In all my years of being in bands, the only time I’ve ever had a morning rendezvous to set off for a UK gig was when The Keatons made their hilarious decision to begin their 1990 UK tour in Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides. And that was the morning of the day before the show. And we STILL turned up late, with very few instruments, malfunctioning amps, and indeed no lead singer. So when I heard that the Central London rendezvous for setting off for yesterday’s show in Brighton was 10.45am, there was a certain amount of relief. At last, I’m in a band that does things properly, and leaves time for things like, I dunno, stopping to go to the toilet. The Keatons were once very late for a gig in Tunbridge Wells, and Steve (bass) refused to stop for Dave (guitar) to have a piss, so Dave tried to piss into an empty Coke can, with limited success, and then tried to chuck it out of the window, with even less success, which I hardly need tell you means spilt piss. The cries of “Oh, Dave, No” were never as loud or earnest as they were that day.

The technology we’re employing is fearful. Those standing at the front will see, amongst other things, 400 miles of midi cabling, no less than 800 midi keyboards, several thousand synth modules, a laptop for each member of the audience and a swanee whistle. They say that knowledge is power, but for our immensely hard-working troubleshooter, confidante, technical adviser, wife, mother and first aider, Andy, knowledge is a weighty burden. He’s the only one who knows how the whole shebang fits together. So while he manfully struggled with 14,000 power supplies, I helped him by sauntering into Brighton to try out some vegetarian shoes. They were delicious.

The gig went really well. David Thomas came up the road from Hove to watch. I’ve not seen David for a long time, and he proudly announced that the new Pere Ubu album is to be called “Why I Hate Women”. I already knew this; when I found out it made me laugh, and when he told me again, it made me laugh even harder. So, er, why do you hate women, I giggled. “Well, I don’t, obviously,” he said, “it’s just a great title for a record, don’t you think?”

The Boom Boom Bap
Snow In Sun
Robin Hood
After Six
E11th Nuts
Come Clean
Dr Abernathy
The Sweetest Girl
Am I Right In Thinking
Hands Up
Cooking
The Road To No Regret
D to the O
Skank Bloc Bologna
Petrococadollar
Edge Of Degradation

Encore 1: Wood Beez
Encore 2: E11th Nuts, again

The rest of the band travelled back to London, while I bought a kebab and ate it in a bathroom of a friend’s flat on Regency Square, before falling asleep on a sofabed to the sound of my girlfriend retching up some cheap white wine that had clearly decided not to make my girlfriend’s stomach its new home. Rock and roll.