John Hoskinson @ Night & Day Cafe, Manchester - 27 May 06

Well this evening has been documented by both Helen and John but I wanna say what a great time I had too.

We drove to Manchester via Buxton and through the Peak District and it was beautiful sunshine which enabled us to take in the lovely scenery.  Found venue, John and parking with little effort.

After nice dinner and lovely company we made our way back to the Venue.  John Hoskinson was first on the bill and we were really excited about seeing him again.  John's set was different from previous night which was good but he still sang the songs we love including "I Hope I Die before you do" and finished with personal request of "Uncharacteristic". 

But song of the night is no doubt the Finn-tastic "Message to My Girl" which had Helen smiling like a cheshire cat!  She seemed a bit overwhelmed and it was lovely to see her so happy.  John forgot the words partway through, well then again he had not sung it for 3 years!  But lots of lalalala's meant he pulled it off well!

We now sat and listened to next band called The Acrylics nice little punk rock outfit with a front man that would not stand still and kept giving feedback by the way he was holding the microphone.  I remember John saying that these would be very good in a year or two.  There was some great potential and they were excellent entertainment.  Best song of theirs was a punk cover of Bangle's classic "Walk Like an Egyptian" - I need a copy of that one - superb!

The next band had me drooling...well almost.  It was a band from Glasgow called The People and they had a lovely sound with some excellent harmonies but what struck me the most was Gavin's voice!  If you could cross the voice of Bob Dylan and Richard Ashcroft...well thats what he sounded like to me.  You could hear the Dylan influences in some of the songs but for others I wanted to get up and Waltz.  Really fascinating and refreshing stuff and hell yes I am going to Glasgow to see these again!

Well the next band does not deserve talking about but I will now quite you extract of John Hoskinson's blog as its absolutely hillarious and so so very true.  Enjoy....

After that, we had a giant turd dropped into our musical cocktail. I saw an electric violin and was immediately fearful (fellow Eugene Edwards Band member, Darice Bailey, taught me to beware of such musical devices). The fear grew to complete and utter terror when the didgeridoo player sat down on stage. That's right -- a full-time didgeridoo player! They also had a DJ. Yeah. I know, I know... but it gets worse.

After starting out with a typical, 1 chord, hackysack instrumental jam, an out-of-work plumber jumped up on stage and started dancing. I soon realized that he wasn't simply some overexcited drunk. He was an overexcited drunk who was also the singer of the band. His voice was actually not bad -- kind of like the guy from Slade -- but it wasn't good enough to save this trainwreck. Their bass player -- who looked like what I imagine Tina Yothers looks like now (barrel-chested with a Flashdance style, off-the-shoulder t-shirt and a belt that looked like something a weightlifter would wear) -- was a semi-tone out of tune and NOBODY in the band seemed to notice.

The thing that really drove us out of there, though, was in the 3rd song when the rhythm guitarist stepped up and did some rapping.  Yeah, on top of the electric violin, the DJ, the out-of-tune Tina Yothers bass player, the dancing plumber and the didgeridoo player, we now had a white rapper to contend with.  He signified his street cred by wearing a hat that looked an awful lot like the toilet paper cosi my grandma used to have on the back of her toilet. It was worn really low, so it looked both menacing and ridiculous.

I think the band's name was something like The Mainstays, or The Mainway.  I don't know, or care. I think a better band name would be Crap Soup. My favorite quote of the evening was from Margi who said, "You know, I usually love anything with violin in it, but that was simply unnecessary."

What John failed to mention is that this lead singer was going "commando" and that was blatantly obvious in the way it was swinging as he was moving his hips...well you knowwhat I mean...

Epic read from a lovely fella!  We said our goodbyes and headed back to Nottingham.