Sinister: Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 18:51:41 +0100

[Gardiner, Stuart]

OK, time for some serious reporting back (she said, eating a chicken).

There was a gig last night. You might have heard about it. You might have
heard everything you want to know about it, in which case you may as well
delete this now.

On arrival in Manchester, the signs were looking good - they were even
playing the Divine Comedy in Burger King. (although quite why I was looking
at the signs I'm not sure, since I got there by train). So I headed to the
pub to find a gaggle of Sinisterines. Well OK, I actually walked straight
past the pub until Amy came running out onto the street yelling at me -
obviously putting the name of the pub on a sign above the door would have
been too much to ask... Inside were various stars of list and screen.
Amongst other discoveries were that brotherly love is still alive and well
in the Apps household; and that stars of TV's Holby City like to relax by
eating lollypops smothered in Dairylea. Meanwhile, Cay arrived violently,
and much beer was consumed.

At about 7.30ish, we decided it was about time to head over to the Apollo,
so we'd be in plenty of time for the support band. Of course, by the time
we'd stopped at a newsagents and a bank, and been lectured on the correct
method for making chicken soup by a random woman on the bus (apparently Cay
should "find some flour and get her dumplings out"...), we'd missed the
support act completely. Oh well, I'm sure they weren't that great. Cay
violently managed to get us about 10 rows from the front, which was nice.
maybe not so nice for the people standing behind me, but never mind. Didn't
someone say there was a sticky carpet in the venue? where we were it was
just a slippy floor covered in beer glasses. Which made dancing that little
bit harder.

The gig started well, with two of the best songs. But then things seemed to
get a bit muted. A few people near the front were dancing their cotton socks
off, but disappointingly few I thought. Maybe it was the band not putting as
much energy into it; far more likely, it was that the audience around me
weren't as mad for it (obligatory Manchester reference). I seemed to be
surrounded by couply couples, which is never a good thing. Oh, and a ginger
goblin standing to my right (if you're on the list, I'm sorry. Actually, sod
it, it's as well that someone tells you; very few people look good with a
moustache and bushy beard, and I'm afraid you're not one of them). At one
point in the gig (I think it was during You Made Me Forget My Dreams), the
girl on my right said to the bloke who'd had his arm round her all night
(approximate transcription):

Her: "Would you get really embarrassed now if I got down on one kneee?"
Him: "Not really, why, would you?"
Her: "Yes, I would a bit."
Him: "That's where we're different. I really do want to marry you."

For a while, I was convinced I was going to have a marriage proposal
happening right next to me in the audience!

After a few quieter songs, Stuart got to the 'audience request' section. His
first plan was that since we were in the "music capital of the world" (cue
cheers and laughter from different sections of the audience), there must be
loads of people there who were in famous bands; so he was going to get them
to all come up on stage and do a song. Unfortunately, the best he managed
was 2 members of Alfie, so that fell a bit flat. So instead, Stevie did a
version of Suspicious Minds, which was suspiciously good and well-rehearsed.
The gig then proceeded more or less as expected. Alarmingly few people had
the stamina to keep clapping all the way through TBWTAS (and half of them
were out of time...), and there still weren't all that many people dancing
by the end, but que sera sera.

As usual, they finished with Legal Man, but with a difference. During the
instrumental break in the middle when they normally get all the string
section and so on to bang bongos and cowbells and stuff, a sudden change in
the bassline brought the Stone Roses into the equation; and they segued
seamlessly into a cover of I Am The Resurrection, quite possibly the
greatest song ever to come out of Manchester. Much delirious armwaving
later, they went back into the final part of Legal Man to finish.

Now I'm not 100% sure about any of this, since I didn't write it down at the
time, and it's almost certainly in the wrong order; but the setlist went
something along the lines of:

Sleep The Clock Around (as always, far better live than the album version)
There's Too Much Love
The Magic Of A Kind Word (he's still singing "Shake Mother Goose"...)
Seeing Other People
String Bean Jean
I Want To Dance The Night Away (oops, sorry, Wandering Alone, easy mistake
to make)
Don't Leave The Light On Baby
You Made Me Forget My Dreams
Is It Wicked Not To Care?
Suspicious Minds (Elvis lives...)
The Model
Instrumental (with Stevie on the harmonica. I think this was previously
known as Tigermilk, not sure what they're callling it now - maybe this is
Fuck This Shit?)
Me And The Major
I'm Waking Up To Us
Like Dylan In The Movies
The Wrong Girl
Dirty Dream #2
The Boy With The Arab Strap
Legal Man / I Am The Resurrection

At the end of the gig, we resisted the arsehole bouncers as long as possible
(if they stopped shouting at us all to leave the building, and actually
hepled out in the coakroom instead, it'd be a lot quicker...) before
wandering back into town. One burger and chips later, time to head for the
Star and Garter for the official aftershow party; where more sinisteringes
awaited us. After a while, and a few drinks, enough energy was built up
which had to be used up on the dancefloor, where we were greeted by a
mixture of indie tunes of varying vintage and obscurity; the inevitable
Strokes record; and such classics as Teenage Kicks and even a bit of
Blondie. Most of the band didn't make it, but Stuart Murdoch was there
(obviously the real party animal in the band...). Covert surveillance noted
that he wasn't dancing much (not really his type of music I suspect), and
spent most of the night either signing autographs on the back of tickets or
being chatted up by young ladies (unsurprisingly unsuccessfully). And the
real anoraks out there may want to know that he was wearing a white shirt
with a black jacket, but no tie. He left at about 2.30, freeing the DJ to
put a couple of B&S records on for those of us who were hardy / foolish
enough to be still dancing.

And then we all went home. Well actually, it wasn't for a bit longer,
because the first train back wasn't until 4.30am, and since it was a Virgin
train it got me back here an hour later than in should have done, at nearly
9 o'clock this morning. So I'm not feeling particularly awake today (I don't
do mornings. Ever. I only discovered about two years ago that 6 o'clock
happens twice a day).

Hello everyone who was there. And since I'm an impartial sort of person,
hello to everyone who wasn't there as well. We missed you. We talked about
several of you (you, over there, are a dirty old man. And you, over there,
are just disgusting). It was a good night (/ early morning). Roll on the
next tour...

Big Stu


PS We've had IYFS, TBWTAS and FYHCYWLAP; is the new album going to be known
as S?

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