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The Garage
14th October 2000
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Greetings fellow nutsters!
This must be a first as I have lost my voice, but it was totally worth it!!
For all those that missed the gig- where were you?!?!
Friday night was spent in the D.C with cracking company, cold beers and the
Nutty Boys album being played to death on the jukebox. Excited talk of the
gig and reading through the latest issue of Madness Unsugged (nice job Mr.
Carden!)also helped to get everyone geared up for what lay ahead. James Dean
Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers was also spotted getting down to one or
two tunes.
Saturday had to be one of the best days so far for pre-gig frivolities- lots
of people in the Dublin Castle (no surprise there then!), spotted Darren
from Big Brother and drank quite a few alcoholic beverages before being
guided by Wood Green Pete towards Highbury and Arsenal to the next pub.
Swanny, Graham and one or two others were already there and so the drinking
continued. This is when things got better and better....
Swanny reintroduced me to Thommo, and after the obligatory handshake and a
kiss,told me that he remembered me from when we drank with him in the D.C
in August. To say I was chuffed is a total understatement!! Everytime I meet
Lee he seems lovelier than the last time and have met him 4 times now. I
then stood talking to Tad (who also remembered me)and we must have been
chatting for a good hour and a half!
We then moved onto the Garage, and when someone happened to spot Woody in
there, it was like bees round a honeypot!!Anyway, Woody is a top
bloke-really genuine and had this massive smile on his face all night.
As for the gig itself, it was absolutely brilliant(am working on a more
comprehensive review for the Crunch! website)and I felt, better than the
Underworld gig, although it was shorter than last time. Lots of big grins,
loads of make up and top tunes from the band- a totally excellent night out.
I would definately recommend that if you get the chance, go and see this
band!
Anyway, have to love you and leave you all...am very tired as we didn't
tumble into bed until 4.30am!!
Much love and bid hellos to everyone that attended!
Nutty Bex
Nut To Nutty
Saturn To Camden Town
If Crunch! aren’t the best entertainers
I’ll buy the next round!
Hello
once more… well my second Crunch! gig has been and gone… here is my account
of the mad weekend.
Friday
13th October
The
whole thing started when I woke up on the Friday morning; I had managed to have
the day off school to finish coursework (urghh!) but this meant I could actually
make my way up to Camden a lot earlier than would’ve been possible had I have
gone to school, so, after finishing twenty pages of nonsense for Chemistry I
started to get ready to go to Brighton Station.
Once
I had made sure I had my Crunch! ticket and my money etc… I made my way to the
Station, after getting there and buying my tickets, I got on the train, the time
was around 3:30pm it takes around 1-2 hours to get to Camden from Brighton,
including tube etc… so I text Bex and Sarah, whom I was to be meeting up
there, and told them I’d be getting there around 5pm.
Once
I arrived in Camden Town tube station I text Bex again to let her know I had
arrived, I was told that they’d be down to meet me in around 15 minutes so I
decided to go for a little wander around the Town, Arlington Road was the first
port of call, after that I had a quick walk up to Camden lock, then back to the
Dublin Castle, as that’s where I was to meet them both, seeing as I’m under
aged I had to wait outside the pub and I was getting very strange looks from
everyone going past…haha… after a while Bex and Sarah showed up, big hugs
all round, it was so good to see them again, I hadn’t seen Sarah since the
last Crunch! gig, but I had seen Bex at the mini madmeet on the 12th
August- thanks to Tad and Thommo for showing up to that one!!!
There
was only time for one drink, before it was time to go and meet Caz from Victoria
Station, in that time Vince. F showed up, looking and feeling a bit worse for
wear; he’d soon left to finish some business, Bex went to meet Caz, in the
time that Bex was gone Scatty and Sigal from Israel (!) turned up! More hugs to
be had.
Bex
was gone for a good 45 minutes, she arrived with Caz at around 8pm, and it was
really good to see Caz too! Even more hugs going round!
Once
things had settled a bit Sarah and I went out for some dinner; not chancing
alcohol without food (not that I was drinking you understand, oh no, I’m a
good girl… Yeah right!)
We
hadn’t been gone too long but in that time we’d missed the arrival and
departure of one Mr. Carden.
After lots of
chat and catching up with what each other had been up to since the last time,
Vince Carden turned up again with copies of his fab fanzine ‘Madness
Unsugged’ to hand out, along with the delectable Mr Hewson.
The evening
carried on with various conversations about, well everything really, when it
started getting late we (Bex, Sarah, Caz and I) started worrying about the
B&B and how long they’d stay open for, we didn’t want to get locked out,
so after much persuasion and many goodbyes we managed to drag ourselves out of
the D.C at around 1am, and along to the tube to get to Tuffnell park, I have to
say the whole journey back Caz and I were on a massive high about being back in
London with our mates and the prospect of the gig the following night! This
resulted in us doing the madwalk in the middle of a road, skipping arm in arm
singing various Crunch! songs… and well just all things mad I guess, Bex
seemed to catch some of our insanity when we passed a traffic cone…and in true
student fashion…well I don’t really need to write what happened do I!? Haha
We finally made it to the B&B we calmed down… well for at least ten
minutes anyway! We decided to sit and chat in Bex and Sarah’s room for a while
before going to sleep, we just sat and chatted about anything and everything…
all except Caz; who…no, ok I won’t embarrass her and write what she did, but
lets just say we’ll be joking about it for years to come! Hey Caz want any
spare change?! Hehe (sorry a bit of an ‘in’ joke there).
Caz and I ended up almost getting lost trying to find our room again,
after finding it; we ended up going to bed at around 3 - 3:30am.
Saturday 14th October
After around 4 hours sleep at 8:30am we got up and Caz, Sarah and I went
to have breakfast, both Caz and I decided that we wouldn’t be able to stomach
a full English breakfast, so we opted for just toast.
After breakfast we went up to join Bex for a chat in their room, before
getting ready to go back to Camden.
We actually got into Camden at around 12:30 we went straight to Burger
King and some of us had something to eat, we then went off to Camden market,
after wandering round for a while I went to meet Simesy at Camden tube station;
as he and I were going up to Upminster to meet some members of the Ian Dury
mailing list in the newly opened pub which has some pictures and records on the
walls dedicated to Ian, whilst Bex, Sarah and Caz went to meet the others in the
D.C.
So that was how I spent the majority of the day, after saying goodbye to
the fellow members of the Dury mailing list, Simesy and I made our way to the
pub in Islington everyone had made their way to a couple of hours prior; ‘The
Famous Cock Tavern’, on arrival there I met up with all the people from the
previous night and others that hadn’t been able to make it the night before,
so there were more hugs and welcomes, judging by everyone there I had a lot of
catching up to do in the drinking stakes! I never actually caught up, but hey!
After all the hellos were over I sat down and had a chat with Scatty and
Sarah, when all of a sudden Swanny makes an appearance, he’d been at the sound
check, he informed me that the band were at the other end of the pub, so after a
few minutes I decided to get up and mingle.
I
found Bex again and after much discussion we decided to go and say ‘Hello’
to Thommo, to see if he remembered us, so off we went, and found him at the bar,
we didn’t want to bother him so we just stood behind him talking, when he
finally turned round and saw us, he told Bex that he remembered her from the
mini-madmeet we held in August and gave her a kiss and quite rightly she was
really chuffed, then it was my turn, he turned round to see me, he looked at me
and said ‘Oh hello!! I remember you too! How are you?’ and he then proceeded
to growl at me! … Very sexy! hehe, as with Bex I was exceptionally chuffed
that he’d remembered me!! After a short chat with Lee, we went to say hey to
Tad, and yep he remembered us too! We had smiles etched on our faces the whole
night! We stayed and chatted away with Tad for roughly the rest of the night
until we had to make our way to the venue, I have to say Tad is a top bloke a
true diamond geezer!!
We
finally started to work our way down to The Garage where the gig was to be held,
after being in there for a while we spotted Thommo at the bar again, we didn’t
want to bug him so we stayed away.
All
of a sudden Mikel (from Spain) came rushing up to Bex and I and informed us of a
one Mr. D. Woodgate being in the room, we were really excited at the prospect of
meeting Woody so much so that when we were standing right next to him we
didn’t have the guts to actually speak to him or approach him, after a while
we took a deep breath and said ‘Hello’ to him, and asked him to sign a scrap
piece of paper (which is all we had!) we also asked him if we could have a photo
with him, he posed with us for our piccys, and after all that we really
needn’t have been so apprehensive about going up to him; he is one of THE
loveliest guys I’ve ever met!! We had a quick chat with him, before going off.
After
that I decided to go and have another chat with Thommo, in the middle of talking
to Lee I asked him to sign a gorgeous photo of himself for me (very gratefully
donated by Fiona!) whilst he was signing the photo (may I add that the signature
got completely rubbed off later that night…D’oh!) I asked him if they were
going to do ‘Birthday Girl’ that night, he stopped looked at me and said
“Oh yeah, it’s you isn’t it! -(Meaning he’d remembered me telling him
that B-day Girl is my fav Crunch! song) – yeah we’re doing that tonight, and
we’re playing it for you!” I was so ecstatic about that! Thank you Thommo!
You’ll never know how much that meant to me!!
Anyway…after that I was looking around for Caz, but couldn’t find
her, after walking around asking if anyone had seen her I decided to go and join
Bex who was right at the front of the stage watching the warm up bands, I went
and stood next to her, we both decided not to move as If we did we’d loose our
places! So we just stayed there and watched the band that was on… after them
it was to be Crunch! soon after that band was finished all the fellow maddies
started to make their way down front, it was already hotting up, the stage was
being set up for the lads, soon Spider was up on stage singing along to the
songs being played over the speakers, sitting behind his drums he seemed to be
really up for it waiting to start, soon after that the band started to trickle
on stage…the atmosphere was fab!
Then the music to ‘Here He Comes’ started up just then Thommo walks
on stage in full make-up, eye-patch and coat - of course! wouldn’t be a
Crunch! gig without that!
All the songs were performed
fabulously! when ‘It’s Ok I’m
a policeman’ started up Thommo came on stage wearing a funky plastic
policeman’s hat complete with handcuffs! Kix spied to young females in the
audience; Caz and Sophie he handcuffed them together much to the amusement of
the audience and band! After much pleading with Thommo he got the keys and
un-cuffed Sophie… but not Caz, instead Lee put the other handcuff on himself
and proceeded to pull her up on stage to have a bit of a boogie! Caz was then
‘set free’ but she didn’t leave the stage before slapping both Chrissy Boy
and Kix on the backside! heehee lucky girl!
The gig went really well, but also way too quickly! Don’t get me wrong
as always I had the best time but I felt (as did others) that perhaps they
could’ve stayed on for a bit longer…
Following the conclusion of the gig everyone went to the back again; to
the bar, and one by one eventually most people left, until there was only Bex,
Sarah, Caz, Gray, Vince C, Vince F, and Simesy left, we weren’t about to leave
so we stayed around for the clubbing to start on the dance floor, after quite
some time of grooving, we decided it was time to leave by the time we’d left
the venue it was about 1-2am.
We arrived at the B&B some time after that as we decided to walk most
of the way, this time we sat and chatted in our room whilst Caz and I almost
fell asleep…
Sunday
15th October
As usual we all got up quite early Caz and I went for breakfast on our
own, then went to check on Bex and Sarah, after packing our stuff etc… we made
our way to Camden once more, seeing as Bex and Sarah only had a couple of hours
before they were due on the train back to Birmingham, the four of us went into
Mac Donalds and chatted till it was time to walk them to Camden tube station.
We said our goodbyes, yet more hugs, Caz and I were left on our own, we
decided to go to Camden lock, stand on the bridge and walk around the lock,
during this time we were texting Simesy and Scatty to see if they were up and if
they wanted to meet up in the D.C before we had to go our separate ways.
We all met in the D.C at around 1pm Caz and I had to be off to the
station at around 4pm it was a short little get together that day, bit of a calm
down after the gig, there was just Caz, Sigal, Scatty, Simesy, Ash and I.
Well, there’s not much else I can say now, except THANK YOU to the band
for being so great!! Cheers lads! Looking forward to the next one… don’t
make it during my gcse’s! also big thanks again to Swanny!!
Loads ‘a’ Love
Emma
Saturday 14th October 2000
@ The
Garage
THE RUN UP
Where do I begin?
Well, I guess it all started after the Crunch! gig at the Underworld in
July. After seeing them play for the first time I was impressed/obsessed and
many other things ending in 'sed'!!
Many text messages to Swanny were sent, asking when and where Crunch! were
next going to perform. In August, whilst drinking in the Dublin Castle with
Lee and Tad, Swanny informed us that the band were indeed going to perform
again, which was greeted by big grins and more beer!
So on to more recently-after Swanny made me a great Crunch! tape and Jerney
copied me the Nutty Boys album, my tape machine has been extremely overused
and the volume cranked up to the max.
The Thursday before the gig was spent listening to all the Crunch! material
I have (to get totally into the mood), singing at the top of my voice,
dancing round like a fool and packing. After checking that I had my camera,
gig tickets and everything else for the weekend, Sarah (my sis) and I
boarded the train at Birmingham International, headed for Crunchland.
Friday night consisted of various people meeting in the Dublin Castle with
Scat, Sarah, Caz, Emma, Graham, the two Vinces (at different times) and
Sigal from Israel. I lost count of the number of times that songs from the
Nutty Boys album appeared on the jukebox! Everyone was dying for the
Saturday night to come around, and this was reflected in the conversations.
We were all really up for it!
SATURDAY. PRE-GIG FRIVLITIES.
Having not got in to bed very early, some of us slept in. Those that didn't
nearly gave the cleaning lady a heart attack, when all the poor woman wanted
to know when knocking the door, was if rooms required cleaning (you bad girl
Caz!!).
When we got to The Dublin Castle around 1.30pm, quite a few members of the
list were already sat drinking- Mountain Boy, Cheryl, Mr. G, Rich, Vince
Carden to name but a few. Good to see Rob Hazelby and Suggsylia again too!
Conversations were resumed from the last meet, and the pub was filled with
excited chatter and different tunes from the Nutty Boys album.
After a while, Wood Green Pete lead us on to Highbury, and the Cock Tavern,
where we met up with Swanny, Graham and a few others. Naturally, this didn't
impede the flow of beer and the mailing list took over this pub too. Swanny
disappeared off to the soundcheck, and later returned, with some of the band
for more beer.
After discussing with Swanny why I should/shouldn't go and say hello to Lee,
Swanny finally reintroduced us, and after the obligatory handshake and kiss
from Mr. Thompson, I found I had to pick myself up off the floor when Lee
remembered me from our meeting in the summer. We spent 10 minutes talking
about the last gig and Thommo admitted that he wasn't as nervous about this
gig, compared to the other one. After kindly signing a photo from the last
gig, I found myself chatting to Tad, his friend Simon and Louis. Madame
Barso and I stood talking to Tad for around an hour and a half, about
anything and everything, including a few insights into Crunch!, music and
acting. After sharing his coke with me, him promising to keep a look-out for
the pair of us, and wishing them luck, we moved on to the Garage.
We managed to get into the venue, and after following a mass exodus towards
the front of the stage (O.K, So I'm a sheep!!), we bumped into one Daniel M.
Woodgate. After signing tons of autographs, posing for photos and even after
being molested by a rather drunken Sophie and Caz, Woody still had a massive
smile on his face!! A true gent. The two supporting bands- Reece and Kick
Junk- were good, but everyone was really fired up anyway.
THE GIG.
As people started to mill down towards the front, the theme to the Italian
Job started, and Louis, Tad and Spider made their way to the stage, closely
followed by Dave and Chrissy Boy. As the band started to play the excellent
unreleased 'Here He Comes', out came Thommo, resplendent in white face
paint, lipstick and a pair of those joke glasses with the eyes on springs.
And so it started, a minor musical earthquake. The band seemed so much more
confident, belting out classics such as 'Tap Dance', 'Magic Carpet' (always
a crowd pleaser), 'Going Solo', 'Whistle' and 'Saving for a rainy day'.
Everyone was going mad by this time and one of the funniest moments was when
Lee handcuffed Caz and Sophie together, pretended to lose the key and then
managed to handcuff himself to Caz, after unlocking Sophie. After much
struggling, Caz was thrown (quite literally!) up on stage, danced with Lee
and then went backstage to be 'unlocked'!! Greeted by cheers from the crowd,
Caz took her place back amongst the masses, not before smacking Messrs.
Foreman and Thompson on the arse!
The band continued with 'Boy in the Box', and crowd favourites 'Saints and
Sinners', 'Fight amongst yourselves' and 'Pipe Dreams', with the crowd in
fine vocal form for the line 'Good evening, I'm a cloud- Cooooee!'
'Fur Elise' proved (yet again) to be a highlight and after putting on a toy
policeman's helmet, we were treated to 'It's O.K I'm a policeman', with
funky lighting effects, and the finale 'People'.
After talking to people after the gig, the general consensus was that this
gig was way better than the Underworld, the band were more relaxed and that
reflected in their performance. The only grumble was that the set was too
short again. Maybe though, as the band get more into it, perhaps the set
length will increase, as their confidence grows.
I can't believe that I've managed to see this fantastic band twice in the
last 3 months, and if you find yourself at a loose end and happen to see
them listed, then I would definitely recommend you go and see them!
I would just like to say a big thank you to Mr. Lee Swandale for being an
utter star and all round top bloke, to the band for being so totally ace and
all my mates on the Madness Mailing List for making the weekend so
brilliant- before and after the gig!
See you all next time!!
Nutty Bex
20/10/00
