Blog: Scene

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Still in my previously mentioned ROCK STAR HOTEL, I awoke in THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT and thought "I wish it was 6 o'clock or something, then I could just get up and go home." It was QUARTER TO, which was near enough, so at 6.30 AM (AM!) I was on the train back to THAT LONDON. Getting the RIDICULOUSLY EARLY TRAIN is always lovely, except in ONE particular point: it is RIDICULOUSLY EARLY, so although it meant that I was home for breakfast it also meant that i was KNACKERED all day. What i needed was the Rejuvenating Power of ROCK.

HANDILY this was readily available to me, as The Cereal In My Breakfast Bowl and I had TICKETS to go and see The Atomic Beat Records ROADSHOW at the Betsy Trotwood. This was pretty much the EXACT OPPOSITE of the night before, it was like being in a room with almost EVERYBODY i have ever met through ROCK. Before we'd even got through the front door we'd said hello to about a MILLION people, and once inside it was like the GLAMOROUS INDIEPOP version of HEAT magazine - half the night was spent with me whispering breathless MINI-BIOS into the ear of The Headline Of My Main Story as another ROCK LEGEND hoved into view.

I had a GRATE time, and also, BANDS! This ALSO was brilliant - Mr Pete Green kicked off to a PACKED downstairs room (it was a SELLOUT SHOW!!), and did my favourite ("One Monday Morning") AND i got to hear the New One about NME Best Band Supported By Shockwave, which was GRATE. After that we got our second dose of Pocketbooks for the year, and we, frankly, BOOGIED. I think I may have said this before, but it is SUCH a relief that Pocketbooks are SO VERY GRATE. After AGES of hearing about them and never actually getting to see them it would have been AWFUL if they were RUBBISH or something, but thankfully they were QUITE the contrary, and it was really Quite Exciting. Always A Good Sign At Gigs: the members of the band who don't have microphones, singing along anyway. This happened A LOT with Pocketbooks, it was FAB.

FINALLY we watched Parallelograms who were EXCELLENT VALUE as ever - especially ending EVERY song with "2-3-4 CLANG!" Call me NON-ROCK if you will, but it was just all so NICE, and we managed to MISS the last band by sitting around upstairs CHATTING to people. This was perhaps a bit daft, as they were from ABROAD and i wouldn't get the chance to see them again, as opposed to all the others who I will have AMPLE chance to hopefully see again, but there were just SO MANY really nice people there. As I said before, i sometimes get INTEGRITY CRISIS about, you know, hanging round with so many dead nice people who i really like who do GIGS, but also it sometimes FREAKS ME OUT a bit. I spent years - DECADES! - doing gigs and not being in any kind of SCENE at all. There'd be bands I knew and liked who were scattered all over the place and neither knew each other NOR were particularly liked by many people at all. In the last couple of years, however, we seem to have somehow fallen into a whole INDIEPOP CROWD full of GRATE bands, Friendly Promoters, Excitable Label Owners and LOADS of Actual Nice Human Beings who want to go to gigs.

I am at a loss to explain how on EARTH it could have happened, and especially how WE managed to get to hang around with them, but not since (er...) around 1993/1994, when everyone hanging round the MAG was in a band and Cornershop and Prolapse were in Proper Bands On labels, has if felt so GRATE to be part of - HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS - a SCENE. I am sure that at any time soon someone will notice us standing in the doorway and politely ask us to LEAVE, but at the moment it is LOVELY! Gigs, they are GRATE!

posted 24/2/2008 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

Julie Mai 68 said to me last night: "I liked your set. Have you heard of a bloke called Mark Hibbett?"

Gah! Rumbled!
posted 25/2/2008 by Pete Green

Oh, and hang on - you can still see the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, cos they're playing the Buffalo Bar on Friday. I strongly advise you do so mister, as they are absolutely flipping brilliant!
posted 25/2/2008 by Pete Green

i'm sure you are now in a position to be some sort of Elder Statesman of any given "scene" ;)

(haha, though at indie tracks i think you might have to give way to GEDGE in this role!!!)
posted 26/2/2008 by CarsmileSteve

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