As
the estimable Ian Hunter once sagely quoth, “It’s a mighty long
way down rock n’ roll”. I don ‘t know where he wrote that line.
It may have been on a tour bus, an aeroplane, a service station
somewhere. These days the amount of popping over to do a quick gig in
Europe many musicians do means that the departure lounge at Stansted
Airport is, essentially, the new Blue Boar. For the moment, at least.
Who knows what will happen under the great new freedoms of Brexit,
although the queues at passport control are always a lot longer in
the ‘EU’ section, so there’s that to look forward to, at least.
I
am for once caught up in this impossibly glamorous lifestyle of
expensive food, nervous scrutiny of the baggage carousel and seemingly
interminable waiting as I have booked a holiday with my devoted
family which ends on the same day as the third date of the
Picturehouse Big Band 2018 Tour (of Stowmarket) is scheduled. This
means that whilst on Friday I will be in a lovely restaurant with
impossibly well-groomed Italian waiters insisting that I try the
Seadas, I shall dine on Saturday in a branch a popular fast food
franchise so irredeemably filthy that even patrons in replica
football shirts are taking souvenir pictures of it to send to their
friends. All the way from Gatwick...
Timings
work out, and so I present myself to the group armed with my latest
custom hot-rod job of a guitar*, a
potentially blistering Fender amp, a
brand-new vintage Paisley stage shirt, and
a complete lack of hearing in one ear due to repeated immersion in a
pool and/or the sea over the past week or so. Fortunately it’s the
ear facing (earing?) The Drummer, who already has his own plugs in
due to the proximity of said amplifier to his drum stool. I wonder
briefly whether this condition will have the effect as
when the folk singers – you’ve seen the folk singers, by the
shop, by where the multi-storey is, and where the Corn Exchange is,
by the Corn Exchange, the folk singers – stick a finger in their
ear so that they can hear the harmonies better, however I am quickly
disabused of this notion when I get up to do Keep on Movin’ by boy
band 5ive (some wag responds to Kilbey’s introduction to the song
that we might form a tribute band called 5ifty 5ive). With
a blockage in one ear and raging tinnitus in the other however,
I do get what must be a close
approximation of the experience Pete Townsend has
during The Kids Are Alright. My sympathies, Pete.
Kilbey
‘Two Beers’ Mears** is in fine form this evening due to a rare
driving-free excursion - courtesy of The Singer - and
as his introductions get more voluble, the jokes funnier and a tear
comes unprompted to his rheumy old eye during one particularly moving rendition of 'Run' I reflect on the proportion of
the set that we started playing contemporaneously and which are now the
subjects of anniversary and milestone editions of their original
release. Even REO Speedwagon’s Hi Infidelity has had the deluxe
reissue treatment although, poignantly, they didn’t get around to
it until the year after it’s thirtieth birthday. A mighty long way
down rock n’ roll indeed.
Post-encore
we are collared by an enthusiastic fan who insists that we play her
5iftieth birthday party, in two years’ time. “Even if you have to
reform to do it!”. "2020”
I say to The Drummer. “Try not to die in the meantime”.
**Or, on this occasion, Kilbey 'Two beers, a couple of JD and cokes and might as well make it a double' Mears.
Photo: Louise Paine/Facebook
