Hey,
On Saturday Elea and I headed out Birmingham.
It sounds so simple doesn't it?
It wasn't.
Our bus left at 1600 from Victoria.I figured that by tube it would take me about half an hour to get to Victoria Station. So I left an hour to be on the safe side.
But when we got to Leytonstone Station we found that it was flooded from the downpour the night before, and that while it was being cleaned up we would have to take the W15 to Leyton. Fuck!
Cue waiting half an hour for the W15 to arrive at Leytonstone Station heading to Hackney Central (not, as two or three were going, THE OTHER FUCKING DIRECTION).
We got to Leyton and Elea's oyster card wouldn't work at the gate, so she had to stand in line to get it topped up.
Then a five minute wait for the next tube.
FInally on the tube, finally moving.
We had budgeted enough time to get to Victoria, get a bite to eat, find the coach station etc.
We eventually got to the coach station 40 minutes late, meaning that we had to find a net cafe and book two more tickets to Birmingham on the next bus.
Six PM we caught that bus to Brum.
An hour into the Midlands, the highway was hit by a huge storm. Not unlike the storm that flooded Leytonstone Station. The storm was big enough to break the windscreen wipers and the de-mister on the bus. Cue waiting forty minutes on the bus as the storm passed over, waiting for another bus to arrive to take us all further along on our journey.
We jumped on another Megabus coach that was going in the same direction for a while. But an hour outside Coventry all the passengers for Birmingham and Coventry had to change onto yet another bus, then wait for twenty minutes while the drivers argued about something or other that we couldn't actually catch. Elea suspected one of the drivers had lost the keys or something. I have no idea.
This new bus took the Coventry passengers to the drop of point, which was a suburban mall somewhere OUTSIDE Coventry, much to the vocal dismay of those alighting at that point. Still, I never heard Being Sent To Coventry was a good thing, Maybe Megabus were just playing it safe.
More rolling through the unlit highways of the ever more West Midlands. Eventually we arrived somewhere vaguely central in Birmingham. I guess it was Central. It was deserted, give or take a few students (Aston University was nearby), who had no idea where to find the Barfly, because they had only just arrived in Birminham themselves.
It was 2157. According the the Scare's myspace page, they were onstage at 2200. We wern't sure how to find the Barly. We had written down directions, but we had no idea which direction to start in, so we just went in the general direction of Digbeth and asked people we saw along the way if they knew.
We found the venue at 2220. The Scare were standing around outside, talking to well-wishers who had come to see them. My heart fell as I saw their van on the kerb, and a bass cabinet at one of their feet. I hoped I hadn't missed them.
Still, whatever higher power that had tried so hard to keep us from arriving in Birminham seemed to now respect us, because it turned out that as opposed to playing an ordinary Barfly show, The Scare were actually playing the backroom of the Barfly's Saturday Night Indie/Rock Club night, along with two other bands, neither of which had played yet.
Juliette Lewis and the LIcks were still loading out.
Juliette Lewis actually walked past me. She is not as tall as you would think, and by the time I recognised her she was already past me. She didn't look very sociable, in any case. The Licks had a huge Rock'n'Roll touring coach, and a smaller, slightly kitschy, silver art-deco campervan. The kind you see in future retro SF movies or something.
The hardest part of the show was indeed getting there. The Scare boys were happy to see me, and ecstatic to see Elea, and Dr Phil (their Roadie/Manager/Father Figure/Driver) had already put me on the London List, even though I hadn't confirmed that I was going to be able to make it to Birmingham.
Pretty soon the Barlfy started to fill up with the Birmingham version of London Rock Hipsters, guys in jeans and tight band T-shirts, girls in retro dresses etc.
The Show Itself was really good, even though I was feeling pretty sick and tired, so I chilled at the back for most of the first two bands (one that sounded, according to Elea, like a Welsh band called MacClusky, and another that was a mixture of 80's/90's Noise Rock and Early Screamo, I later talked to the lead singer about Gravity Records, prompting him to wax forth about Angel Hair, Antioch Arrow and a bunch of other bands I'd only read mentioned in an AP story about Gravity Records two years ago).
The Scare themselves were amazing. Headline show, adopted hometown crowd, last show in the UK until January. I've seen them play tighter, I've heard them with better mixes, but their was so much love in the room, so much ecstatic abandonnment from both band and crowd, that it was nothing short of spectacular.
Aftershow, everyone had to hang back at the venue 'til four and the club closed. Elea and I rode in the Band Van back to a terrace house where an after-party was, listening to to Birmingham noise-niks talking about The Locust and various other noise-core, sludge-core etc bands.
The Afterparty was in the sitting room of the house, me chilling on a coach trying to relax while somebody in the adjoining kitchen ran through records on the turntable, turning up the songs they really like. Lots of Turbonegro, some ACDC, some Bowie, bits and pieces of other stuff. The host of the party was a pale, skinny, slightly ginger Brummie with whiskers framing his face and dreads down his back. I don't recall talking to him, but he seemed cool enough.
Got talking to two Brummie Girls, one of them an art student, about Australian history and stuff. The last thing I really remember about that party was sitting in a front room, Led Zeppelin DVD on a screen, while some Brummie musicians argued about whether Zep was or wasn't overblown, fretwanking shite. Not a huge Zep fan myself, but getting to respect their contribution, I stayed silent.
At about half seven, and with the help of the Art Student Girls, I called a cab for Elea and I.
The cab arrived within five-minutes, so far so good, but the driver had no idea where he was going, and despite me repeated telling him the exact address for our Coach to London to leave from, he took us to the local coach station, which wasn't where we needed to go. After I damn near lost my temper he actually asked for directions from a few different people, and get us to The Priory, Queensway, with two minutes to spare.
Fucking Muppet.
Angus would have refused to pay. Of course, Angus would have had a map on a tablet pc, or even whatever handheld he uses these days, made from a satellite photo taken by Bill Gate's Secret Space Corps.
The ride to London was nowhere near as eventful as the ride to Birmingham. Doze, look out window, doze, shift position, doze. Elea and I had two seats each. So El used the three hour journey to solidly sleep of some of the party.
Myself, when we got of the N6 (I think) the bus rolled through Hampstead and Swiss Cottage and adjoining areas, past these beautiful ornate apartment mansions.
Victoria Coach Station to Leytonstone for a shower and change of clothes plus nap for Elea before we went back to Oxford Circus to meet my Dad.
Not a bad trip.
Over and out (for now),
-J
