It is a long one.

 In the beginning…. 

Last weekend started at 12.45 onFriday afternoon, due to me having convinced Bernie to let me have a half-day so that I may have an emergency kidney transplant (he said I would have to have an important reason). After a bit of pootling about, both in town and at home, I headed to Neil’s. From there we collected some bread and wandered to the Swan via our secret duck cache. The usual Swan antics occurred, the only blemishes on the night were my deteriorating short-term memory and the fact that the Jukebox stopped and would not work no matter how hard people sucked on their 50ps! An Inferno Pizza was purchased on the trip home, which led to some very grumbly stomachs.

A Chavalcade™

On Saturday I was allowed a lie in before we began our voyage to England’s second city. We knew it was going to be an eventful trip by the supreme quality of the Chavs at the station. Firstly a young lad, obviously not satisfied by wearing enough gold chains to BA Barracus envious, decided that a fistful of wooden roses would make his title as ‘The King of Bling’ official. He was quickly outshone by a pair a females, one dressed like an escapee from East17 and the other wearing jeans 2 sizes to small (causing her pants and stomach to bulge up and over like the flow from a fake tan volcano). Neil and I had the pleasure of being sat next to these examples of grace and refinement all the way to Brum. The obligatory shouting down their mobiles and swearing began in earnest. Personally my favourite part was when the Brain Harvey wannabe thought she could smell smoke “This f***ing train better not f***ing blow up, I’m tellin’ yas!” She also seemed obsessed with spraying herself with some sort of old lady scented body spray… every five minutes!!

 

“He flies through the air with the greatest of ease, the daring young waiter on the flying trapese…”

 

 On arrival we mooched about the shops for a bit and then had lunch at Bella Italia. We were served by the stealthiest and most eager to please waiter in the world, we thought that he must have employed some sort of aerial harness contraption so that he could sneak up on us without a sound. The food was lovely; Neil was especially pleased with the fancy Parmesan grater and the fact that I asked him to eat my extra onions. Just when I thought things could not get any better…. they did. In walked an old man in a full-length embroidered robe, wearing a top hat. Plastered on the front of that hat was a sign in traditional print saying “Nation of Drunks”. We were a tad confused, unsure as to whether he was the king of that nation or protesting against it. We decided that it was probably the latter, and that he had been summoned to that restaurant after the waiter tried to force Neil to have a beer.

After a bit more mooching we ended up in the Bull Ring where many discoveries were made. One of these was that I do not like crowds, especially if they are made up of smelly people who are not spatially aware. We also discovered that I am fussy about trainers (and a bit of a scrooge when it comes to how much I am willing to spend on them). Not to be outdone, Neil made a discovery of his own in the sweet department of Selfridges’. He managed to find the worlds most disgusting mint chocolate, which he kindly shared with me. It was very much like eating chocolaty toothpaste, but much much worse! Drink alone could not clear it, so Oreos were required. They worked but did not resolve the mint burps, that hours later caught you by surprise.

By now we had wandered to the Carling Academy, where we would be seeing Band of Horses play in about an hour. We decided to spend that spare hour in a pub and preceded to what turned out to be a rather intimidating Rock/Goth bar. After about 10 mins of cowering in the corner, looking “very normal” I felt I had to point out Neil’s poor choice of t-shirt for that day. He was wearing a black t with the slogan “cheer up goth!” printed on it, apparently he had not realised and we left very soon afterwards.

The Beardyguard

As soon as we got in the Academy Neil had to look at the merchandise table. He quickly spotted that there were 2 different types of Band of Horses (BoH) t-shirts on offer, a lovely red number and an understated beige affair. The choice was a bit too much for him, but he knew he must have one. The only thing holding him back was the stigma of being the first to buy (which apparently makes you a nerd). So we sat and watched the table, which soon attracted a group of American men with beards (who later turned out to be the support act, which was clearly noted by the inferior size of their facial fuzz) who oohhed and ahhed over the BoH stuff.

 

Soon another beard was released from the backstage area; and this one was an exquisite example of chin shrubbery. We assumed that the man attached to it was from the BoH. He too inspected the goods before disappearing into the forbidden zone. I call it the forbidden zone but honestly security (aka an unimpressed teenage girl slumped by the curtain) seemed a bit lax. We hatched a plan to try and get backstage, I would exaggerate my accent claiming to be PR and that Neil would be a journo with The Fly (the only piece of press we had with us at the time).

 

As we were refining the details of our plan the man with the amazing beard reappeared. He was ushered through the crowd by a smaller hirsute man, who was obviously there to ensure the safety of his beard and is therefore The Beardyguard.

It is at this point that I must comment on the comitment of young groupies theses days. There were 2 pairs of teenage girls hanging around the merch table at this time and both completely missed the fact that one of the people they had spent their parents hard earnt money on coming to see was having a bit of  a wander about. The first pair were to engrossed in taking pictures of their own faces, and the second were thieving flyers. It seems that some people are so obsessed by having some sort of proof that they have done something that they actually miss out on the bits that make it great.

 

Anyhoo, he took the stage and began performing some of his own songs, at first this made us doubt whether he was one of the BoH but the feel of the songs made it quite clear he was. His name is Taylor Ramsey and he did a song that I recognised the name of but not sure from where. Next on were  the support act, I thought they were good but any band that has the drummer play a washboard and the lead singer a mouth keyboard (melodica) has my vote.

By this point our usual idiot magnet was working and tall and irritating oafs surrounded us. So when BoH appeared and the lead singer sat down to perform their first song I was not a happy camper. That all soon changed as he stood up for the rest of the set and sang his heart out. You’ve got to love a man whose wisdom teeth you can see when he sings. It was superb, they were very tight and you would be hard pushed to tell the difference between their live work and a studio track. I didn’t even mind the guy behind me hitting me on the head, or the guy in front of me slowly blocking my view.

 

Neil really enjoyed it, which after all is the most important thing as it was one of his Xmaspresents. On the way out he purchased the red t-shirt, and I bought myself a BoH tote bag. From a distance it just looks like a bag of beards. We then made our way to the station, picking up some food along the way. It had been a long day, some of us were starting to get a bit grumpy, but was a great night.