It wasn't the kind of road trip to rival Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. Tony is not a twenty-stone Samoan lawyer. He is infact a semi-retired teacher from Birmingham. He was good enough to do the driving for the Edinburgh/Kendal double-header calling in at the West Yorkshire Badlands on his way through. All hail! We didn't have any mescaline or whisky in the car (to my knowledge). Instead there was plenty of music. We were on the edge of North Berwick when The Rezillos took hold. They don't call them tapes any more, it was one of those systems with a read-out that you plug into the cigarette-lighter. Or is that the Satnav? I'm years behind with stuff like that. Good effort all round, though.
We did a couple of circuits round the one-way system in Edinburgh before taking the correct route into the car-park of the Travelodge at the bottom of Cowgate. From there we were off to The Filling Station for feeding and watering, before meeting Paul at the Brew Dog. We skilfully avoided their rather potent Sink The Bismarck. Is that stuff legal? Then it was back for one in The Bow Bar, where as usual we were packed in like sardines. And finally to The Liquid Room.
This has never been my favourite venue. The metal box feel does not appeal to me, but it's popular enough, and after all, anywhere that hosts HMHB can't be all that bad. I spent the evening loitering on the balcony. Afterwards one or two folk mentioned a slightly dodgy sound system, but as usual it seemed OK to me. I got a sense of a slightly rushed show, and it was only 10.15 when I was back out on the street outside (and 10.16 when I was back in the Bow Bar).
There were one or two tunes from yesteryear which haven't been given an airing for a while. We had the full version of The Best Things In Life (not just the bit about writing on your slipper). And at one point Nigel was particularly vexed about the fact that Mr Universe always comes from Earth. True as ever.
The Best Things In Life
Bottleneck At Capel Curig
When The Evening Sun Goes Down
Harry Quinn
Petty Sessions
Lark Descending
Fred Titmus
Reflections In A Flat
Left Lyrics In Practice Room
Totnes Bickering Fair
Gouranga
Turned Up Clocked On Laid Off
The Light At The End Of The Tunnel
Look Dad No Tunes
All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit
Bob Wilson Anchorman
1966 And All That
Moody Chops
Twenty-Four Hour Garage People
For What Is Chatteris?
Vatican Broadside
National Shite Day
Everything's AOR
And the three in the encore were
Worried Man Blues
99% Of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd
Joy Division Oven Gloves
If you're interested, one of the people in the queue was after some linseed loaf.
On the Friday we had a quick perusal of the tourist shops on The Royal Mile. Tony pondered on the possibility of a market for Dukla Prague away kilts. It was time to leave for Kendal.