Southampton - The Brook - November 5th, 2009
Published: March 24, 2010

MUSIC LIVE '09 WEEKEND

Well well well, this one may be a bit of en epic! The first four gig weekend since our visit to Turkey in February 2008 would take us from Southampton to Birmingham via Wales and Kettering. A fair few miles then!

The weekend started for me with a gig in Shoreditch at the 'legendary' BarMusicHall on Curtain Street, just up the road from Old Street tube station, playing an acoustic set with Thea Ford and Mark O'Neill. I love playing original music, but there's nothing quite like wigging up and being part of the best tribute to Iron Maiden there ever was. I was on a tight schedule, as the 'Van of Slightly Less Comfort But Much More Likely to Start Than The Last One' was due to arrive at mine between 10:00 and 11:00pm. We went on a little bit late but I managed to do a runner and arrive back at Manic Towers just after the two occupants of said van.

I walked into the dining room to find Adrian 'shit in a bin' Swift adding the final touches to his rather nifty (and not at all camp) denim jacket, studded up to look just like Adrian Smith's did during Maiden's golden period. Accompanying him was Bruce 'show us yer funnel!' Dugginson who was very proudly showing off his new leather gear crafted by Boba Fett off the forums. A bang-up job he did too, as they looked just like Bruce's rather perculiar fetish gear from the '88 tour. This had been picked up on the way, and I understood from talking to the lads that the journey from Yorkshire to Dartford had taken them via Barnsley and Essex to name but a few places. There was a reason for all this malarkey, but we'll get to that later. We all settled down for a bit of much-needed kip.

HI-ON SOUTHAMPTON 2009

The next morning started off with a brief shopping trip looking to find some stage gear for Hulloween's debut performance. Yes, that's right, Hi-on Maiden are Hulloween! The plan was to unveil Hulloween in Pontypool and Kettering before opening the Music Live 'Titans of Tribute' event at the Birmingham NEC. More on that when we get to it. After a more-or-less successful jaunt to the shops we piled in the van and drove to Reading, where a very nice man had some scaffolding bits and pieces to sell us. Upon arrival he also agreed to cut down the scaffold poles (collected by Swifty and Duggers in Barnsley the day before) so that they were all of equal length. This was a huge relief, as none of us really wanted to muck about with an angle grinder at the venue! "Why the scaffolding?" I hear you cry. Well, constant reader, you'll see. After all this tubular trickery had clanged to it's conclusion, we set off for Southampton.

Grizzly Duggan

We arrived a little later than planned, but this was no problem as we'd saved ourselves a couple of tricky hours of cutting poles! Speed 'I love smelly farts - they've got to sound good, and they've got to smell good - you've got to squeeze them out' Harris was already in attendance as we rolled up to the back door. The scaffolding and gear was shifted out of the van and I ran off to find a sandwich. Having elected not to eat breakfast that morning, I was utterly starving. Putting the scaffolding together for the very first time can only be described as a ball-ache. I'm utterly useless at such things, and as such sat on the sidelines waiting for any heavy lifting that needed doing! Still, once you've set it up the first time you know where everything goes, and what the pitfalls are. Next time will be quicker and less painful. The brand new backdrop was unrolled and hung from the ceiling, turning out to be almost perfect width for The Brook. The 'Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour' stage set, magnificently hand-painted by our good mate Mark, was done. And it look bloody spectacular. As this was going up, Jonno 'sex pest coat' Lodge turned up. Jonno, star that he is, was filling in for Nicko "oh no!" McBrain Jnr who was out playing with The Worldonfire this weekend.

New 'Seventh Son' Stage Set

Soundchecking with the title track from Iron Maiden's 1988 opus was a lot of fun. It's one of those songs we've talked about doing for years but never actually attempted, at least not properly. A little bit shaky in places but otherwise successful. We also had a blast through the Hulloween stuff and identified where Swifty and I needed to work on harmonies. I actually enjoyed playing Helloween stuff much more than I thought I would. I'll admit I'm not their biggest fan, but the songs we had chosen were a lot of fun to chock out.

Then, it was spandex time! I bought this stage gear over a year ago when we were planning a 'Somewhere on Tour' tribute show. Thankfully Mr Murray's outfit didn't change much for the next tour (er, yer it did - ed) so it was still a valid expenditure. The rest of the band followed suit, as it were, with Mr Dugginson's trousers in particular looking rather fetching. Aieeee!

Bruce Dugginson

Speed Harris

Dave Hurry

Swifty and Speed

Eddie 'Southpaw' the 'Ead

All in all it was a storming gig. Duggers and I had to entertain with an impromptu 'Children of the Damned' when Swifty's MIDI gear took a waspie, but that aside all ran to plan. There were a couple of brown notes in 'Seventh Son' but nothing too derailing. The crowd were a fantastic bunch as ever, with some good friends making the trip down. The first of three appearances from our good friend Eddie 'spandex, chaps?' the 'Ead, who was making a particularly heroic effort (along with Mrs Eddie and Lord Summerisle) to get to three of our four shows.

Packing down after the show was a typically leisurely affair, with the kind and generous staff at The Brook being as kind and generous as ever. However, there comes a time when one ought to pack one's gear up and fuck off! Which we did. Back to the Travelodge and onto the Manic Cushion (those little triangular cushions at the back of the sofas) for me. Conversation turned to the past, and some revelations about a previous acquaintance were particularly enlightening. I should probably leave it there!

Next stop, Pontypool...

Pontypool diary »