Lucky Seven

Mine is on the left,
theirs is on the right.

I have just - just! - returned from Regent 7 Guitars. This is a new company set up by luthier Mike Hobbs and Surrey Spray supremo Dave Francis with the intention of producing handmade instruments based on classic designs. I was contacted by Dave a few weeks ago (I used to teach him guitar back in the 1990s, he's now loads better than me!) who explained the idea of the company and, remembering that I have a 1963 Fender Stratocaster that was once owned by Paul Fox, asked if I would be interested in taking it over to their Ewell workshop with a view to them taking some measurements and producing a copy of said guitar. I thought about it for, ooh, at least half a second before saying yes... as you might expect for a self-confessed nerd like myself it's been a very interesting few hours. They're looking to launch the company at The London International Guitar Show at Kempton Park Racecourse on Sunday 25th October (hopefully!) and to this end have been industriously producing instruments to wow the assembled multitude with. From what my opinion is worth I think that they have every chance of success - the guitars look and feel great, and with pick-ups being supplied by Monty's Guitars they sound great too. In these uncertain times it's difficult to do anything creative let alone start a musical instrument company from scratch but hopefully things will go well for Mike and Dave - and you never know, I might even get a guitar or two myself...  

I'm at the table, Segs is in the mirror.

In other news the Ruts D.C. '40 Years Of The Crack' live album is finally available. Fank gawd for that! I spent rather a long time in Segs's front room signing 500 double vinyl albums and 500 double CDs - which was no hardship at all. You live your entire life to do things like that! Well, I do anyway... so many people had shown great faith in the band by pre-ordering them that I don't mind admitting that it was something of a relief when they finally arrived. They're currently available from the band's online shop but they're selling fast so if you'd like one then I wouldn't hang around if I were you... and if you've got a minute, have a look at the band's new website here - it's had something of a facelift during lockdown so see what you think.

It should have been The Rebellion Festival in Blackpool last weekend, but of course it wasn't - instead an online version of the festival took place on their Facebook page which you can catch up with here if you missed it when it went out live. It's well worth a look as there's loads of good stuff on it - but here's something that you won't see there. It's a short-but-sweet clip of T.V. Smith And Friends roaring through The Adverts classic 'Gary Gilmore's Eyes' at last year's festival - joining Mr. Smith are Pascal Briggs on bass, Jennie and Mandy from The Crows on vocals, Attila The Stockbroker on violin, Jamie Oliver on drums and your humble narrator on what Jimi Hendrix memorably referred to as The Public Saxophone. You can see here on Pascal's Facebook page - even though I say so myself we made a rather good job of it, especially as it was unrehearsed. 

Hopefully we'll do something like this again at next year's festival. 

Hopefully we'll all be out gigging before then. 

Hopefully.

Remembering Rebellion 2019

It's time for another slightly blurred missive from a speeding locomotive travelling in a Southerly direction somewhere in England the morning after the night before... 

----

Monday 5th August 1.44pm on a train from Manchester to London.

£5.50 for a meal deal. A cardboard sandwich, a chocolatey-nutty-thingy bar and some lukewarm water. And it had all been going so well...still, at least I got on this train - with only 10 minutes between arriving at Manchester Piccadilly from Blackpool North and leaving for Euston it was touch and go, but I made it, as did many others. First world problems eh? And the quiet coach is actually quiet for once. Maybe things aren't so bad after all. 

Actually things aren't bad at all. The Rebellion Festival at The Winter Gardens in Blackpool once again lived up to all expectations (which it must be said, were pretty high to begin with) and indeed might have been the best that I've ever attended. Mind you, it was bloomin' hot, especially in The Empress Ballroom. I don't remember ever being hotter on stage, or indeed in a venue. Surely they can fit some air conditioning? Or even open the doors? Or windows? Or something? 

Your humble narrator
at work with Ruts D.C.
The Empress Ballroom, Blackpool,
August 2nd 2019.

Gig-wise the Ruts D.C. show in the afore-mentioned ballroom was, even though  say so myself, an absolute stormer. We'd considered playing 'The Crack' in it's entirety but eventually we opted for some lesser-played songs from the album alongside some old favourites and, for the first and maybe only time, an excerpt from 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' during 'In A Rut'. We'd been rehearing on the previous Tuesday and Segs was saying how he'd just seen and enjoyed the film 'Sound City' - we jammed the Nirvana song for a couple of minutes and decided that it'd be interesting to include it in our show. It certainly seemed to catch people by surprise... and the following night's acoustic show in the hallowed confines of The Opera House was pretty special too. It's impossible - well it is for me anyway - to stand on the stage and not think of who has stood there in the past. From Charlie Chaplin to The Beatles and from Frank Sinatra to Jimi Hendrix and beyond, it really is an extraordinary place. And we were all absolutely astonished by how many people came to see us there - I'm told that they had to open the top balcony, which means that there were at least 1,500 people in there. Amazing. They saw a show which mixed familiar songs with less well-known material like 'Soft City Lights' and 'Walk Or Run' and we also used the strings from the album recording of 'Golden Boy' - well, it is an opera house after all. 

I was very familiar with that stage by the time we played on it, having joined T.V. Smith & Friends (including Pascal Briggs, Attila The Stockbroker, Jennie and Mandy from The Crows and Jamie Oliver) and played with Alvin Gibbs & The Disobedient Servants immediately prior to our show. Three consecutive gigs on the same stage - I must have been mad... no I wasn't, I absolutely loved it! And I played 'Ignore Them' with Eddie And The Hot Rods on the same stage the previous evening - well, I was invited, and it would have been rude not to wouldn't it? 

I also saw The Damned, The Skids, The Stranglers, The Professionals - it's amazing how many punky bands have names that begin with 'the' isn't it? - in the ballroom, caught local (to me anyway) heroes Lead Shot Hazard on the Introducing Stage, Department S, Walter Lure and The Godfathers in The Opera House and many many more. Oh and I had too much too drink, not enough sleep, too much junk food - all in all it was something of a triumph. Same time (more or less) next year then. Hopefully.

----

Do you know, it's strange - that all seems ages ago now... anyway Ruts D.C. will return in the not-too-distant future, but in the meantime it's time for some more gigs with Alvin and co. Great stuff!

What is a 'booking fee' anyway?

Well - the Wilko Johnson farewell gigs have taken over the World! Ok so that's probably a bit of an overstatement, but the March 6th show at Koko in Camden sold out in no time as did an added date on the 10th and indeed the rest of the shows. It's sad in a way as obviously the increased interest is due to his illness, but also great to see such support for the man. That said there are quite a few tickets on eBay and less reputable agencies for vastly inflated prices which is a great shame - as usual the 'real' fans either miss the shows or are obliged to pay whatever price the ticket touts decide is 'reasonable'. Surely more can be done to stop this from happening - there are stories on Wilko's Facebook page about people able to buy as many as twenty tickets when the limit should theoretically have been eight. Very poor. I managed to get tickets for both of the London shows - I'm sure I'm not the only person who considered giving them a miss and remembering him as I do now, but in the end couldn't resist seeing him just a couple more times. In the meantime Wilko gave an excellent interview on BBC Radio 4 this week in which he demonstrates his fabled guitar technique, reminisces about his career and tells of how his cancer diagnosis made him feel 'vividly alive'. It's inspirational stuff, as you can hear here -  these are going be very emotional shows.

On a (much) lighter note the excellent Music Ruined My Life blog currently has last December's 12 Bar Club show from myself and T.V Smith (joined for a few numbers by Pascal Briggs) available to download - you can read my story of the evening here if you'd like to, and can download our hour-ish long set here. I must have a listen to it myself! Blogmeister Jeffen is promising 'more of this under-appreciated figure's accomplishments' very soon. Amazingly I think he means me! Oo-er!

Two very different gigs this weekend, during the course of which I played over 50 different songs. On Friday Big Al Reed and The Cardiac Arrests (I wonder if I'm the only band member who thinks that we could do with a better name? I must ask them next time!) visited The Swan in Iver. Al and myself generally attend the first-Sunday-of-the-month open mic night there (indeed we'll hopefully be there this coming Sunday) but this was the first gig for the band, and it generally went well especially considering that we hadn't played together since back in December. I still think we could do with some rockier material to balance out the slow stuff, but there's no denying Al's ability to sing a ballad. Overall a good gig, as was Saturday's show depping for Mr. Tibbs at Tropic At Ruislip. The venue usually puts on shows on Friday nights, so this was something of an experimental evening for the club. It was rather experimental from my point of view too, as I only had one rehearsal with the band and had to get to grips with material from the likes of INXS, Duran Duran and Simple Minds among (many) others, none of which I'd played before. In the event the evening exceeded expectations both in terms of the number of people in the audience and the band's performance - I thought that I'd made any number of wrong turns during the show, but talking to people afterwards everyone seemed to think that it sounded great - and I for one wasn't about to tell them that they were wrong.

Sunday night I appeared on the Music Scene Investigation podcast for the first time in several months - I initially had problems hearing the tracks to be reviewed (fortunately I decided to check that they were working before the broadcast began!) and there were a few issues with Tom's video signal during the show, but generally this was probably the most enjoyable MSI show that I've been involved with. The three songs were all of such a high standard that it was very difficult to decide which one came should come out on top, and somehow I ended up with the casting vote which I don't mind admitting was quite nerve racking. You can check out the three artists concerned via these links - Garrett Harbison, Athena Creese and World5 - and watch the show here - see if you think we (or indeed I) made the correct decision.

And last night myself and the two Terry's from The Upper Cut (Roger couldn't make it sadly) got together to discuss ideas for new songs, getting more gigs and general band stuff - we're at The Half Moon in Harrow this coming Saturday for the first time in ages which should be a good night, although I remember last time the venue had problems with neighbours who thought that the bands were playing too loud. An interesting evening in prospect then...

'The better it gets, the better it gets...'

It's six years last week since Wiz from The Mega City Four died, and by way of a tribute Louder than War have posted an interview that the band did with the much-missed 'Sounds' magazine from June 1989. I saw them play many times (and indeed The Price played quite a few shows supporting them) and at their best they were one of the most uplifting bands that I've ever seen. I can't pretend to have been Wiz's best mate or anything like that but I did know him quite well around that time, and I last saw him at an Ipanema gig many years later when he'd lost none of his enthusiasm for playing music. You can read the interview here; it's good to see him being remembered by tributes such as this - and we could really do with a band as passionate and exciting as The Mega City Four these days couldn't we?

And Patrick Moore and Huw Lloyd-Langton have both died - both travellers in outer space!

Two good gigs for your humble narrator last weekend :-

My name's on the poster! Yeah!

Friday saw the much-looked-forward-to (by me at least) show at The 12 Bar Club with T.V. Smith. Also on the bill were The Lost Cherrees, Root Awakening featuring Pascal Briggs, Louise Distras, The Crows and Texas Terri, and although I didn't manage to see any of the acts all the way through from what I did see everybody played really well. I saw Dermot from The Charred Hearts for the first time since The Rebellion Festival back in August (he was present when I somehow managed to knock a parasol over in the backstage catering area!) and also bumped into Attila The Stockbroker who was supporting The Men They Couldn't Hang over at The Borderline; by the time we went on at 10.45 pm the place was absolutely packed - it's only small but it's a great place to play, and with Pascal joining us for the last few numbers of our set (these three clips give you a good idea of how it all looked and sounded - that's Pascal in the middle) and us encoring with 'Runaway Train Driver' to an incredible reaction it has to be one of my favourite gigs of 2012. I'd loved to have stayed around afterwards to talk to some people but I had to leave to get the tube home; after I'd missed the last train because I had to go back to the club to get my bag which I'd forgotten due to rushing to get out I of course had time to talk all night... bugger! In the end I got home via two night buses which put a bit of a dampener on things, but let's face it, that's not the worst thing that will ever happen!
Saturday saw The Upper Cut visit The Armoury in Wandsworth for the first time. Sadly Roger was unable to make the show due to illness so Geoff 'Rockschool' Nicholls once again depped on drums, for a show that went well despite a rather low turnout - when we started there were only a handful of people in the building, although it did fill out a bit as the evening went on. Terry the bass introduced me to Pete from The Atlantic Soul Machine - I'm depping with them (Terry plays with them all the time) on Christmas Eve at The Bulls Head in Barnes so it was good to meet him. Geoff played well - actually we all played well - and Paul the landlord said that he'd like us back next year, so it was definitely a good night all round.

And it was definitely a good night all round at The Load Of Hay in Uxbridge on Sunday, when Steve Simpson (ably aided and abetted by his brother Bruce on mandolin and guitar and Bob Pearce on drums) played a superb show. I've not been involved in putting on gigs there for a while - to be honest I got a bit disillusioned with audience apathy - but this event reminded me why I did it in the first place. That said there could have been more people there (lots of folk said they'd come along, few actually did) but those who were there saw three superb musicians playing at the top of their game. A fine evening.

And I have just - just! - returned from rehearsing with The Flying Squad; we're supporting Dr. Feelgood at Tropic At Ruislip this coming Friday 14th December, which really should be a night to remember...

New York

Well I may not have played any gigs myself last weekend but I did manage to get out to see a couple of very-different-from-each-other shows...

Friday night was punk night at The Peel in Kingston courtesy of Rat Scabies and Brian James playing 'Damned Damned Damned'. I saw them at The 100 Club back in June which was a great night but this show was if anything even better, despite James breaking a string a couple of songs in and his replacement guitar having what sounded like a problem with the jack socket. None of this stopped his playing sounding like an air raid - which brings me to the ever-amazing Mr. Scabies, who battered the hell out of his kit as he only ever does, and distinguished himself by counting as least one song in with the words 'one-two-three-GO!' Texas Terri handled the vocals well, Austin made a good job of the bass parts (and I managed to find his name this time, when I bumped into him outside!) and the audience loved every minute of it, as did I. Great stuff - and they're playing at the upcoming Paul Fox tribute night as mentioned in last week's posting, which should be one to remember.

On Saturday evening I ventured across to Tropic At Ruislip to see Irish guitar hero Pat McManus. As I arrived support band The Southern Rogues were roaring through 'Walking By Myself' - they played material by the likes of Thin Lizzy and Rory Gallagher but also had a few of their own songs which is always a good thing to see. And Pat McManus was as good (actually thinking about it he was probably even better) as when I saw him at the same venue two Octobers ago, still a bit 'rock' for my tastes but he's an undeniably excellent musician and one that I'm glad that I made the effort to see again. His band are pretty good too!

Only one gig for me this weekend, but what a gig it was, with Ruts D.C. at Fibbers in York.

We had a rehearsal at The Music Complex in Deptford on Friday afternoon - Segs had just flown in from America (he'd been back in Britain about five hours when we started at midday) and Dave had been away on holiday so it took a while to get going; that said we ran through our hour-and-a-bit's worth of live material as well as trying 'Dope For Guns' as a perspective addition to the show so we didn't do too badly. 
The journey up to York from London took us about five hours including a couple of coffee stops. We had a splendid eleven seat bus which gave me plenty of space to change my guitar strings on the way up (I really must be more organised mustn't I?!?) and for everyone to have a bit of room to themselves meaning that when we arrived at Fibbers the mood was good and spirits were high. 
We pulled up at the backstage area and those of us who hadn't been there before (including me) were immediately confused by there being two venues right next to each other. To the left it's Fibbers while to the right it's The Duchess which was playing host to Hazel O'Connor - a bit of a shame that the two acts were playing on the same night don't you think? Segs was just telling me that they'd played together at The Nashville Rooms (apparently the evening was interrupted by nazi skinheads) when Hazel herself came over and recounted the same story, adding that she'd got the part in 'Breaking Glass' after her performance that night. Interesting!
With everything soundchecked it was off to The Golden Fleece with Matt from The Chicago Blues Brothers (he lives nearby) for a pre-gig drink before going back to the venue to meet up with Jennie from The Rebellion Festival and Pascal Briggs and to see a few numbers from the support band Copasetics who sounded good, with some excellent trumpet work complementing their ska sound well.
9.15 and it's showtime - we sound very different with some people in the room (some venues are like that, I'm not really sure why) and it takes a song or two for us to adjust to things. Well, it certainly took me a while to get used to it...  by the time we got to 'Staring At The Rude Boys' (roughly the halfway point of the set) things were really taking off - as we left the stage after 'Babylon's Burning' the place was going wild, and we encored with the afore-mentioned 'Dope For Guns' before finishing with 'In A Rut'. It was maybe not quite as euphoric a performance as the Birmingham show earlier this month, but the comments from people afterwards made me realise just how much the songs mean to people, and how excited people are to see Ruts D.C. back on the stage.
From there it was back to London (amid much jollity including Dave showing us how a monkey peels a banana - really!) where we met the long-suffering Shirley at South Mimms Services around 3.30am (it's been a while since myself and herself been there at that sort of time!) and I spent much of today asleep. Rock 'n' Roll eh?

Rebellion Festival 2012 - with my little stick of Blackpool (punk) rock!

Ruts DC at The Rebellion Festival, Blackpool, Saturday 4th August 2012.
From left to right - Seamus Beaghen, Leigh Heggarty (me!), Segs Jennings, Dave Ruffy, Molara. 

I spent last weekend at the 2012 Rebellion Festival in Blackpool. Between Thursday and Sunday I saw all or part of the performances by The Buzzcocks, The Business, Snuff, The Filaments, The Heavy Metal Kids, Atilla The Stockbroker, Social Distortion, Anti Pasti, Chelsea, The Piranhas, Conflict, Seven Seconds, Citizen Fish, Vince Ray and The Bone Shakers, Eastfield, Kevin Seconds, The Dirty Folkers, Neck, Public Image Limited, Slaughter And The Dogs, The Slackers, Penetration, 999, King Kurt, The Lurkers, The Downtown Struts, Thee Spivs, The Crows, T.V. Smith And The Valentines, Rancid, Argy Bargy, Goldblade, Stiff Little Fingers, Ginger Wildheart, Louise Distras, T.V. Smith (solo), Arturo Bassick, Texas Terri, Henry Cluney and probably some more that I've forgotten. I also caught book readings from T.V. Smith and Esso from The Lurkers and saw John Robb interview John King, former SLF man Henry Cluney, Tom Hingley from The Inspiral Carpets and Gaye Advert. Oh and I played with Ruts D.C. and did a duo show with T.V. Smith. A busy few days then... it certainly felt as though it was a long few days, although that may have something to do with the fact that I was at the aftershow party until gone 3 o'clock on Monday morning then walked back to my accommodation through a raging thunderstorm. My shoes were still soaking wet the next morning. Urgh! But it was also a great - make that great - few days with more than a few magical moments. Rancid were brilliant as were Stiff Little Fingers, The Buzzcocks and T.V. Smith And The Valentines. I also thought The Downtown Struts were absolutely superb, with the Clash-style 'three man front line' reminding me of, well, The Clash such was their excellence. And Ginger from The Wildhearts gave an extraordinary performance, maybe the only time that I'll ever see crowd surfing at an acoustic show (although for an acoustic show there were rather a lot of electric guitars involved!) and with the whole thing being a reminder of just how great so many of The Wildhearts songs are. I don't mind admitting that I had a lump in my throat during '29 x The Pain', such was the passion of his performance. Wonderful stuff. And as I say, I also played a couple of shows myself...

Sometime late on Friday afternoon I decided to go for a walk and get a bit of fresh air. It was rather hot and stuffy in The Winter Gardens, and it was time for a break from things. I was minding my own business eating some chips and musing on how calm the sun's reflection on the sea looked (poetic eh?) when my phone made that annoying honking sound that it makes when someone sends me a text message. It was from T.V. Smith - 

'Valentines delayed. We're playing tonight on main stage.'

T.V. was due to be playing three times at the festival - 8pm on Friday with The Valentines in The Empress Ballroom, a duo show with me at 7pm on Saturday in The Bizarre Bazaar and a solo show on The Almost Acoustic stage on Sunday at 8.30pm. The Valentines were flying in for their show - timings were always going to be tight, and the band were stuck at Frankfurt Airport. Time I got my guitar then!

T.V. and Leigh face the braying hoards.

An hour or so later I'm in dressing room 3 with T.V. and Pascal Briggs. T.V. and myself are considering what songs to play and in what order while Pascal is ensconced in the corner with headphones and guitar. He was due to join us for the last few songs of our set as he done at last year's festival, but thought he had another day to revise the songs, and as we were expecting to play in a smaller room we had planned a low key opening to our show which we decided to reconsider since we were now on the largest stage of the festival. We ran through a couple of songs and checked some endings before deciding that we could do no more, and anyway it was nearly showtime.

Pascal, T.V. and Leigh in
'rockist posing' incident.

I walked up the stairs towards the stage. We were about to go out in front of a couple of thousand people who are expecting a full-on guitar-bass-and-drums punk band playing songs from the Adverts albums armed with just two acoustic guitars. This should be interesting... two songs in and I'm thinking that we're doing well, a few more songs (including 'Ready For The Axe To Drop') and there's every indication that this is one of the best shows T.V. and myself have ever played together, and by the time Pascal joins us and we finish with 'Gary Gilmore's Eyes' and 'One Chord Wonders' to scenes of audience pandemonium I remind myself that we're not just playing any old songs, we're playing T.V. Smith songs, and they don't let you down. And they didn't let us down here. A great gig.

Would you buy a t-shirt
from this man?

Ah-ha, an electric guitar.
That's better!

Judging by the comments I received from people at the festival before the Ruts D.C. performance a lot of people were looking forward to it. Some wondered if would we be doing old Ruts numbers, some asked who would be singing? In the event we played a fair few old songs alongside new material and all points in between, Segs and Molara both sang brilliantly and the band rose to the occasion to give a performance that even several days later I'm still trying to think of a way to write about here. The best that I can say at the moment is that it reminded me that music can be such an important thing in people's lives that it catches you unawares sometimes, and we caught quite a few people - including I suspect ourselves - unawares on Saturday. I felt as though I shook hands with half of the audience on Sunday, with people telling me that it was the best show of the festival, even the best show that they had ever seen. They were all correct of course, because that's what it meant to them. I coaxed Dave and Segs out onto the merchandise stand after our show where they were treated like film stars - a lot of people had been waiting for this moment for a very long time. I know I certainly had - I looked out from the stage at a crowd of people who were fans of the band I was playing in, whilst myself also feeling like a fan. It's really hard to describe, it's like you're on the stage but you're also in the audience. Weird... but as I saw people punching the air during 'West One (Shine On Me)' and attempting to stage dive during 'Babylon's Burning' I found myself wishing I was out there with them while trying as hard as I could to give a performance that lived up to their expectations. And I'll be very honest with you here - I haven't had many better feelings during a gig than I had during this one. I always consider myself very fortunate to do what I do - there are a lot of better players than me that never make it out of a rehearsal studio let alone on to a stage, and I've been very lucky to do what I've done with a guitar in my hands. But last Saturday night - well, we did what we did and we did it well. If you were there I hope you enjoyed the show as much as I did, because that means you'll never forget how it made you feel. And you can't ask for much more than that can you?

You see - I told you that I'd write something hopelessly over-emotional didn't I? Sorry if it doesn't make much sense, but the whole thing is still sinking in. Maybe I'll manage something a bit more sensible in the future... in the meantime here and here are the Louder Than War reviews of the shows, and I must say thanks to T.V.'s mate Craig Casson for the Pascal/T.V./Leigh photo, Dave of Balcony Shirts fame for the merch man pic and Dave's mate Greg for the others. Well, I couldn't take them myself could I? 

Rebel Rebel

'If you don't go now you'll miss breakfast...'

Wise words at the best of times, but at 2.15 a.m. this morning they were particularly pertinent. Your humble narrator was musing on the merits or otherwise of staying at the after show party for yet another drink when the former bass player of popular punk rock combo The Adverts made the above observation. I thought for a few seconds before deciding that she was probably correct, bade everyone a cheery farewell and stumbled off into the Blackpool night in the general direction of my hotel. As I neared my quest I ruminated on the fact that (a) should I find myself at The Rebellion Festival again I'll book somewhere that's a bit nearer to The Winter Gardens than The Ambassador Hotel, and (b) that was the best night out I'd had for ages.

The journey to Blackpool had been simple enough - a tube train to Euston Square, walk around the corner to Euston Station with enough time for a vegetarian breakfast in The Britannia before catching the 12.25 p.m. Glasgow Central train to Preston where I changed onto the Blackpool North train. Arriving in Blackpool around 3.40 I rather extravagantly got a cab to The Ambassador Hotel - I've got room 312 in what is a classic old fashioned seaside hotel, as I'm checking in the jolly lady behind the counter asks me if I'm 'one of the turns down at that festival' and tells me that she recently went to see 'that Katherine Jenkins, she's really good and really young looking'. As I'm sorting my stuff out in my room I hear a jet aircraft roaring overhead, it sounds like you'd imaging one of The Red Arrows would sound if it had flown over the hotel. As I begin my walk along the promenade in the general direction of the venue I realise that it hadn't been one of The Red Arrows making all that noise - it was actually two of them. Excellent.

It was about a 20 minute walk to The Winter Gardens ('turn left at "Harry Ramsden's", you cant miss it') which is far enough with an acoustic guitar and a bag of leads but it's bright and breezy and there's something about the seaside that always makes me smile. As I get closer to The North Pier the ratio of punky-looking people starts to increase, and by the time I get to the venue there are multi-coloured Mohicans everywhere. The atmosphere is good and the policemen and women don't seem to have much to do - I picked up my A.A.A. wristband from the box office and climbed the stone steps into the main part of The Winter Gardens. I was last here when I depped in Foxy's Ruts way back in August 2007 and I'm here to play with T.V Smith this time, nothing much has changed from what I remember and I find T.V. behind his merchandise table doing a roaring trade. He shows me to the backstage area of The Bizarre Bazaar where we're on at 6.30, I drop my gear off while Captain Sensible soundchecks with 'Astronomy Domine'. We agree to meet up at 6 o'clock so there's time for a look around - I catch a couple of songs by Goldblade in The Empress Ballroom before saying hello to Arturo of The Lurkers whose merchandise stall is by the Bizarre Bazaar backstage door. Then it's back into The Empress for Glen Matlock And The Philistines, Matlock's playing guitar alongside James Stevenson which is a bit of a shame as I've always thought of him as one of rock's great bass players although 'Burning Sounds' and 'God Save The Queen' both sound pretty good to me. Meanwhile over in The Olympia Neck are setting up; I played in the band around 10 years ago and would love to have seen their set but sadly they're on at the same time as us although I managed a few words with Leeson and agreed to meet him later for a drink. I see their first song 'Loud 'n' Proud 'n' Bold' before I had to leave to meet up with T. V. - time to go to work...

We start with 'No Time To Be 21' at exactly 6.30. The room looked full when we started and was definitely full by the end of 'Bored Teenagers' with somewhere between 800 and 1,000 people in depending on whose estimate you believe watching our set. Longtime T.V. fan Kevin had asked for 'The Servant' which I'd like to have made a better job of (I messed up the opening riff - bugger!) although it goes well enough overall. By 'Expensive Being Poor' things are really hotting up and the audience are really on our side - before 'Lion and The Lamb' begins T.V. introduces Pascal Briggs who joins us for the rest of our set, they've worked together out in Germany although I met him for the first time as I shook hands with him on the stage. His arrival pushes us on to even greater heights and 'Gary Gilmore's Eyes' even gets a bit of pogoing, a strange sight at an acoustic show. We finish with 'One Chord Wonders' to audience pandemonium and decidedly non-punky onstage hugs. There's no time for an encore but it didn't matter - we'd been great. Great. Sorry if that sounds big headed but you know when you do a good gig and this wasn't a good gig, it was a great gig. There, I've said it again. I'll stop now. There, I've stopped.

Out on the merchandise stall I shake what seems like the entire audience's hands and T.V. signs CD's and poses for fan photos with Gaye Advert. I grab a few words with John Robb who's on the neighbouring stall before getting asked by several people if The Price will ever play at the festival - I reply as best I can along the lines of 'maybe one day...' I'm talking to Tom from The Phobics as the band in The Bizarre Bazaar are playing 'Louie Louie' it's only when they play 'Love Lies Limp' that it dawns on me that it's A.T.V. so go in for a listen, and very good they are too.

Meanwhile I realise I've left my glasses back at my hotel room and while it's tempting to continue posing in my (prescription) sunglasses it would also be nice to see where I'm going so while it's still light I decide to walk back to get them and to drop my guitar off while I'm there. I'm away for about an hour which give me a chance to clear my head a bit as well as catching up on phone calls and getting something to eat. Well the phone calls went well but the seemingly endless chip shops and takeaways are all closed or closing and there's a huge queue at the afore-mentioned Harry Ramsden's so I go back to The Empress Grill in the venue for the inevitable chips. While I'm there Malcolm from The Price calls, he's at a pub quiz and can't remember the name of the character that Barry Humphries plays that isn't Dame Enda Everage and wonders if I know the name - to my surprise I do! I tell him off for cheating (!) then say something like 'actually I was just talking about you...' before telling him where I am - he's very enthusiastic about a possible gig for us so I decide that I'll see what I can find out a bit later on.

In the meantime there are bands to see - The Lurkers roar through 'I Don't Need To Tell Her' in The Arena, Slaughter And The Dogs are blasting out 'Boston Babies' in The Ballroom and The Beat are skanking their way through 'Twist And Crawl' in The Olympia. I decide to spend most of my time in The Ballroom as I'd not seen Slaughter And The Dogs before, they're very good with their final encore of 'Cranked Up Really High' reminding me what a great song it is even if the singalong end section got a bit to 'showbiz' for my liking.

Out in the bar I bump into Steve Drewett from The Newtown Neurotics who's bemoaning the fact that they've run out of lager; as we're talking I get a call from Leeson who's in the backstage bar (what backstage bar?!?) at The Olympia and Jello Biafra's on soon - meanwhile there are more hands to shake and more Price enquiries, not least from Peter who used to write 'Murder By Fanzine' all those years ago, and a tall Geordie chap called Malcolm - maybe we could get a gig here?

With the lager deficit getting more acute by the second I go back into The Ballroom in search of a drink where The Adicts are doing their stuff - I was never their biggest fan but what they do they do very well. Captain Sensible is on soon in The Bizarre Bazaar but the main event for me is in The Olympia where Jello Biafra And The Guantanamo School Of Medicine delivered a show which was a good as any gig I've ever seen. Biafra has been always one of the great punk orators and his performance here showed that he's showing no sign of mellowing with age. The band were astonishing, he was incredible and by the final encore of 'Holiday In Cambodia' it was obvious that I'd just seen one on the greatest gigs I'll ever be lucky enough to witness. Yes, it was that good. In fact it was better than that. Inspirational stuff.

When I meet up with T.V. and Gaye back at The Bizarre Bazaar Captain Sensible is playing 'Do Anything You Wanna Do' - Paul Gray is on bass, Dave Berk is on drums and Monty from The Damned is on keyboards and it's a great way to end proceedings. The encores of 'Wot' and 'Happy Talk' bring a smile to everybody's faces, T.V. and Gaye are surrounded by well-wishers and I finally get to have a few words with Pascal. 'If we never do anything together again then we did that' he says proudly. Good man.

There's an after show party up in The Spanish Bar where I'm introduced to Jennie who's one of the festival organisers - I brave asking 'the Price question' and to my amazement she seems to be interested in us playing. We agree to e-mail each other to see what can be done. Well - maybe, just maybe...

Incidentally I didn't miss breakfast. But it was close.