Time to pucker up and kiss the asphalt now. Get away. Get away.
Hitting the road, on tour, road trip, on the tails of the stupendous Desperate Journalist.
First stop – Bristol Exchange. Then Nottingham Bodega on Thursday, Leeds Belgrave Music Hall on Friday, and Manchester Yes on Saturday. It could kill us. We’re not as young as we used to be. You’d think that would make us wiser. Apparently not.
As a great philosopher once said, “I almost hope I get hit by a bus, for my body’s sake, so it didn’t have to suffer the hell I’m going to put it through”. Start 2025 as you mean to go on. Wish us luck.
It’s a beautiful grey day. The blue skies of the weekend past have deserted us but it’s a bit milder. So that’s nice. But we will be travelling north tomorrow so there’s an extra jumper packed and the windscreen washer fluid is a 50:50 ratio rather than your 90:10 water to fluid. These things are important. Safety first. Rock’n’Roll with precautions.
Let the Mazda 2 hit the M4.
Sun gets in your eyes. Where did that come from? Bristol is shimmering in the early evening golden sunset. It really is beautiful reflecting off my pint. Slow and steady apparently wins the race. Got to drive to Nottingham tomorrow. Longest journey. Take it easy, chicken.
The Exchange looks a bit like the outside of a coffee shop, slightly hidden by the protruding frontage of the Stag and Hounds next door, but is like Mary Poppins bag inside. It goes deep. First up, is KEELY, with an ill Andrew Paresi on drums, purveyors of post-punk riffs that masquerade as Dream Pop on record allegedly so the axe-wielding is a nice surprise. She ravages each song with more hooks than a butcher’s and layers each songs lyrics about injustices and murder from her home in Ireland of Inga Maria Hauser that infuses everything she does.
Desperate Journalist slink on stage to Simple Minds as usual (the band, I’m not suggesting the audience are idiots) and crash into ‘Adah’ opening track on the latest masterpiece No Hero as expected. They told us on the socials that they had rehearsed 23 songs and this is perhaps the longest set I’ve seen them play in something approaching 40 shows. 17 songs spanning their five LPs, including personal favourites ‘Consolation Prize’ on its first live outing, and the best of all-time contender ‘Heartbeats’ one of the most heart-wrenching, tear-jerking choruses you’ll ever hear.
The new record had a good outing, all but three made an appearance but are likely to show their faces later on this week. The encore opened with a blistering ‘Control’ the first song on the first album. It was born to be the first song in a set but this works just as well. A good compromise.
An excellent start at an excellent independent venue. With Independent Venue Week coming up, it’s more important than ever to come to these places and keep them alive and watch brilliant bands like tonight. Don’t let it die. Don’t let the big nobs win. You’ll have no festival headliners at all if you don’t.
See you in Nottingham
