7th Oct, 2005
nowt so dear as folk

Last night I was persuaded (fairly easily, as it goes, as I'd spent all afternoon doing a VAT return and was in desperate need of entertainment, even if it was English folk music) to go and watch some English folk music. The band were called Bellowhead, and their website is here, though if you ask me (and I think you should) they should rename the page “index.html”, as when you go to bellowhead.co.uk you get a message saying “Directory Listing Denied: This Virtual Directory does not allow contents to be listed”, and that won't sell you many CDs, will it.

The gig was at The Scala in Kings Cross, a marvellous old cinema that once held all night screenings of art-house movies, which was a brilliant idea, although I never went, preferring to wait until it had shut down and converted to a music venue, at which point I decided to finally go there and see a load of sh!t bands instead. At the door a humourless cretin masquerading as a female security guard rifled through my bag and triumphantly pulled out a small bottle of Evian with about 40ml of mineral water at the bottom, probably mixed with about 1ml of my saliva. “You're going to have to dispose of this now, or come back and collect it later,” she said, vacantly staring about 6 inches above my left shoulder. “Ooh, that's a good idea, could you look after it for me for 3 hours?,” I said, holding the bottle up to eye level. “No, actually, I tell you what, let's just throw it away,” I said, jovially. Idiots. Inside, the pathetic range of beer on offer prompted Will to do something I've never seen him do before: turn down a drink. “I've decided,” he said, proudly, “not to drink alcohol if there's no alcohol worth drinking.” A fine attitude, there. I, by contrast, had a pint of piss-weak Carling Black Label to celebrate Will's extremely short ride on The Wagon.

Bellowhead were fantastic. They were a fairly youthful 11-piece band, firing up the crowd immediately with some fiery interpretations of English folk music standards. Occasionally they'd introduce something as “disco folk” or suchlike, and I found my eyes rolling, only to get 10 seconds into the tune and find myself thinking that, actually, disco folk is a pretty good idea. I loved the fact that the singer, in sharp suit, tie and dishevelled hair, looked like the singer in any number of current arty post-punk bands, except for most of the time he had a finger in one ear. Some traditions die hard.

Afterwards I asked Will, as a parting shot, why he thought it might be, that when I try and call someone and they're not in, I assume that they must be dead. I've had this rather odd mental quirk for some time, now, and it's causing me some distress. Unsurprisingly, he didn't have a clue.

*

Someone on my friends list – who shall remain nameless, to spare him blushes – actually, no, let's just say it, it's – sent me a link to this website. How many more of these bloody things do we need? First we had Friendster, then everyone got bored of that, and then MySpace (or MiceBass, as my sister prefers to call it), and now this, and all you do is add people in big chains of friends, sit back and cry at the meaninglessness of your existence. And I can do that without visiting Hi5.com, to be honest.

Comments

No comments. There's internet tumbleweed.