Blog Gigs Facts Music Shop Links
home >  blog :  current /  archive /  RSS Feed

Blog: Otway!

< previous next >
On Friday night myself and The Days In My Weekend continued our daring new plan of Going Out On Fridays by... going out! We'd got tickets to go and see John Otway, so after some nice TEA at Tibits we headed over to The Borderline, bumping into Carl from Foxfest on the way. I hardly ever bump into people I know in town, it was lovely!

"Doors" had been 7pm so we assumed the first act, Attila The Stockbroker, would be on around 8pm, but when we arrived just before then we saw Mr Murray Torkildsen, long-term guitarist with Otway. "Aha! So you're not on yet then" said The Words Of My Wisdom. "Twenty minutes", said Murray, "Attila's nearly finished!"

We thus dashed in to catch the very end of Attila The Stockbroker's set - astonishingly this was the first time I'd ever seen him, and he was ACE! The room was PACKED so we stood near the doors, but once he'd finished I moved to get to the other side of the room. This was a BAD IDEA and The Steps On My Stairwell pointed out we were better off where we were. LIFE LESSONS. We went back.

With us safely situated I went to get BEERS at a bar full of middle-aged men waving tenners. Why do middle-aged men who wave tenners DO that? Do they believe it makes bar staff think "Aha! Those people intend to PAY for their beers, I shall serve them before the people who are not displaying evidence of their liquidity!" It really winds me up, but happily the bar staff were EXCELLENT and did serving in The Correct Order. I turned to go back with my beer to find that one of the middle-aged men who'd been waving a tenner was ALSO one of those people who don't go out much and therefore think that standing in front of a CROWDED BAR is a perfectly acceptable thing to do, and get very angry if anyone tries to get past them. I had to ACTUALLY PUSH him to get out, it was stupid!

Happily any lingering feelings of GRUMP were instantly dispelled when Otway and The Big Band took to the stage. My word but they were FANTASTIC - it's always a joy to watch them having so much FUN together, even though most of the Actual Jokes have been the same for the past twenty years. My favourite thing about big band gigs is a) all the titting about but b) when they do one of the Quiet Songs they all play it proper properly, and it is GORGEOUS. I think that ALL bands - ALL bands - should be forced by law to go and see Otway gigs whenever they are nearby, so that they can learn HOW to be in a band and how to do gigs. INDEED I bumped into a second person, Dom Formerly Of Kookie Monster, as we'd entered, who was doing EXACTLY that - one of his current band had never seen Otway, so they were rectifying the situation. SENSIBLE.

It was a lovely lovely gig which we left, as we always do with Otway gigs, GRINNING hugely. OTWAY!

posted 14/4/2014 by MJ Hibbett

< previous next >


Comments:

Your Comment:
Your Name:
SPAMBOT FILTER: an animal that says 'miaow' (3)

(e.g. for an animal that says 'cluck' type 'hen')

Twitter /  Bandcamp /  Facebook /  YouTube
Click here to visit the Artists Against Success website An Artists Against Success Presentation