At the start of the month, it was time for what has become our annual UCECU reunion, coinciding with Bonfire night. I got a lift down with Steve and Tanya – they drove down from Glasgow, stopping in Manchester on Friday night when I went out for food with them – and we arrived down at Phil & Mary’s in Worcestershire early afternoon. There weren’t as many of us this year because Helen and her two kids had car issues, so had to bail at the last minute, but it was still nice to get a few of us together.
In the evening we went to see a fireworks display at the Astwood Bank Cricket Club, which as usual had a really good turnout. It was pretty cold – it caused me to get get quite breathless on the walk there, but I pretty much recovered once we were just standing around in the field.
Fireworks at the Astwood Bank Cricket Club.
The fireworks were pretty impressive, and went on for a really long time – probably too long to keep the kids’ attention! We headed back once the display had finished, stopping off at the chippy to grab food to eat whilst the others ate their curry!
Next morning, me, Steve and Tanya headed into Birmingham to take a stroll around the centre and check out the Christmas markets. It was pretty wet so we didn’t hang around too much around the stalls, but it was a really decent size, and the theming of it all is really impressive.
Birmingham Christmas Markets.
We got back to Manchester late afternoon, and on the evening we went out to The March Hare in Cheadle Hulme again for a nice roast dinner, which rounded off the weekend nicely.
Since they were staying locally that night, Steve had arranged to meet up with Alister Eyre and his wife Debbie at the Trafford Centre the next morning, and I popped over for a catch-up with him too. I don’t think I’ve seen him since my uni days, when he lived with Steve a few doors away from me when we were all in Hutton Road… he now lives in Northwich so a trek over to Trafford wasn’t too much of an effort.
Me, Steve, Tanya, Debbie and Alister.
It was actually really cool to see him again, and it really didn’t feel like 25 years since we’d last met! We spent quite a while chatting over coffee, then all went for lunch at Five Guys (which tastes great but is quite pricey!)
Onto music – a couple of weekends ago I was at the Albert Hall in Manchester to see The Lightning Seeds. As usual, I got there in plenty of time for the support acts, which also meant I was able to get a spot pretty close to the front. I was really impressed by the first band on – Casino – who are a Liverpool band with a really good sound. I can’t see that thev’re really released any stuff yet, but I think I’ll definitely want to check them out in the future.
Next up was Badly Drawn Boy – I’d seen him perform once before back in 2007 when I was at an awards ceremony we’d done some graphics for, and I remember him getting really annoyed whilst playing because a lot of people were just milling around chatting rather than taking notice of his music! Anyway, here he was in a more focused gig, and again he had a bit of a meltdown on stage! I think he’d had quite a stressful evening – he said he’d got stuck in traffic and arrived really late, and then he was struggling quite a bit with his monitoring (and not holding back with his thoughts to the sound guys!), so that was a bit amusing to me! But his performance was great and if he hadn’t gone off like that, I’m sure no-one would have even noticed any issues!
Badly Drawn Boy supporting The Lightning Seeds.
Then Ian Broudie took to the stage, going through a great selection of Lightning Seeds songs, both old and new. It was a real delight to hear them do ‘Pure’ live – it was one of the first 7″ singles I bought when I was a teenager, and still have it! One thing that was really cool was that Ian’s son Riley was on guitar, and he’s the Riley that the song ‘Life of Riley’ is all about, and they ended the main set with it!
The Lightning Seeds.
The Lightning Seeds.
They came back for a couple of extra songs for an encore, first ‘Marvellous’, then ending with ‘Three Lions’ which obviously was very well timed since the World Cup started that weekend! Not totally convinced that ‘it’s coming home’ though!
Set list:
Sunshine
Ready or Not
Change
All I Want
Lucky You
Feeling Lazy
Perfect
Great To Be Alive
Sense
Whole Wide World
What If…
Waiting for Today to Happen
You Showed Me
Telling Tales
Losing You
Emily Smiles
Sugar Coated Iceberg
Pure
The Life of Riley
Encore:
Marvellous
Three Lions
The Lightning Seeds.
Then last week, I was back at the same venue to see Marcus Mumford do a solo gig with a mixture of Mumford & Songs songs alongside material from his new album.
I had planned to take the tram into the city centre, but by chance spotted online that there’s been a tram derailment on the line I needed to take, so I ended up having to drive in which was a bit of a pain! I got there early to get a decent spot – I had a long day filming the next day, so wanted to get a space on the balcony so I wouldn’t be standing all night, and I got a pretty good view of the show.
Marcus Mumford.
As expected, it was a really great gig, and it was nice to see him in a much more intimate venue than the two times I’ve seen him with Mumford & Sons at the Manchester Arena. I mean, it was still about 2,000 people, but that’s pretty intimate compared to an arena crowd! For his last song, ‘I Will Wait’, he was alone on stage, and came right to the front without any amplification (and failed in trying to get the crowd not to sing along!), but it was a really cool and unique way to hear that track performed.
Set list:
Awake My Soul
The Cave
Cannibal
Grace
Prior Warning
Better Off High
Only Child
Dangerous Game
Better Angels
Ditmas
Fare Thee Well (Dink’s Song)
Go in Light
Stonecatcher
How
Encore:
Cowboy Like Me
When I Get My Hands on You
Kansas City
I Will Wait (unplugged acoustic)
Marcus Mumford.