Justin Currie (Del Amitri)…

 

I went to see Justin Currie do a gig at a local comedy club last night. He used to be, or still is depending on your view point, the lead singer of a band called Del Amitri. I’m not a fan of him or the band, but I went with a couple of friends, one of which is.

The support act was a guy and a guitar. I can can’t remember his name, but I remember that he was a complete freak. By the end of the performance we decided that he had probably been signed out of a local institution for the night!

Anyway, the main band came on and they were pretty cool. Kind of middle of the road rock/pop. Nothing too heavy and challenging, but not wishy-washy either. It turned out I know three songs by Del Amitri, those being “Nothing Ever Happens”, “Last To Know” and “Don’t Come Home Too Soon”. The latter was used as the Scottish World Cup song a few years ago. When somebody requested it, the fans murmured anxiously and Justin gave a dirty look to the guy and said, “C*nt!”. Now I don’t think that song is so bad, but I get the feeling it is not well regarded by the band or the fans. Needless to say he didn’t sing it. I can only assume that Scotland did exceptionally badly in the competition the year that was their official tune. Pity.

In all it was a pretty good gig. I’m still not a fan, but it was worth going to see. I do have a few observations about the gig-going public though:

  • Don’t sit next to me and smoke a pipe! You don’t look cool! You look like an idiot 30 something trying to look cool and failing. Roll on the smoking ban in public places that starts in July. That’s one civil liberties violation I don’t mind.
  • If you are the girlfriend/wife of said pipe smoker, do your other half a favor and explain to them that the guy sitting next to him, the one giving him dirty looks all night, is getting close to shoving that repugnant device down his throat and kicking the sh*t out of him!
  • When your a 40 something woman, it really doesn’t look cool when you act like a teenage girl experiencing Beetle Mania!
  • Male fans, it’s really not cool to try and out-sing the band. If I wanted to hear a bunch of beer-swilling idiots sing out of tune, I would have gone to a football match.

I drove home to the sound of Amy Winehouse (Back to Black). Imagine someone raiding the back catalog of Phil Spectre and Nina Simone, then jumbling the whole lot up. That’s what Amy Winehouse reminds be of. I grew up listening to Mowtown, and I’m quite partial to a bit of Nina Simone, so the combination works quite well for me.

Just a quick name and shame…

Lee Burrows – Give me back my Evanescence CD! You’ve had it since I went to Oracle Open World in October, and I still haven’t got it back!

Cheers

Tim…

Update: Lee has now returned my CD. 🙂

Author: Tim...

DBA, Developer, Author, Trainer.

18 thoughts on “Justin Currie (Del Amitri)…”

  1. you just reminded me of a certain Frank Zappa concert I attended in South London’s Oval, very early 70s…

    This was the “free dope” era: I spent the next 12 hours inhaling the “grass” smoke from everyone around me!

    To this day, I don’t know how I made it back to Bayswater: I know I caught various trains at various times of the night, but in the state I was in I couldn’t give a fig where they went…

    Got back in time for a bacon, sausage and eggs breakfast doused with heaps of very sour orange juice and a big jug of strong black coffee. Man, I still remember the taste of that meal! 😉

  2. I thought the the politically correct statement was, “I smoked it, but I didn’t inhale…” That got Bill Clinton off the hook. 🙂

    Cheers

    Tim…

  3. >> I can only assume that Scotland did exceptionally badly in the
    >> competition the year that was their official tune.

    I think that’s a pretty safe assumption to make about the Scottish performance in any world cup 😉

    Actually I suspect the real problem is that any official World Cup song is suck-y in the extreme, with the exception of “World In Motion” by New Order (and I guess the Brazilians get some nifty samba tunes to go with their silky futebol style).

    Cheers, APC

  4. Normally agree ith most of what you write, but you kinda incensed me with your self righteous diatribe…so I thought I’d reply with one of my own!! 😉

    Oh blimey, a little bit of smoke isn’t going to kill you…and at the end of the day you could have moved somewhere else… Whats wrong with people enjoying themselves, who cares if they ‘don’t look cool’? Cool in whose eyes?! Whats wrong with singing? Nothing beats a live gig where the crowd know and love the material. There’s nothing worse than going to a great gig and seeing people standing still, let go, enjoy yourself…

    bazza

  5. “Oh blimey, a little bit of smoke isn’t going to kill you”

    On the contrary, it will and there is evidence to prove it. From July smoking will be banned in public places in England. No more passive smoking, especially from pipes stinking like tramps socks.

    “you could have moved somewhere else”

    It was a sold-out seated venue. The only way for me to move was to leave my friends and stand at the back. I don’t see why I should move because someone else is being antisocial.

    “who cares if they ‘don’t look cool’?”

    If you saw the guy you would know that his sole ambition in life was to try and look cool, but of course, the harder you chase something, the more elusive it becomes. 🙂

    “Whats wrong with singing?”

    Now this one, I would normally agree with. At a large venue, or a stadium, the PA will drown out anyone, but at this venue it was possible to hear the tuneless idiots. I paid to hear this guy sing, not them.

    Anyway, good to know someone is listening… 🙂

    Cheers

    Tim…

  6. Noons, do you remember which tour that was? The first Zappa concert I saw was the Waka Jawaka tour at the Hollywood Bowl, 1971 I believe, just after Flo and Eddie left the band. A real eye-opener! The opener was a Morrison-less Doors…

    Some opening acts at clubs pay to play. I recall going to the Troubadour (I think) around 1976. The opening act was some lady playing a piano, real plain commercial stuff. There was a TV crew there, and about half-a-dozen early-birds who apparently wanted to get good seats for the headliner, Ravi Shankar with John McLaughlin (playing acoustic guitar) IIRC. So the cameraman pans around what there was of the audience, and naturally I went “argh!” and held up my arms when the kleig lights shone right into my eyes. We managed to get home early enough to watch the news to see if we were on. Sure enough, it pans around the audience, voice-over giving the impression there’s an appreciative crowd there. My (very photogenic) girlfriend was prominent, but of course they clipped me. Oh yeah, the other people all left with the film crew, we had great seats right up front.

    We have some fairly strict no-smoking laws here in California, and I must say, they are great – you really notice it when you go elsewhere. Although, banning smoking on beaches is kind of iffy, and bars and casinos are really in a huff. So to speak. Some people only smoke when they drink.

  7. Hawkwind and Frank Zappa concert, the London Oval, September 72. I had just finished 1st year in uni and my parents sent me off to UK to see if I’d like doing Uni there. Gave up on the idea: too many good looking women around for an 18 year old to concentrate on studying…

    As a reformed smoker myself, the smell of the stuff doesn’t really cause that much of a drama. I did smoke for decades, mostly “unleaded” 1mg cigarettes. Gave up when a quack reminded me I had young kids to raise and he’d have bad news for me on the next yearly checkup. That kinda clinched it.

    I must admit I’m not very vocal about other smokers: the stuff is legal, after all. I find it much more disgusting and offensive that governments can collect huge taxes off smokers while at the same time encouraging those who consider smokers “the source of all evil” and then claiming hard drugs are “evil”.

    If there was a better argument for legalizing and controlling other hard drugs, I wouldn’t be able to imagine one…

    Having said that though, I fully understand Tim’s point of view: smokers should be considerate enough not to abuse their rights, if they want to receive consideration back. And many just don’t care. Hence the agro.

  8. My my Tim,

    You are really one angry man arent you? Why are you getting so emotional about someone smoking a pipe? Obviously you have a chip on your shoulder about how desperately uncool you look, hence having problems about other peoples appearances or how they enjoy themselves. Youre going bald too and maybe you shouldve gone to specsavers. I also noticed how much of a tight git you are bringing your own sweets to a bar… You must really know how to have fun. By the way, i will give my girlfriend the advise youve offered. I promise she wont laugh at you.
    I’m glad you enjoyed your night though.

    Regards

    h.mcfaddon

  9. Well that’s random! I don’t know where you’ve got of that stuff from, but you were obviously at the gig and noticed me… Weird…

    Horses said… “You are really one angry man aren’t you? Why are you getting so emotional about someone smoking a pipe?”

    I just don’t like being annoyed by people who don’t give a crap about others. Smoking in all its forms is anti-social and the sooner it is banned in public places the better. Smoking a pipe takes anti-social to a new level.

    Horses said… “Obviously you have a chip on your shoulder about how desperately uncool you look, hence having problems about other peoples appearances or how they enjoy themselves.”

    If not smoking a pipe makes me desperately uncool, then yes I am. Of course, you are the perfect judge of cool, whoever you are. I quick search on Google shows you are a Del Amitri fan from Redditch and your myspace profile is here:

    http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=100791084

    Now you seem to be using a picture of Kriss Akabusi in your profile.

    http://www.nyt.co.uk/kriss.akabusi.htm

    So you feel the need to use a picture of a former Olympic athlete rather than your own image on your profile. I’m no psychologist, but that doesn’t sound like a person with a good self-image to me. The phrase, “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”, comes to mind! 🙂

    Horses said… “Youre going bald too and maybe you should have gone to specsavers.”

    Perhaps you need glasses. I’m not sure where the bald thing comes from. My hair is too thick if anything. That’s why I keep it short. Perhaps you’ve got me confused with my friend at the gig, who is getting a bit thin on top. I can’t remember if I was wearing glasses at the gig. I only need them for driving and reading, but I sometimes get lazy and leave them on. Either way, my glasses are fine. If you’ve got me mixed up with my mate again, his glasses look pretty cool to me.

    Horses said… “I also noticed how much of a tight git you are bringing your own sweets to a bar…”

    This is what made me realize you must have been at the gig. My friends had just got back from Austria and brought them as a present. That’s why I had them with me. As for being a tight git, well that’s a matter of opinion. I gave some of them away to people in the queue while we were waiting to get in. I guess you weren’t one of them! If you wanted one you only had to ask.

    Horses said… “You must really know how to have fun.”

    I know what I think is fun. One mans meat is another mans poison. It’s my blog so I give my opinions. You don’t have to agree.

    Horses said… “By the way, i will give my girlfriend the advise you’ve offered. I promise she wont laugh at you.”

    I guess that all depends on who she is. If she is the girlfriend of a pipe smoker, then I guess she has learned to live with that constant stench. If she is one of the “teenage girl experiencing Beetle Mania” breed of 40 something women, I assume she will find everything funny, including watching paint dry. If she is the girlfriend of someone who tries desperately to sing louder than the band at a small gig, then I guess she’s already learned to deal with this also.

    Horses said… “I’m glad you enjoyed your night though.”

    I did have a good night at the gig actually, but it would have been better without the idiots. I can only hope that the time you spent observing me (or was it my friend) wasn’t a distraction from the gig. I seems you spent a lot of time looking in the wrong direction.

    Cheers

    Tim…

  10. Shit,

    How much spare time has this computer geek got on his hands? Anyway, if you didnt like the pipe why didnt you tell me rather than making threats about kicking the shit out of me on a website when you got home?
    But now i know what you look like bumping into you in b’ham should be quite interesting. I wonder what a information a google search will bring up on you…

    regards

    h.mcfaddon

  11. So you are the pipe smoker. No wonder you’ve taken such an interest in my post!

    Horses said… “How much spare time has this computer geek got on his hands?”

    About the same amount of time as you by the look of it. It’s funny how you use the term “computer geek” as an insult, when I use it as a badge of honor.

    Horses said… “Anyway, if you didnt like the pipe why didnt you tell me rather than making threats about kicking the shit out of me on a website when you got home?”

    I don’t believe I made any such threat. I actually said, “is getting close to shoving that repugnant device down his throat and kicking the sh*t out of him!” A threat would be me saying, “I’m going to…” At no point did I say this, or any remark that implied if I met you again I would. Not a threat, just an expression of how your antisocial behavior made me feel. A feeling shared by my friends.

    Horses said… “But now i know what you look like bumping into you in b’ham should be quite interesting.”

    Now if one were to discuss threats, I guess they would sound like that. I don’t think it’s a great idea to publicly announce a threat if you intend to act on it. Well it does sound like a meeting between us would be interesting doesn’t it. You seem to forget that I know what you look like also, and it’s nothing like Kriss Akabusi.

    Horses said… “I wonder what a information a google search will bring up on you…”

    There is a vast amount of information about me on the net. Without wanting to brag, I’m very well known in my field. You’ve found my blog already. The next thing you might want to look for is my website, which is probably what I’m best known for.

    https://oracle-base.com

    You’ll also find me on Amazon, as I’ve written a couple of books.

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?path=ASIN/0974448664
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?path=ASIN/097615739X

    Then look for references to me in industry press, of which there are quite a lot. Maybe start with something like this.

    http://www.oracle.com/technology/community/oracle_ace/ace1.html#hall
    http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/06-nov/o66eca.html#hall

    Then there’s my blog on flexibility and Yoga, which is fairly recent:

    https://oracle-base.com/flexibility/

    Finally my Karate club website. I’m on the second photo down. I’m the white guy in the middle and you’ll notice I have a lot of hair:

    http://www.kaizenskc.com/Gallery.php

    My life is an open book, but you hide behind an image of Kriss Akabusi…

    Cheers

    Tim…

  12. Tim,

    I’ve read some festering pish in my times but this my friend takes the proverbial biscuit.

    You are a fud!

    Best regards

    Gerry

  13. Tim,

    Are you still talking shit? You must have a lot of spare time. I think you need to find yourself a girlfriend.

    regards

    h.mcfaddon

    p.s. Karate is for kids.

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