Blog: Record Shop Day In Altrincham

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I set off for distant ALTRINCHAM on Saturday, where I was due to play at Beatnik Records, a brand new record shop opening its doors for the first time on Record Shop Day.

I had to go most of the way there on a MASSIVE Virgin Train (there were about a MILLION carriages) and as usual I was moved to think "Virgin Trains are shit". This time I was moved so to think by the fact that the "reservation screens" weren't working. It was hard to tell because, OBVIOUSLY, the little displays that tell you whether you can sit on a screen are so DARK and TINY you can't see them ANYWAY, but this time, apparently, they were still "downloading" when we set off (and when I, and loads of other people, had had to jiggle their seats around). Two hours later, when I arrived for my change at Stockport, they STILL hadn't started working.

ANYWAY, after that the rest of the day was DELIGHTFUL - the sun was shining and SPRING seemed to be showing up. I strolled through Sunny Altrincham, amazed that anywhere could have SO MANY chip shops (it smelt LOVELY) and arrived at Beatnik to be greeted by Grant and co, who were catering to a HUGE crowd of people who were packing the shop out. So busy was it that soon i was forced - FORCED - to decamp next door to the Belgian Beer Bar (one of THREE in the area, apparently - they like Belgian Beer almost as much as they like CHIPS in Altrincham, and who can blame them?) where I enjoyed some TASTY, yet SENSIBLY STRENGTHED, beers in the sunshine. GOOD TIMES.

Eventually though it was time for me to get on with what I had come to do, so I stood up in the shop window and did THIS:

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

Clubbing In The Week

My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once

Do The Indie Kid

Get Over It

Theme From Dinosaur Planet

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Boom Shake The Room

It was AMAZINGLY good fun to be back doing a "normal" set again - this was the first time I'd done such a thing in over five months - and it was HUGELY gratifying to get one of the best reactions of the day for Get Over It too. People seemed to like it - some people were DETERMINEDLY studying vinyl racks throughout, but it IS a record shop so that's fine, and some took a bit of persuading - one small child took several songs to change his mind from a definite thumbs down to a double thumbs up towards the end - but there was singing along and clapping and general SMILES. I was pleased!

I was also WHOOZY - it turns out that standing in a huge glass window on a sunny day, ROCKING OUT, will do that to you, so a pint of water and a cup of tea were downed in quick succession, before I fell to CHAT with several of the DELIGHTFUL people who had turned up, moving on later to further BEERS imported from next door. It turned out that a lot of the attendees were former members of The Word Magazine's message boards, so I knew I was in good company.

Soon it was time to wobble off home again. It turned out that about ten minutes after I'd gone MIKE JOYCE from THE SMITHS happened to turn out, but that was the ONLY part of the day I would have changed. We've since spoken about a return trip later in the year - I do hope it happens, I had a GRATE day!

posted 23/4/2013 by MJ Hibbett

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