Halfax

The pub venue is rammed to capacity and its only 9 o’clock on a Friday night, enough to make any promoter get the hots so everyone smiles like it Christmas or something and I grin along too. I’ve just been walkabouts and eaten half decent chips [no bits] on a wall watching a gang of young skater kids toiling there thing beneath the misty moonlight.I don’t hang around too long cause it’s freezing. We didn't really haver skate boards when I were a lad...I wish we had though. Back at the venue [outside the pub] there’s a punch up between a taxi driver and a fraught punter but no one’s really too bothered; the car skids and squeals off into god knows where and the kid disappears just as the police arrive. It’s a busy old night at The Red Lion I meander through the 80’s karaoke session kareoke downstairs which looks a bit dodgy to be honest but who am I to say. The Japanese like it. Tonights venue is the notorious DOGHOUSE Club which is directly above. I’m due onstage at 11pm so there’s more time to kill yet which I do in the makeshift dressing room that is a pub kitchen where I mind peoples coats and talk about the whys and wherefores of the new record to those who’ve come here for my benefit though most are here it must be said to see local band Prime Mover who sound not unlike The Chameleons. They carry everything off pretty well and there are Mums and Dads here keeping an eye out. I liked their directness and their apparent embarrassment at being shadowed parent style. I watch them from the hall as there’s no actual physical space available in the actual room. Next on are Bradford’s Random Hand, a ska thrash fusion explosion with trombone and energy and frenzy in abundance. They are really good at what they do and I enjoy a few words with them to that effect when they come offstage. My gig goes really well even if I do say so myself, after a dodgy start due to the favoured but totally unreliable Casio B460 I settle into it, people even listen to the words. I finish with a couple of encores including Big Grey Hospital which brings a lump to my throat as it’s the first time I’ve played it since my brother died in 2001. It figures on Whatever happened to VP and someone requested it and remarkably I remembered the words. I also finish with King of Cabaret [I've still not recorded it] which goes down a storm. I can never make my mind up about that song…sometimes it seems to work so well...other times well... All in all and all is well, back home in the middle of the night I think I see the house mouse on the worktops disappearing behind the bread maker. VPx