"All the time you remind me of Blitzkrieg & the doodlebug"

Well hello there, I have to say you're looking particularly sparkling today!

Last night I popped up the M1 to spend an evening in the company of Lordy B & Swiss Toni. We went to see The Bluetones at the Rescue rooms.

I arrived at chez Lordy B at exactly the same time as his ex arrived to collect their daughter, I thought it wise to remain in the flashmobile until she'd left. So that's what I did.
After a quick coffee, we were off to Nottingham.
We arrived at ST's place, where I had some more coffee & met the lovely C.
There was much talk of cheese. (No, not the contents of Lordy B's I-pod!).

Then into the city centre. I've always had a fondness for Nottingham.
I've been there many times over the years, sometimes for the footy with Reckless, sometimes shopping with the ex, sometimes visiting Reckless & Dream Girl when they lived there & lots of times going to gigs.
Last night was my first time for a while though & I was pretty surprised to see tramlines on the city streets.

I spotted a Bluetone walking up the road in almost the same spot where I'd once met former Stereophonic & big haired loon, Stuart Cable. Fancy that!

After a bite to eat, we headed to the venue.
Having two extremely tall people with you can be quite the advantage when trying to shuffle through a rammed little venue & with their help we got a pretty decent vantage point.

The Bluetones are a great little band, one whose fortunes have slowly dipped while their output as steadily got better & better.

They played a great crowd-pleasing set last night, they came across confident & genuinely pleased to be playing to a reasonable sized, enthusiastic crowd.
A little too enthusiastic in some cases. Now answer me this, why would somebody pay good money to go to see a band & then proceed to spend the evening shouting abuse at them?
To his credit frontman Mark Morriss dealt with the dissenter admirably. He also told us to tell our friends that the band rocked so hard that the singer lost his tie pin.

My only criticism was that they opened with "The jub jub bird" which is hardly a career highpoint, it was followed though by such top tunes as:

• Slight return
• Cut some rug
• Bluetonic
• Marblehead Johnson
• Solomon bites the worm
• Keep the home fires burning
• Liquid lips

I did miss a couple of personal favourites such as "After hours" but of course they finished, as they always do, with their masterwork; "If..."

This is a stroke of genius on their part. I remember going up to Sheffield to see them 2 or 3 years ago when they played a 45 minute set consisting largely of new material. I wasn't happy, but then out came "If..." as the last song & I couldn't help but leave the place beaming!

Bloody ace song. (I'd recommend a download if you're not aware of it, worth 79p of anybody's money).

Sweaty (well, I was) & happy, we retreated back to the bar where I was introduced to Rufus Fan & her friend. Bless 'em, both were a tad drunk. Lovely girls though, both of them.
I did joke with Rufus Fan that I should probably shun her as she hasn't been round here for ages. I then got involved in a lengthy conversation with her friend about blogging & how fascinated she was by the whole notion that I wouldn't know the people I was with, without the internet.

Then it was back to Lordy B's after saying goodbye to Swiss Toni.
Incidentally, as I'm commonly known as Flash in the real world too, I don't think the towering twosome know how tricky it is for me to use their real names instead of "What d'you want to drink Swiss?". I managed though.

After a rather blissful night's sleep in Lordy B's truly beautiful home, it was time to return home to Crapsville.
This time the flashmobile made it in one piece & the worst I had to endure was when my I-pod ran out of charge & I had to listen to (shudder) Radio 1. Which actually wasn't that bad as Jo Wylie was on. New Futurehead's single sounds good.

Now I'm back & I'm full of ideas for some good blogging this week.

Having said that, ideas have never been much of a problem in life, it's the execution...