What an old headbanger I still am! Two gigs in a week ( should have been three but missed out on Rose Tattoo tickets).
This one was an added pleasure as I'd won the tickets! A free gig ! Couldn't be better! Of course 'free' gig is a little misleading, add on train tickets, taxi to & from the station, dinner, a couple of beers, this was no free gig but it was a bloody good night!
Kentish Town 02 Forum again tonight, it's a nice venue. Originally built in 1934 as a cinema, later it became an Irish dance hall called The Forum and in the early 1980's another name change to The Town and Country Club, a music venue with a capacity of 2100. Like so many other venues it's now owned by Live Nation and called an 02. It's nice that alot of the original Art Deco features have been retained, it really does make for a better experience if the surroundings are pleasant.
Journey very easy and very efficient. First stop for a beer transfusion was to The Bull & Gate, a pub more or less next door to the venue. Another building that has retained some original features, it's been a pub since 1871 actually a gin palace when first built, it's Grade II listed.
In the 1980's it was a music venue and the like of Coldplay & Blur were nurtured here. No music now but a bloody good pub. Well kept beers, I was on Sambrook's 'Wandle' Ale. At 3.8% a good quaffing beer for a gig. The brewery is local, only a few miles away near Battersea Power Station & Wandle is the name of the river there, not a river I'd ever heard of.
Dinner then. Lambs liver with bacon, parsley mash and onion for me with Tara having a veggie meal of warm roasted fig and squash with cob nuts . Not a great amount of choice here for her but better than some, however the surroundings were nice including a very ornate marble sink in the Ladies...….Tara told me.
Apparently Spike from The Quireboys had looked in for a pint alittle earlier, shame we missed him an other gig goer met him and had a selfie taken as well. Not sure I'd have done that, may have depended on how many beers I'd have had. I try not to get star struck!
An early start with three support bands, we were in for a good night! Bit of a kerfuffle to get in. The bone headed door staff didn't know entirely what they were doing, lets be honest, they are only really needed if fights break out, they probably understand that. Harsh but probably true. Tara stood our ground & we got in the via the queue we were in though it seems it was the wrong queue for the tickets we had, anyhoo….. we were in! Bar! Scrumptious cocktail for T & a bottle of Old Speckled Hen for me.
No seats, bugger! This venue, when I've been before has unreserved seats in the balcony but for tonights performance that was the VIP, special guest area so we couldn't get in there. The very last thing I wanted to inflict on Tara was 4 hours of standing. Mooched about abit, looked at the T shirts that were it has to be said pretty uninspiring, without even the dates of the tour, think I'll look on line for one. Didn't get to ask the price but after Monday's £30 for Camel t's I wasn't holding my hopes up!
'Those Damn Crows' the first band on started about 6.30pm. Tara suggested we lean on a shelf type thing that backed onto the sound desk, this was a very good move, other than the blokes working the sound desk in front of us we had an excellent view.
'Those Damn Crows' were very very good, from Wales they belted out a great set. Only knew one of the songs that has been played on Planet Rock. The station seems to like them as they've played a couple of Planet Rock festivals, a debut album comes out in October that I have taken the liberty of pre-ordering. I liked them that much! Tara also thought they were good.
'Aaron Buchanan & the Cult Classics' were something of a let down tbh. Anyone who puts their own name in a band title must be viewed with suspicion. Aaron, a strange little chap who wore belt and braces, thinks he's very good, I suppose you've got to have an ego to be in the music business, he also likes crowd surfing (yawn!). They did their stuff and left the stage. Unmoved we waited for the third support act and this band did not disappoint! H.E.A.T. came on! From Sweden, their English of course impeccable, even the swear words! Can't find out why their title has full stops in between each letter, could be like W.A.S.P. and have no reason at all! But what the hell, their set was brilliant! Erik, the singer , had a sort of Mohican hair style without the gel so as he vigorously headbanged his hair was strangely compelling! For some unknown reason he did like to spit on stage. Always a horrible thing to do this just made him look an idiot which is a shame because the music was brilliant.
The Quireboys came on about 9.30pm and were great! The whole point of tonight's gig was to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their album Homewreckers & Heartbreakers that was played from beginning to end. I quite like that idea. The album is a good one even though I didn't recognise all of the tracks immediately as live they were played abit differently. Then they played other hits they've had ,sad not to hear 'Sex party' but got alot of other great tracks. I could see from looking over at the monitors on the sound desk that several times the music went over their sound limit, I can do loud but sometimes it was difficult to understand the words if you didn't already know the song. Finished at just after 11pm and off we all went. An absolutely cracking evening, here's afew photos and the set list of the Quireboys, still waiting for the others to be published.
This one was an added pleasure as I'd won the tickets! A free gig ! Couldn't be better! Of course 'free' gig is a little misleading, add on train tickets, taxi to & from the station, dinner, a couple of beers, this was no free gig but it was a bloody good night!
Kentish Town 02 Forum again tonight, it's a nice venue. Originally built in 1934 as a cinema, later it became an Irish dance hall called The Forum and in the early 1980's another name change to The Town and Country Club, a music venue with a capacity of 2100. Like so many other venues it's now owned by Live Nation and called an 02. It's nice that alot of the original Art Deco features have been retained, it really does make for a better experience if the surroundings are pleasant.
Journey very easy and very efficient. First stop for a beer transfusion was to The Bull & Gate, a pub more or less next door to the venue. Another building that has retained some original features, it's been a pub since 1871 actually a gin palace when first built, it's Grade II listed.
In the 1980's it was a music venue and the like of Coldplay & Blur were nurtured here. No music now but a bloody good pub. Well kept beers, I was on Sambrook's 'Wandle' Ale. At 3.8% a good quaffing beer for a gig. The brewery is local, only a few miles away near Battersea Power Station & Wandle is the name of the river there, not a river I'd ever heard of.
Dinner then. Lambs liver with bacon, parsley mash and onion for me with Tara having a veggie meal of warm roasted fig and squash with cob nuts . Not a great amount of choice here for her but better than some, however the surroundings were nice including a very ornate marble sink in the Ladies...….Tara told me.
Apparently Spike from The Quireboys had looked in for a pint alittle earlier, shame we missed him an other gig goer met him and had a selfie taken as well. Not sure I'd have done that, may have depended on how many beers I'd have had. I try not to get star struck!
An early start with three support bands, we were in for a good night! Bit of a kerfuffle to get in. The bone headed door staff didn't know entirely what they were doing, lets be honest, they are only really needed if fights break out, they probably understand that. Harsh but probably true. Tara stood our ground & we got in the via the queue we were in though it seems it was the wrong queue for the tickets we had, anyhoo….. we were in! Bar! Scrumptious cocktail for T & a bottle of Old Speckled Hen for me.
No seats, bugger! This venue, when I've been before has unreserved seats in the balcony but for tonights performance that was the VIP, special guest area so we couldn't get in there. The very last thing I wanted to inflict on Tara was 4 hours of standing. Mooched about abit, looked at the T shirts that were it has to be said pretty uninspiring, without even the dates of the tour, think I'll look on line for one. Didn't get to ask the price but after Monday's £30 for Camel t's I wasn't holding my hopes up!
'Those Damn Crows' the first band on started about 6.30pm. Tara suggested we lean on a shelf type thing that backed onto the sound desk, this was a very good move, other than the blokes working the sound desk in front of us we had an excellent view.
'Those Damn Crows' were very very good, from Wales they belted out a great set. Only knew one of the songs that has been played on Planet Rock. The station seems to like them as they've played a couple of Planet Rock festivals, a debut album comes out in October that I have taken the liberty of pre-ordering. I liked them that much! Tara also thought they were good.
'Aaron Buchanan & the Cult Classics' were something of a let down tbh. Anyone who puts their own name in a band title must be viewed with suspicion. Aaron, a strange little chap who wore belt and braces, thinks he's very good, I suppose you've got to have an ego to be in the music business, he also likes crowd surfing (yawn!). They did their stuff and left the stage. Unmoved we waited for the third support act and this band did not disappoint! H.E.A.T. came on! From Sweden, their English of course impeccable, even the swear words! Can't find out why their title has full stops in between each letter, could be like W.A.S.P. and have no reason at all! But what the hell, their set was brilliant! Erik, the singer , had a sort of Mohican hair style without the gel so as he vigorously headbanged his hair was strangely compelling! For some unknown reason he did like to spit on stage. Always a horrible thing to do this just made him look an idiot which is a shame because the music was brilliant.
The Quireboys came on about 9.30pm and were great! The whole point of tonight's gig was to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their album Homewreckers & Heartbreakers that was played from beginning to end. I quite like that idea. The album is a good one even though I didn't recognise all of the tracks immediately as live they were played abit differently. Then they played other hits they've had ,sad not to hear 'Sex party' but got alot of other great tracks. I could see from looking over at the monitors on the sound desk that several times the music went over their sound limit, I can do loud but sometimes it was difficult to understand the words if you didn't already know the song. Finished at just after 11pm and off we all went. An absolutely cracking evening, here's afew photos and the set list of the Quireboys, still waiting for the others to be published.
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| Ornate sinks in the ladies karzi in the Bull & Gate. |
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| Those Damn Crows |
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| Aaron Buchanan |
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Spike doing what he does best!
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