in attempting to make our way to Tunbridge Wells for the day we ended up a few hundred yards away from The Dartford Tunnel. Not good, 'though amusing in hindsight- and proof, were it ever needed, that you shouldn't switch your common sense off just because you've switched a piece of technology on...

Friday night's show is even better than Thursday's, with the sold out audience getting into it from the word go and everyone on stage rising to the occasion accordingly. Afterwards there's a near riot around the merchandise desk with Shirley and Nadia doing a roaring trade and one chap telling me and Marc that we'd just played the best version of 'Sweet Home Chicago' that he'd ever heard. A fine evening- hopefully we'll be back there sometime next year.

Saturday saw a 'real' theatre show, at The Playhouse in Harlow. Back in the '80's and '90's The Price played a lot in Harlow, mostly at The Square which was one of the best venues of it's type in the country at that time. It fell into disrepair in the meantime 'though it's getting back to full strength which is good news; it's now co-owned by Richard Holgarth who was the sound man when we used to play there and is now also guitarist for Eddie and the Hot Rods and John Otway. He couldn't make last night's show as he was busy at his own venue (that's a damn good excuse for not being able to be somewhere don't you think?) 'though he did call over to say hello and to remind me that we've 'got to get The Price up here again soon'. Hmm.. better phone the lads then...

Harlow seemed a very long way away around 4.30 in the afternoon when Shirley and myself, along with several hundred others, were standing on the forecourt of Uxbridge Civic Centre in the midst of a security alert. With rumours of a bomb scare abounding the truth was somewhat more mundane- it often is don't you think? Someone in the 'Madhouse' clothes shop in The Chimes shopping centre had turned a heater on (odd behaviour considering that it was such a lovely day) and, since it was dusty as it hadn't been used for a while, it set the fire/smoke alarm off; somehow within minutes this became a full evacuation of the centre. Shirley works in the centre and her car was parked in the car park so all we could do was wait... it was 5.30 before we were allowed back in; fortunately the M25 was clear for once.
I hadn't been up to Harlow for a while and hadn't been to The Playhouse before so once again it's sat. nav. time. This time it took us a rather obscure back road route through some of the less appealing areas of town before thankfully delivering us right outside the venue (I knew sat. nav.'s were brilliant really, I never doubted it for a minute, honest!) where Tracy is leaning out of her car window talking to a rather nervous looking chap- it turns out that he used to follow The Moody Blues around when she was singing for them and she'd not seen him for years. Meanwhile Pete's on the phone directing us to the car park around the back of the venue where one of the theatre staff takes forever to unlock the barrier to let us in. Ian Bond is back on sound man duties (he's been away in The U.S.A. with King Crimson- call the prog rock police immediately!) and with Mario and Richard off gigging elsewhere Bev is on sax with Pete back in the hat and glasses. The rest of the band have already soundchecked so I get set up, check it all works and head to the bar for a large lager.
It's a 7.30 show and, with the band well warmed up after the Tonbridge shows it's an energetic performance all round. It's also longtime C.B.B. fan Mike's 52nd birthday (that was him who helped us negotiate check-in at Stansted during our South of France adventure last week) and he got up on stage with us to sing 'Funky Nassau' (brave man!- as he put it to me afterwards, 'it's a sea of faces out there') which he made a pretty good job of considering he'd never done anything like it before. Pete got into a highly amusing conversation with a young lady near the front at the start of 'Do You Love Me?' and Mike gave a heartfelt dedication to his grandparents who were in the audience and celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary that day. A great gig.
Afterwards in the bar I meet up with Steve Drewett and his lady Claire. Steve was the guitarist and songwriter in The Newtown Neurotics (later known more simply as The Neurotics) who I used to watch all the time in the mid '80's and who The Price did quite a few gigs with back in the day. On the phone to him earlier I'd mentioned the security alert in Uxbridge; in the course of our conversation he reminded me about a show that we'd played together at Brunel University in 1987 when there was a bomb scare after our set and we all ended up out in the car park at the time that they should have been going on. They went on to play one of the best shows that I ever saw them play.

Home time and thanks to our sat. nav. we end up on the A10 near Hoddesdon. That can't be right... but it is, it put us back on the M25 a couple of junctions nearer to home than we would have otherwise had been. Once again I'd never doubted it for a minute, honest- but how come it didn't take us there that way?

To Belgium!*

Monday, the morning after the weekend before. And the weekend was good...

Saturday in the shop began nervously- I'd just switched the computer on when the screen went blank; using my tried and trusted method of fault finding (swear at it until it works) I eventually found the mains lead had come out of the back of it- fortunately that's one of the few faults that I'm able to fix... a sporadically hectic day followed with Joe the Saturday boy testing a guitar radio pack by crossing the road whilst playing the guitar and Stuart the guitar repair man fixing a buzz on a Yamaha acoustic guitar by hitting it with a claw hammer. All in a day's work, as they say.
By closing time I could have easily gone home and slept for a week but instead it was off to The Elgiva Theatre in Chesham for a Chicago Blues Brothers show. Myself and the long-suffering Shirley arrived just in time for a somewhat fraught sound check- the venue has a volume restriction unit which turns the stage lights off for 10 seconds if you play too loud. We tried a couple of rather half-hearted numbers before retiring to the bar to muse furiously. The first half of the show was a tense affair which brightened up when a guy in the front row went out to take a mobile phone call (Pete's never one to miss a chance like that!); things picked up in the second half- maybe we'd got used to the sound by then?- and the show ended with much dancing and merriment all round. My Dad came along (brother Terry didn't make it sadly) and spent the end of the evening swapping army stories with Dave the trumpet, most of which even I hadn't heard before. Excellent.

An early start on Sunday morning saw East, Shirley and myself heading to the South coast for this year's first Price gig, at the Glastonwick festival. It's organised by the legend that is Attila the Stockbroker who I first met sometime in the early-to-mid '80's at a Newtown Neurotics gig; over the next few years we played several shows with him and The Neurotics and I for one was well pleased when he came up to me after our Neurotics support slot in Harlow last year and offered us a slot at his festival. This year's was the first one to be held at Coombes Farm just outside Southwick (hence the name of the festival) and we're the opening act on the last day, preceding the mighty John Otway. As we arrive things are going well- the rest of the band are setting up on a stage at one end of a large-ish barn, one side of which is dominated by a bewildering array of real ales (the first one to catch my eye was 'Arrogance 10%- be careful with this one'). I'm in the building for about 10 seconds when, for the first time in getting on for 20 years, I meet Glenn- the original Price fan who'd come down from Nottinghamshire for the day. Fantastic. And where on earth did all those year's go?
After a quick sound check (Attila stopped us with the words 'too loud') there was just time to say hello to Mark, Barry and Phil (a.k.a. the Uxbridge lads, responsible for Malcolm's drunkenness the night before!) before our set- as enjoyable as any Price show I can remember. At the end of our set Attila described us as 'better than ever'; he also stopped me in my tracks with the words 'do you want to play at the Belgian* Beer Festival?' There's only one answer to that...
Meanwhile over the other side of the barn I meet the Uxbridge lads who are ordering cider. It looks like something used to live in it. Mark takes a drink with the words 'the first one is always the worst one'- judging by the look on his face he was right. Mind you, there's a good line for a song. Or an album title. Or something. Hmm... John Otway was as mad as ever despite having a bad back and Verbal Warning finished their set with a punk version of 'Leaving on a Jet Plane'. A fine day.

As we were saying our goodbye's Shirley pointed out a reddish stain on the floor of the barn. She'd just been told it'd been caused, astonishingly, by cider. The barman told her they'd been trying to clean it up for the last day or so but it they couldn't move it.

I must ring the Uxbridge lads and see how they are...

* that's the Belgium that's just outside Brighton..!

http://www.attilathestockbroker.com/

Green is the colour

Two posts in a row get a comment. Excellent! Thanks Snaggletooth - it's always nice to know that the people who read this blog are far far wittier than the guy writing it... and it's good to see 'Socialist Worker' warming up for next year's festivities with an article that reminds us all just how lucky we are to be part of the 'Big Society'. Or not. And then there's The Daily Mash - well, like I said last time, just because something is an easy target it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be hit...

Well it seems that it's not just the gigs that I play that clash - this Friday I'd like to have gone to see Slim Chance at the 100 Club, and Saturday The Newtown Neurotics and Attila The Stockbroker played at The Gaff, not to mention The Lee Ryder Band (featuring Upper Cut drummer Roger) at the Load of Hay. Mind you this gives me chance to mention something that bought a smile to my face for obvious reasons - there's a Facebook campaign to make 'Kick Out The Tories' by Harlow finest the Christmas number 1. Now that's got to be a good idea hasn't it? Click here to get involved... but it was a roaringly good night on Friday when local-lads-made-good Awaken played at The Dolphin in Uxbridge. Myself and East stumbled through the front door in a 'oh-gawd-my-glasses-have-steamed-up-'cos-it's-so-cold-outside' haze just as 'Free Fallin'' came to a close, with Martin the singer saying 'hello Philip - oh sorry Leigh' as I made my way unsteadily to the bar. Pete's on guitar, Ken's on bass and with regular drummer Russell off with a bad knee Drew's depping on drums. A few songs into their second set Martin said something like 'We're going to get our friend Leigh up to do a couple of songs with us after this one' - I thought Pete had been joking when at halftime he said it would be good to get me up to play. He let me use his very - make that very - nice Les Paul; when I put it on I realised that he uses a much - make that much - shorter guitar strap than I do which felt really awkward although the guitar was so good to play I didn't notice after a while. Martin introduced 'Sweet Home Chicago' then said 'over to you Leigh' - after that it was 'Play That Funky Music', and after that it was back to the bar. I was just getting going! Still the return to the bar saw much merriment with myself and East eventually leaving sometime after 2 o'clock in a state of no little confusion...

I woke up at 8.30 Saturday morning realising that (a) I'd forgotten to set an alarm, and (b) I didn't feel very much more sober that when I went to bed. Not good frankly. I must stop doing that! Still all things considered I didn't feel too bad although was flagging by the end of a day in the shop that was more than busy enough to take my mind off my rather fragile condition. No time to worry about that though, as myself and former Price manager Eddie were off to The 100 Club (let's face it, I couldn't have gone 2 nights running could I? Actually my mates The Sex Pistols Experience were there on Sunday so I could have gone to that too!) for a tribute night dedicated to the memory of the late and undeniably great Mick Green who sadly died earlier this year. And a cracking evening it was too, with spirited performances from The Animals (drummer John Steel was snowbound up in Newcastle so Dylan Howe depped) and a predictably brilliant Wilko Johnson (joined by Johnny Spence on vocals for 'Going Back Home', a song Wilko wrote with Mick Green) ushering in the main event of the evening - The Green Brothers. Mick's sons Brad on guitar and Lloyd on bass were joined by drummer Mike Roberts and Johnny Spence on vocals for a blast through some of the best loved Pirates material. And 'blast' was very much the operative word for a thunderous performance with Brad reproducing his dad's guitar parts with unnerving accuracy and Spence in full Sweeney villain mode throughout. At one point he said that Brad had only started playing in January, which if true is absolutely astonishing - maybe that's when he started taking it seriously but I think he must have picked one up before then?!? But it was weird to see so many of Mick's mannerisms both while he was playing and at the end of the gig when he shook hands with members of the front row just like his dad used to. A great evening, and a fitting tribute to Britain's greatest rock ' n roll guitarist. And The 100 Club is still one of the great London venues - surely it's not going to close?

And now for something completely different, as Squirrel and myself braved a journey to Birmingham on Sunday evening to catch a show at The Alexandra Theatre by - wait for it - Marc Almond. Yes it does look like it just said 'Marc Almond' doesn't it? As often happens the explanation is a simple one - Dave Ruffy is on drums, and invited us to the gig. Oh and Carl who plays bass for The F.B.I. Band (who both Squirrel and myself have depped with) is in the band too. And I have to say - and I'm only going to say this once - it was a great show; not really my type of thing but you can't deny Mr. Almond's considerable stage presence and indeed vocal prowess, despite suffering from laryngitis. A fine version of Scott Walker's 'Jackie' closed the first half, and the night ended with a brace of solo and Soft Cell hits. A good gig all round. No really!

Right- back to work, or to be exact, an Upper Cut rehearsal due to start in just over an hour. We're playing at The Load of Hay this coming Sunday (5th December - Terry the bassman's birthday gig!) and I've got 3 gigs with T.V. Smith (details on his website) before then. That's more like it!

Magic And Loss

Some of these blog pieces more-or-less write themselves, some take a bit of coaxing and some take a lot of work. A lot of work, as in a 'why am I doing this to myself?' - style lot of work. This one is quite hard to write because of the subject matter, which is strange as there should be a lot of positive things to say about friendship, kindred spirits, feeling part of a team... they're all good things, but you don't get something for nothing do you?

I was on my way home on Thursday night when my phone made the slightly annoying car horn - type noise that it makes when I receive a text message. I should change the sound, but I never seem to get around to it. Or something. Anyway I took the phone out of my pocket and read the message. Then I read the message again. And again. It was telling me that Tom Edwards had died. But he can't have. He's only young. And he's Tom, he can't have... 
I first meet Tom a couple of years of years ago, but he's one of those people that it's hard to remember a time that you didn't know them, if you know what I mean. I played the 'I Need A Dodge' gig at Koko with him in 2015, went to the Marshall factory with him, saw him play with Adam Ant, played the riff to 'Day Tripper' on his guitar in Abbey Road Studios... I still don't really know what to say about it all, other than that he was a fabulous musician and a lovely man. I'll miss him - and I know that I won't be the only one.

Harlow is perhaps not the most obvious place to provoke any real emotion, or so you might have thought - but if you'd have been there on Saturday night then you'd have known that 'emotion' was most definitely on the agenda, as after several false alarms The Square finally closed it's doors for the very last time. I first played there with The Price in 1986, and just over 30 years later I played three songs at the last ever gig there. But what a last ever gig it was my friends... 
First band on The Orphans feature Oliver son-of-Simon-from-The-Newtown-Neurotics Lomond on guitar (to be pedantic, on my guitar for most of their set as he broke a string on his) and roared through a breathless half hour set (guitar, drums and vocals - not a bass guitar in sight!) to the approval of the rapidly arriving audience. After saying a quick hello to Steve Lamacq - if I remember rightly he was involved in getting The Price our first gig at the venue - in the downstairs bar it was back upstairs to catch local heroes The Newtown Neurotics who bought the proverbial house down. To be fair they were on safe hometown ground but their excellent performance didn't rest on any laurels, with frontman / songwriter Steve Drewett in fine form throughout. And what can I say about Eddie And The Hot Rods that I haven't already said in these hallowed pages? They've always been one of my favourite bands, and this show was as good as any I have ever seen them play. But it was different, very different - from my point of view at least.
Back in December I went to see The John Otway Big Band at The Borderline; I'd have gone along anyway as they're always well worth seeing but I went up to meet Hot Rods guitar hero Richard Holgarth (who also plays for Otway and was the sound man at The Square when The Price used to play there) to discuss the possible purchase of a Gibson SG guitar that he was considering selling. During the evening the subject of the Square's imminent closure came up, and he invited me up to the gig. At some point I said something like 'I'd love to play at that' - at which point he suggested that I play with Eddie And The Hot Rods. I thought about his offer for, ooh, two or three milliseconds before saying yes...
As I fought my way through the sold out crowd towards the stage I reflected on the situation - no rehearsal, not even a run through at the soundcheck, although I did have a chance to try my guitar through the amplifier that I was borrowing for the occasion. We only decided which songs I was going to play with them in the pub opposite around 3 hours ago. I eventually got to the stage as Hot Rods singer Barrie introduced me  - I never thought that would ever happen I can tell you - and I picked up my guitar. 'Are you ok?' said Richard cheerily as I tried a couple of chords - yes I was ok, and I was even more ok when 'Hard Driving Man' started. And there I was, little old me playing with Eddie and his Hot Rods. If you'd have told me that I was going to do that 40 years ago... 'Gloria' was next before we were joined by Jim Jones (he was DJ-ing after the gig) for 'Born To Be Wild' - and all too soon it was over. The gig, my time in The Hot Rods, one of the great independent venues, everything. There were more than a few tears, with more than a few of them coming from me. It had  been a lousy few days. You don't know what you've got until it's gone do you?

Oh and in case you're wondering, I bought the SG. Of course I did. Well, something good had to come out of it all didn't it?    

Yeah I know this isn't very well written and is all a bit garbled - as I say, sometimes this is quite hard to write... sad times...

Square through a circle

The Square in Harlow is a great venue; no, make that a great venue. The Price first played there in, I think 1986 'though it might have been 1987; one thing that's for definite is that we supported local heroes Real By Reel that first night beginning an association with the venue that lasted right until our final days as a band first time around. We played many memorable shows there- headline gigs when we almost felt like a 'real' band (if you know what I mean!) as well as a charity night when we were joined on stage by Paul Fox along with supports to the likes of Mega City Four, Senseless Things and The (Newtown) Neurotics among others, all of which made it one of our very favourite venues. It went through some rough times in the last few years but now seems to be thriving again, a fine thing to see in these times of venues closing down due to dwindling audience numbers. I'm here for the latest of my occasional gigs with T.V. Smith and I've been looking forward to this one for quite some time...

Myself and the long-suffering Shirley arrived at The Square to find the place nearly deserted- just a few people in the downstairs bar with no one in the venue upstairs. It's dark, cold and smells a bit stale- but venues are always very different when they're empty. I left my guitar and bag at the side of the stage (acoustic gigs are great- there's hardly anything to carry in!) and headed downstairs to see what if we can get some coffee, as I get to the stairs I meet a young chap who introduces himself as Adam- he books the bands at the venue and we've been exchanging e-mails over the past few weeks. He makes us some coffee and tells me that he was at The Rebellion Festival in Blackpool last year (he plays bass in the 'new' version of The Neurotics) where he bought a copy of The Price's mini-album 'The Table Of Uncles', I tell him that it's our 25th anniversary this year ('our silver jubilee!') and he tells me that he's the same age...

Meanwhile T.V.'s arrived- he came up by train and has been walking around 'for over an hour' trying to find the venue- as has Richard who's doing the sound for the evening, he used to do the sound there back in the '80's and '90's, remembers our first gig there and is now co-owner of the venue. We set up for soundcheck in only a few minutes (as I say, acoustic gigs are GREAT!) and while T.V.'s guitar sounds excellent mine sounds terrible, very quiet and fuzzy, Richard suggests a new battery (the guitar I use has an internal pick-up that needs a battery, if it runs low it often causes distortion etc) but I'd changed it earlier in the day so he sets about looking for the fault. He changes the leads then the D.I. box but the problem's still there so I plug my guitar into the channel that T.V.'s using to see if it's my guitar- to my relief it sounds fine so Richard returns to the mixing desk to see if there's anything wrong there. After a few seconds he says 'AHA!' loudly and my guitar sounds good at last. I never did find out what was wrong... we had intended to rehearse earlier in the week as we hadn't played together since our last gig in October but the snow had meant that it had not been possible (I played along with the albums a lot instead!) so we played a few snippets of several songs before trying 'Expensive Being Poor' for the first time. T.V. points down at the stage in front of him- 'look' he says smiling, 'two monitors' then points to the stage in front of me, 'one monitor'. I know my place!

With us sounding good it's time to make way for the support act which was to have been the wonderfully named Jonny One Lung (oh yes!) who sadly couldn't make it (shame!) so at the last minute Popdad stepped in. They're a duo featuring Murray on guitar and vocals and Dave on drums; Murray was in Real By Reel all those years ago (talk about things coming full circle!) while Dave joins Adam in the 'new' Neurotics. They both play rather unusual instruments- Murray has replaced his guitar's lowest E string with a bass A string allowing him to play a bass note along with chords whereas Dave plays a stripped-down drumkit that has a modified bass drum pedal that lets him play the bottom of his floor tom-tom (I'm not making this up, it was held together with 'Fragile' tape!) alongside a snare drum, hi-hat and cymbal. They produce an extraordinary sound, very full and powerful, they soundcheck with 'Please Please Me' and sound terrific.

By now it's 8 o'clock and the audience is arriving- Shirley's behind the merchandise table and things are selling from the word go. With 'Rough Cut And Ready Dubbed' on the T.V. screens and a suitably punky selection playing over the P.A. system the atmosphere is good; T.V. points at my plastic cup, waves his glass in the air and points at the monitors smiling- I know my place once again! Popdad are on just after 9 o'clock, they play a splendid set of spiky pop songs which has everyone wanting more, they're currently recording an album which should be essential listening. Halfway through their set I see Steve from The Neurotics over by the bar, he waves at me so I go over to say hello but before I get to him somebody stops me to ask if we're playing the Price song 'Standing In Your Way' which both amuses and amazes me.

10 o'clock and it's T.V. time. He goes on solo for 5 or 6 songs before he calls me up for 'No Time To Be 21'. We play a 12 song selection which builds up nicely to 3 Adverts songs at the end before encoring with 'Good Times Are Back' and 'Runaway Train Driver' (no conga sadly!) to tumultuous applause, another shouted request for a Price song ('The Price You Pay') and rather surprisingly for an acoustic gig, quite a bit of dancing. Great stuff. Afterwards a merchandise frenzy occurs which Shirley copes manfully well with; T.V. signs CD after CD and I finally get chance to talk to Steve from The Neurotics. He talks of their new live album and apologises for not crediting me on it- we'd supported them at the gig and I recorded the gig on a cassette tape, I gave him the tape and said it was brilliant but he didn't believe me and didn't even listen to it for ages but now thinks it's probably the best live recording of the band that he's ever heard. While we're talking Richard comes over and suggests that it's time for The Neurotics and The Price to play together at The Square again- neither of us disagree.

I was hoping this would be a good gig but it was a cracking evening at one of the best and indeed best-loved venues that I've ever played at. We need more gig venues like this- but as previously observed they will only continue to stay open if we (that's you and me) keep attending the shows. Easier said than done perhaps, but we don't make the effort then we can't complain if we wake up one day and all the gigs have gone...