My Exciting Life in ROCK (part 2): 16/10/2003 - The Vine, Leeds

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I like Leeds, I really do - I've had many good times there and know some EXTREMELY lovely people who grew up there - but there's one thing that always bothers me about it.

Everybody in Leeds is ALWAYS DRUNK.

Some might say this KEENLY HELD BELIEF is based on skewed data. After all, the life of a Travelling ROCK Musician is one lived mainly in the NIGHT. Normally when I go to gigs it's at least twilight, if not entirely dark yet, and at that time of day ANY city centre will be populated by people, if not drunk yet, at least on the way.

It is true that I have INDEED mostly seen Leeds by night - and my word, the THINGS I HAVE SEEN! My clearest memory of Leeds by night is of struggling through a city centre RAMMED with incredibly drunk people and seeing a Fire Engine go by. "The only vehicle NOT to contain drunk people!" I thought as it sped past... only for a HEN NIGHT of screeching pissed women to lean out of the windows, and HOWL.

However, it is THIS gig which belays that criticism of my analysis as, due to the need NOT to pay five million quid for a train ticket, I arrived in the middle of the afternoon. I expected to find a completely different city, tranquil and calm, populated by people finishing off some shopping or nipping home early from work, but no. EVERYBODY WAS DRUNK.

I decided to take refuge in a PUB. This is not, on the face of it, a very sensible strategy when trying to escape hordes of incredibly drunk people, but I find that it's usually the people staggering from one chain pub to the next who are the most TERRIFYING, and that if you stick to Old Man's Pubs you'll be all right - especially in the daytime, when only the Professionally Retired (or Professionally DRUNK) can be found in the pub. They're usually nice quiet places where you can relax with a pint and a book.

Not in Leeds. In Leeds all the Old Man's Pubs were HEAVING - the first one I tried had, at 4.30pm, a full-blown KARAOKE SESSION in progress! It was unbelievable - ALL the pubs I found were similarly RAMMED, and eventually I had to cross all sort of mental picket lines and do something I thought I would never have to do whilst officially On The Road: I went for a cup of coffee.

People in the coffee shop didn't seem quite as drunk. It was probably all the coffee, sobering them up.

Eventually it was time to go to the venue and meet The Validators. One of the nice people I know from Leeds is Emma FROM The Validators, who at that point was very very pregnant, also surrounded by family. One of the (many) lovely aspects of being in a band like The Validators which a) is full of DELIGHTFUL people and b) has been on the go for a long time is that our gigs together have gradually turned into a sort of Rolling Stag Do, where you meet each other's family and Other Friends and drink the BEER with them. I don't mean the kind of stag do I had seen SO MANY TIMES throwing up on the streets of Leeds, but the sort you go to with people in their thirties, where everyone LEAPS on the chance to go out and have BEER like in their younger days, but nobody acts like a wanker.

And, of course, there is always plenty of curry.

Such was the case on this particular night (though I think the curry was take away, where these days we do TRY and find a nice place for a sit-down) and a SMASHING time was had by all of us, not least because we were playing with Being 747. We've played with them MANY times and they are always GRATE - like Johnny Domino, who we've also shared many stages with, they're LOVELY people who make surprisingly FRIGHTENING, also TAUT songs that get your JIGGLE to WRIGGLE.

After us and before them, however, was a LUDICROUSLY histrionic Heavy Metal band who looked about TWELVE but carried on like they'd stopped listening to music after 1975 and thought that the HEIGHT of butch manliness was a luxuriant moustache and a lycra catsuit. As ever, the soundman, who was REALLY good, seemed to enjoy them more than anyone. It is a law of soundmen that the BETTER they are, the MORE likely they are to like DOGS D'AMOUR.

The gig finished, we said our goodbyes, and I realised that I'd forgotten one vital aspect of the evening - where on earth was I going to sleep? These days I'd've booked myself a cheapo hotel room well in advance, but this time I'd not gotten round to it, and as Tim and Emma were staying with family and Tom and Rob had already left I'd sort of run out of options, until I realised Leeds Promoter and All Round Good Guy Johnny Gogogo was still there. HAPPILY he had a spare room, but it was a close run thing, and it was only the next morning that I realised he'd probably been a bit scared because I'd approached him in the toilets... and asked if I could come home with him.

Sadly, that is, I think, the ONLY time I've ever unexpectedly gone home with an audience member after a gig. I feel I have SHAMED the GODS OF ROCK, but if it was ever going to happen anywhere I guess it would have to have been LEEDS: City Of BEER!

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