Blog: Lost In Shoreditch

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I went up to SHOREDITCH last night, where my faith in the TFL Journey Planner was almost SHATTERED... usually it is a BRILLIANT thing which tells you how to get anywhere in That London from anywhere else, and what tubes, buses, boats and trains you can catch to get there, and if it's easier to walk it says "WALK!", in a slightly disappointed way. It's so useful that MANY times when I've been going somewhere else I find myself logging on to see if it'll tell me how to get from, say, Sheffield Station to the venue I'm after. Oh! If only it COULD be national!

Anyway, it's never let me down before, but last night it REALLY did, as I hopped on a bus from Liverpool Street and found myself MILES away from where I wanted to be... goodness knows how it happened, but suddenly it was 10pm in a really not very pleasant part AT ALL of East London (which itself is not exactly a jewel in our nation's crown), slightly tipsy, having been in the pub with various BROTHERS beforehand, and starting to PANIC that I was going to miss The Fighting Cocks, for LO! it was they who I had travelled to see.

I needn't have worried, because I finally arrived back at the venue to find that they had swapped places with a Band From New York. Now, you've just read the words "Band From New York", and I'd guess that the first thought that flashed through your mind was of one of the 15,000,000 bloody dreary sub-Strokes four pieces, who all dress in EXACTLY the same way, play EXACTLY the same sub-pub-rub "New" Wave dullness, YELP witless proclamations from the stage, and have a name beginning with "The". Well, I'm not sure WHAT their name was, but in every other respect this is EXACTLY what they were like, they were even doing that PAINFULLY SHITE thing where the singer GETS! SO! EXCITED! about what he's singing (why, i do not know), that he PHYSICALLY RECOILS from the microphone. GAH! Tuneless, pointless, witless and woeful they were, but for some reason various people were getting quite excited - perhaps they had never SEEN a band before? This is the solution I generally come round to in these cases... the only DIFFERENT thing about these production line pillocks to all the OTHERS that wash up on our shores and (NB Metaphor Ahead) inconvenience the seagulls is that, apparently, their female fans always turn up in their PANTS. Oh yes, down the front was a small clutch of women in ill-advised underwear, dancing unalluringly in suspenders... i guess it's meant to be daring and decadent, but to be honest having all those backsides hanging around wasn't particularly nice. I don't waft my old arse around near other people's pints, and I see no reason other people should think they are being GROOVY by doing the similar.

Anyway, after all that it was FINALLY time for The Fighting Cocks to take the stage and, as ever, they were GRATE. Along with Charlie now there are FOUR Lady Cocks, so that when they all sung together it was like being MOBBED, but GRATE. It's funny that the more they all dress up in PVC and sing songs DESIGNED to be provocative, the more you want to go and give them all a big HUG. I think it's probably the fact that they all seem rather pleased to be there, and are obviously having FUN. ESPECIALLY when they did "Love Somebody", which sounded FANTASTIC.

So in the end all was WELL, and I dashed off for the INSANELY LATE train full of JOY. I love going to GIGS, gigs are GRATE!

posted 29/10/2004 by MJ Hibbett

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