Blog: A Yorkshire Birthday Party

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On Saturday morning I was due to meet The Hewitts at The Railway Station in order to head North to distant LEEDS, to take part in the celebrations for Paul and Steve Morricone's 40th Birthday. I arrived at Kings Cross in good time... then PANICKED. What station was I meant to be at?!? I'd been to Kings Cross a couple of times lately, and thought I must have come there by force of habit so, chiding myself, crossed over to St Pancras. There were no trains at all for Leeds there - was it mean to be Euston? I had just enough time to get there, but before I did I checked on my Train App.

Two minutes later I was back in Kings Cross where I was meant to be all along. I met The Hewitts and the rest of the journey was a lot less panicked!

We arrived in Leeds and I settled into The Brewery Tap while they went to get checked in to their hotel. It was very nice, but CRIKEY it was LOUD - EVERYWHERE in Leeds is LOUD! The station also had been a RIGHT RACKET of people SHOUTING at each other. They weren't being angry or anything, that just seems to be how people in Leeds talk. I've noticed it when I've been before (you can't miss it!), everyone just BELLOWS all the time. The only other place like it seems to be East London, where pubs are DEAFENING!

The Hewitts returned, we had another pint, then got a taxi over to The Brudenell Social Club. I last played there about ten years ago, and the whole building had clearly BEEN a Social Club, but since then they had changed it a little bit so it looked more like the Circuit Venue it has become. It's not changed a LOT - one side of the club is STILL a Social Club, and they'd mostly put a carpet down and made the stage a bit standard - and it still looked LOVELY. We hugged Morricones generally, had a beer, watched Mr D Cooke do a set of acoustical Being 747 songs,then went on and did MOON HORSE Total Hero Team.

I'd wondered about whether this would be the right thing to HAVE in the afternoon at a birthday party, and it turned out that people turning up to say hello to family and friends don't really EXPECTto be subjected to an hour long ROCK OPERA, but everyone was very nice about it and applauded in the right places, so it was all FINE. I was, however, VERY PROUD INDEED of Steve throughout - there was a time when he would have FLAGGED or become DISHEARTENED by the fact that this wasn't really the right place for us to do such a thing, but he maintained his end of the act MANFULLY throughout, GOING for it, ad-libbing and generally covering when certain other members of the team forgot great chunks of story.

Job done we returned to the rest of the day, which featured A Small Dark Stranger, one man with a backing tape and a LOT of dance moves who was VERY MUCH suited to the time of day and event, he was EXCELLENT!

And then it was time to go home - we got a lift back into town together, and were driven by a Proper Yorkshire Taxi Driver i.e. a bloke with a MASSIVE Yorkshire Pakistani accent (which sounds oddly like a Derby accent) and a LOT to say. He was ACE and a delightful finale for my brief expedition into Yorkshire. I'm back again THIS weekend, in the South rather than West of the region, to play the Rutland Arms in Sheffield on Saturday. I can't wait!

posted 11/11/2013 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

I'd like to point out that although we did get a few of the words wrong, and maybe even missed some bits out, we did at least do THE CORRECT SHOW, contrary to Mr Hibbett's Reporting Back above ;)
posted 11/11/2013 by Steve

Oops! Corrected!
posted 12/11/2013 by MJ Hibbett

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