Saturday 15 November - was the second outing of the weekend, commencing with a visit to Akbar's in York, an Indian restaurant that I hadn't tried before. It was nice and roomy inside and, for 18:00 on a Saturday, surprisingly packed. The service was excellent and we could see all the chefs beavering away in the kitchen. The pickle tray was superb and for the main course I had a prawn balti which was tasty and spicy, about as hot as was comfortable for me. After eating we made our way to the Grand Opera House in York to watch "Music of the Commitments" featuring two of the original cast of the Peter Parker film. The music was great and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, but... (drags soap box into view...) For me there are two main types of music; stuff you sit down for (Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn), and stuff you stand up for (everything else). Some music appeals on a mental/emotional level, and some at a physical/emotional level. The Commitments music, being soul, is firmly in the second category so what possesses the promoters to put such shows on in a seated venue is beyond me. Back to this show in particular and I really did enjoy the music, I sang along and stood up and danced (in my limited way) in a tiny space between the seats, but I really didn't appreciate being introduced to every member of the band three times during the performance, listen to rubbish jokes between the songs, and I don't need to be told when to clap along. Grrrr.
Friday 14 November - kicked off a long weekend of music starting on Friday with a different watering hole to haunt, O'Neill's in York, an Irish bar which of course confuses me when I try to get a beer, so I ended up with a pint of Caffery's. That was OK. I was a little early so worked my way to the back of the bar where the band were busy doing their sound checks and found a tall chair to sit on and try to look cool. I think it may have worked rather too well as I was immediately pounced upon by a youngish lady who was obviously a smoker and pretty much wasted already. Fortunately I adopted my excellent "I can't see you, go away and pester someone else" pose and despite laying her extremely cold hands on my upper thighs she soon gave up to be sick somewhere outside. A and H turned up a little later and we were also joined by Legs Elanovitch, the Russian spy-mistress.
The reason we were here was to watch a band that we had seen before, Skint (and on FaceSpace). Skint are: Rich Graves (lead vocals), Stew King (lead/rhythm guitar), Ian Moore (drums), Gav Cator (rhythm/lead guitar), and Paul Teasdale (bass/vocals). Paul also plays bass in Breathing Space. They played a superb set of modern indie/rock covers. Due to the fact that in order to avert a new Cold War I was obliged to neck a vodka between pints #2 and #3, my brain was left a little woolly but I managed to blag the set list (actually a list of band names or songs titles but not both) and have re-assembled it for your delectation: The Strokes (Last Night), Kings of Leon (Molly's Chambers), Oasis (Supersonic), The Kooks (She Moves In Her Own Ways), Editors ( All Sparks), Artic Monkeys (Scummy Man), Green Day (Boulevard Of Broken Dreams), Wombats (Kill The Director), Kaiser Chiefs (I Predict A Riot) QotSA (No One Knows), Snow Patrol (Chasing Cars), Kings of Leon (Red Morning Light) Graham Coxon (I can't remember the name of this one!?!), Buzzcocks (Ever Fallen In Love), Therapy (Screamager), Jet (Are You Gonna Be My Girl), The Automatic (Monster), Velvet Revolver (can't remember this one either), Fratellis (Chelsea Dagger), Arctic Monkeys (I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor), Electric Six (Gay Bar), and The Hives (Hate To Say I Told You So).
Skint are a really top notch covers band, and I'm not on commission, honest guv.
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