Only half afloat

I went to a gig last week, to see From The Jam. Songkick tells me it's the ninth time I've seen them. On more than half those occasions I've been accompanied in my nostalgia by The Man Of Cheese, and so I was again last week. We were also joined this time by Roachford (not the Cuddly Toy singer, it's just another very-mature-indeed nickname). The venue was a hangar-like hall on the seafront of a coastal town that has been through the recession cycle (trendy, popular, unpopular, broken, rough as, forgot to bomb, trendy again, popular again) and is emerging up into the light. So what can I tell you about the night?

Well, support came from what's left of Buzzcocks - another band I've seen multiple times, but this was the first time I'd seen them since Pete Shelley died. Steve Diggle has moved across the stage to take up lead vocal duties, his space on the right wing taken by new guitarist Mani Perazzoli (thanks Wikipedia). Diggle gave it his all, and rattled through the expected hits well enough, as you'd expect. He wasn't helped by the atrocious acoustics, but even in a different venue I think we'd still have missed Pete. Predictably, the band closed with Harmony In My Head, one of the tracks that has always been Steve's to sing. You can't blame him, I'd have done the same. I mean, he wrote that one, after all.

I'm not going to review From The Jam. I've blogged about them before, several times and (incredibly) as long as sixteen years ago, so you know what I think about them already. In summary then: yes, only one third of the actual Jam are involved in this; yes, the one new song in the set sticks out like a sore thumb, but fair play to them for trying; yes, most of the crowd know all the words to every song; no, Russell Hastings is not Paul Weller; and no, you're not going to see anything new. But you are going to have a good night (even with poor acoustics) and this really is as close as you're going to get to the real McCoy. I can only recommend them.

Anyway, we stumbled out of the venue, ears humming, other senses slightly dulled by beer and vodka. The last train home beckoned ... until Roachford suggested we had time for a last quick drink in the pub next door... which led to us not even trying to get the last train... which led to us moving on to another pub up the road which had a DJ on... and the DJ's set seemed specifically designed for Buzzcocks and Jam gig-goers, being crammed as it was with late 70s and early 80s new wave, ska, mod and punk tunes. Ideal, in other words.

I'm not going to post a Buzzcocks song, or a Jam song either. Instead, here's a tune that got myself and The Man Of Cheese dancing around that small coastal pub like we were forty years younger. I know this, despite the alcoholic haze, because Roachford captured us on camera. The next day, as I watched his video for the first time, I looked at a man that was wearing my clothes but that I didn't really recognise and thought, "God, what a state." Slightly bald, slightly fat, slightly grey, slightly old. Slightly someone else. Not remotely me. Except it was me, of course. The Man Of Cheese summarised it better though, as he usually does, when he noted that it was quite scary to see the reality against what's in your head: how you think you look compared to how you actually are. Putting aside my conceit though, what the video really shows is me and and my dearest friend, doing our best impersonation of Suggs's best impersonation of a rude-boy skank, like we were twelve at a school disco, and with not a care in the world...

I can smile about it now, of course, and it's a great reminder of a brilliant night with my oldest friends. That said, the video won't be going public any time soon... nor will I be dancing in public any time soon either. Well, not until the next time, anyway. Until then, here's what got us moving...