Blog: A Reunion In Whitstable

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Sunday lunchtime found me at Stratford Not Really International Station, from where I would usually be heading into town on the short journey to St Pancras Actually International Station to work or similar. THIS time however I was heading SOUTH, to distant Whitstable and a GIG!

For LO! a few weeks ago Mr T Pattison of The Validators had asked if I fancied coming and playing a GIG with him and Mrs E Pattison at Tim's sister's BIRTHDAY party. I definitely DID want to do that, and so it was that I found myself stomping through the aforesaid Whitstable where Amanada lives and to her HOUSE, which was entirely full of PEOPLE eating leftovers from the previous night's party - she was having TWO parties! ROCK!

After some GRUB me, Tim and Emma got set up for a practice. Partly this was due to us not having played together for AGES, but also because we hadn't played some of the songs Amanda had requested for OVER A DECADE. The Database Of ROCK would have come in very handy here, except that it wasn't working at the time (a pre-cursor, I think, to the more widespread AWS outage), so it was not until later in the day that we worked out quite how long it is since those songs had last been played in public.

It was lovely to all be playing together, and it sounded DEAD GOOD, so we set off to the venue a little later full of confidence that it would be GRATE. This took a very slight knock, for me at least, as the evening went on as I realised that this was a PARTY attended by loads of PALS who very much wanted to see and CHAT with each other rather than watch people playing music. In the circumstances this is ENTIRELY understandable and easy just to give up and go along with, so it was BRILLIANT to see the first act, Amanda's son Jasper, doing a PROPER set where he went for it with his own stuff and also did some VERY WISE cover songs to get people listening.

It was therefore excellent to be able to follow him, once he'd done all the hard work of setting it all up, and do THIS:

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

Mental Judo

Better Things To Do

Girlfriend Alarmed

It Only Works Because You're here

Easily Impressed

We Did It Anyway

It sounded REALLY GOOD and it was wonderful to see people listening to us intently and GETTING it - it was especially lovely to see The Young Cousins actually singing along with some of it, making me suddenly realise that - YIKES - for them we had ALWAYS existed and been part of their childhood as their parents' friends and BAND. There were people there I had held as TINY BABIES who now have their own GARAGES and BIG FREEZERS, how is this possible?!?

The best bit though was playing with Tim and Emma, which was LOVELY. When I look back on some of the many gigs we've done one of my main memories is of WORRYING and constantly looking round to check everyone's OK, but this felt PEASY, like we were falling into some kind of MUSICALITY with each other. I was listening to them, they were listening to me, and together we were MAKING something. Maybe this is me finally MATURING into someone who can actually play with other people properly, as it's a feeling I've had when I've been practicing with Chris down in Brighton too. Have I become a - YIKES! - MUSICIAN after all these years?!?

Either way it was great fun, and just a shame that I had to FLEE shortly afterwards to head back to That London. It was a lovely day and a GRATE gig - maybe our future is as a BIRTHDAY BAND?

posted 21/10/2025 by MJ Hibbett

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