Unexpectedly Good

Thursday 28th February: ...and this week my night out with the Music Club takes place on a Thursday. My next appearance will probably be March the 12th - a Wednesday. I'm getting closer to being sued by Sheryl Crow...

Anyway, back to the evening in question. Five English pounds had granted us access to Fibbers, where the highly-regarded (at least by the rest of the gang) Four Day Hombre were headlining. More on them later because first up was Lights - essentially Ben Leftwich on guitar, aided by a backing guitarist whose name I didn't catch. Ben used to be frontman with The Nicoles, who I saw for their final gig last year. I remember them being pretty good, but don't actually recall too much about the gig itself. Unfortunately, this half-hour acoustic set was filled with very similar sounding songs and, on his own, Ben has very little stage presence. Although he does have a good voice, a bit more variety is needed to keep me interested, I'm afraid.

Next up were The New Adventures and there was a lot more stage presence and definitely more movement. At times lead-singer Jez was positively manic in front of the microphone! Strong drum lines, courtesy of Nick, and Helen's impressive keyboards added to the enjoyment of this indie rock band's excellent set. Helen's very feminine backing vocals provided a very effective counterpoint to Jez's lead and each song seemed to have a slightly different style to all the others while still giving the band a recognisable identity throughout the set. All three of us were impressed by this new (to us) band. A single due soon - hopefully an album will follow.

Finally, the aforementioned Four Day Hombre. I had borrowed their first CD, "Experiments in Living" and, while it was growing on me, it wasn't really my sort of thing. Too slow and with with vocals that reminded me of Athlete, was my first impression. After a couple of listenings, I was comparing the vocals more to Snow Patrol, at least in parts. So, as they took to the stage I was thinking that they would be hard-pressed to be better than The New Adventures. How wrong could I have been?

Playing live, 4DH are much rockier (heavier, even) than is apparent on the CD. Even the one song I recognised (most of the set was new songs, some destined for the next album) was vastly different from the recorded version. With a nice line in witty audience repartee - "We've never said we do this to be professional. That would involve getting paid." - this was a band quite obviously on stage to have fun. Halfway through, lead-singer Simon Wainwright forgot the words to one song because he was trying to remember the words to Salisbury Hill, which prompted guitarist Rich Huxley to start playing the Peter Gabriel classic. A rock cover of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill was also in evidence.

Without a duff song in the hour-plus long set, this was much, much better than I was expecting and I was certainly surprised by how different a band can be between recording and playing live. Overall, including The New Adventures, this was approximately 100 minutes of the finest music I have had the pleasure of experiencing at Fibbers. So far...

Saturday 23rd February: ...and the Friday Night Music Club found itself out, once again, on a Saturday evening. Perhaps from now on it should be referred to as the Weekend Music Club. Except that the two regulars were at Fibbers on Thursday. Is the Anytime We Want Music Club too cumbersome? Anyway, I digress...



With a guest appearance from my wife (along with appearances from the Holland and Strensall chapters) we all met up at the Roman Bath to see the excellent Breathing Space. Being quite a bit smaller than the Post Office Social Club, where Debbie and I had seen the band before, the Bath was quite packed. After a while though, we managed to get to the front and were treated to a superb show featuring songs from both the Breathing Space "Coming Up Air" and Iain Jennings "Breathing Space albums".


Lead singer Livvy (left) produced some soaring vocals and performed well, despite difficult current circumstances (if you aren't aware of them, it's not my place to tell you). There was an emotional introduction to "Belief" and a hint of tears at the end of the song.


Musically, the band seemed to be a bit more experimental than they were at the CD launch. Iain Jennings, especially, produced some new sounds from the keyboards. The whole ensemble was, at times, breath-taking producing a fusion of ambience, keyboard rock and mainstream pop, with just a hint of prog rock thrown in for good measure.


Breathing Space seem to have a hardcore of fans. I recognised a number of faces in the audience from the Post Office gig and at least one other had travelled from Lancaster to see them, spending the night in York before returning home (and to work) on Sunday. Other members of the audience were recognisable for other reasons - there were a few members of Mostly Autumn in evidence, including Brian Josh, who I chatted with and told him how much I liked his music, Heather Findlay and Andy Smith, who was working the light show. One of the guitarists from Freeway was also there, either doing sound or lights (I think).


After the gig, Debbie was treated to the club's end of night tradition - that of standing on a street corner attempting to be humorous before dispersing into the night. Aaaah, it's almost like being in the Mason's...

What a Cheek!!

Thursday 21st February: It's not often that something fires me up enough to want to rant about it, but a phonecall that I received yesterday has left me fuming.

Last Christmas, as part of my wife's present, I "adopted" a tiger for her through the WWF. To do this, you decide an amount that you want to pay every month for a year. I chose £5. That money is, apparently, used to fund the WWF's work into safeguarding the specific species that you chose to adopt/support.

The phonecall was from a reprensentative of the WWF who thanked me profusely (many times) for my support, asked why I chose to adopt a tiger and told me a little bit about the organisation's results in its work to help Siberian tigers in the wild. So far, all well and good.

Then the bombshell. After just three payments of my annual subscription, I was asked whether I would consider doubling it. When I declined (out of both principle and current financial situation) it was then suggested that I increase the monthly donation by £1.

What a cheek! And, perhaps, the worst thing is that the caller stated that he was being paid a fee for making the calls.

Before this call, I had every intention of taking out another adoption, probably for a different animal, next Christmas. After being hassled like this I will now think twice before giving the WWF more money in this way.

Well done guys! That fund-raising call may just have backfired.