A pint of chips and a side order of fine music.
Bank holidays are great, even if you don’t work in a bank as you still get the day off work. The most recent one coincided with the second Specks in the Sky night organised by my friend David at the Wilmington Arms so off we went to fancy London…
Me and my man in the pub before the gig. Refreshing alcopoppy cider was drunk.
As the tubes tend to hibernate at the weekends due to the endless repair work we had to drive into town which turned out to be quite kerfuffle-free. Parking the car is always the hardest part of this but we found a spot near the pub and met our pretend adopted daughter Cheryl for a drink and exploration of the journey to the toilets. The pub had a collection of indie rock style free papers which made me remember my London-living era of the 90′s when I would end up with piles of those things after going out and about.
Signage about signs.
There was a slight delay in the opening of the venue part of the building but that meant we could walk off some of the drink by wandering about and then getting rained on.
This is a montage sequence
What about the actual gig? Well… there was refreshing ginger beer, Jonny Cola (formerly Alex of Luxembourg and currently the named man in Jonny Cola and the A-Grades) DJing on decks that included and old fashioned telephone as part of the equipment and playing Lucky Soul, Belle & Sebastian and more, Owen Duff doing the opening set with a bit of guitar and then a bit of piano… and then a Melting Ice Caps ‘turn.’
One man, a Discman and a woman with flip chart sheets.
This was a more back to basics version of the ‘band’ with David accompanied by his backing tracks that were prepared earlier and played by the handy CD Walkman which sat on the stool. We got a couple of the old songs (available for free on the website) and a bunch of new material which I assume is from the forthcoming album (arriving soon). A mixed range of styles, speeds and tones including some that could be described as love song style numbers but still with the familiar sense of humour and that English thing of not taking yourself too seriously which I admire in my songwriters. I have no song titles to rave about but the addition of Ice Caps guitarist Aurore with lyrics on flip chart sheets for two of the numbers definitely added to the entertainment value, especially when it was hard for her to keep up with the speed of what was being sung.
All these songs, on the floor
Key words for this performance: Witty, Arch, Thoughtful, Piano, Discman, Charm, Indie, Synthpop, Flipchart, Pop. Fantastic!
Not from the night but this post needs music so here are Tell Me I’m Wrong and Pavlovian Boy:
Souvenir, with Cheryl
What am I going to do with my flip chart sheet? I love my souvenirs. We ended up being rather hungry after David’s Ice Caps performance so it was off to the pub part of the building for grub, including a marvellous Pint Of Chips. Kind of a potatoey knickerbocker glory once I added the mayonnaise.
For more information on the Specks in the Sky nights there is a page on ruddy Facebook.
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