Tuesday 5 October 2010

The Cult of Personality

The first in an irregular series of posts illustrating my capacity for being a bell-end.

My trainspotter-ish collection of concert tickets tells me that this happened on the 11th of October 1990, but to tell the whole story we need to rewind just a little further.













Sometime earlier that year, I'm going to guess in August, I read in the NME that Living Colour were due to play at the Marquee Club in London. There were no tickets available in advance from the box office so me and my gig buddy Mike decided to turn up anyway and see if we could pick up tickets outside. As we emerged from Tottenham Court Road tube, we spotted a girl from work that we recognised but didn't know. Yes she was also on her way to the Marquee Club, and no, she didn't have a ticket either. Her name was Ruth. All three of us completely failed to get into the gig, shared a pizza and caught the train back home. I got the feeling that she liked me.

When more Living Colour tour dates were announced a month or two later, I asked Ruth if she wanted to go. She said she did. I said that me, Mike and a couple of others were going to drive up to the gig and there was room for her if she wanted a lift. She said she'd make her own way there but a lift home would be great because it was a bit hit and miss as to whether you could make the last train back to Hastings without leaving the gig early. We arranged to meet out front after the show. Come the evening of the gig, strong drink was taken and we had a rare old time, but no sign of Ruth. After about three minutes of waiting around out front after the show, I slurred 'forget it, lets get going'. Simon, the driver, asked if I was sure and I said that there was plenty of time for Ruth to get the last train and we made for home. It's decisions like this that resulted in mobile telephones being invented.

At work the following morning, I had an horrific hangover and at about 9.30 Ruth rang me. She didn't care that I was hungover and feeling delicate. She was considerably more concerned about having had to spend the night freezing her arse off sleeping rough in Charing Cross station before catching the 5.30am train to Hastings. I apologised but of course she was having none of it - and quite right too. I got the feeling she didn't like me any more.

I never spoke to Ruth again and I still feel bad about my shoddy treatment of her. Living Colour were excellent though.


Sunday 3 October 2010

Reeling in the years

Last night I met up with my buddy Toby for the first time in about seven or eight years. When we first met at work in about 1990 we were both long of hair and tight of trouser and bonded over a shared love of loud music and the ability to make each other laugh. We even had a part time gig selling rare and collectible rock records and CDs for a few years, but that's a story for another time.

Twenty years later and we're a bit saggier and the hair is shorter and greyer (alright, that's mostly me) but not only are the original shared interests still there but it turns out that Toby has developed a passion for photography in the intervening years. And he's good. Really good. Check him out at http://www.tobyh.myzen.co.uk/