Week 47

Week 47 – Saturday 19th November – Wild Beasts – Anson Rooms, Bristol – £14

“23 quid, that’s my final offer!”

The day after we was robbed at Wise Blood, Sandro and I made a long overdue return to Bristol to see Wild Beasts. A wild beast we know well, namely Cousin Bish, joined us for a couple of cans of Magners on the 7 o’clock train. 

If you’re a regular reader, then I’m sure you’ve frequently been astounded by our sometimes outlandish and uncontrollable behaviour (remember that time I bought a 17 year old a drink?). This week, I could tell from our discussion on the train that our antics were going to be crazier than ever.

It was the 17 varieties of apples that Magners are made from, that inspired our topic of conversation. “How many varieties of Apples can you name?” I asked wildly, readily armed with an armoury of apple knowledge.

“Well there’s Granny Smith,” Cousin Bish started confidently.

“My personal favourite, Red Delicious,” I chipped in.

“Golden Delicious,” Sandro said, following my lead.

 “Umm, that’s all of ‘em isn’t it?” Cousin Bish said, losing the contest miserably in the process.

“You’re forgetting Gala,” I pointed out. Cousin Bish was furious with himself.

“And Empire,” Sandro added. He knew his apples.

“Touché. I see your Empire, and raise you Braeburn,” I replied. I could tell Cousin Bish was impressed.

“The Blenheim Orange,” Sandro said. “How do you like them apples?”

Cousin Bish and I looked at each other. I don’t think anybody was expecting that. I began to sweat.

“Cox’s,” I said.

Sandro’s lip curled malevolently.

“You mean, Cox’s Orange Pippin,” he replied scornfully. My heart sank. 

With that I was beaten, albeit on a technicality, unless...

“As I went first you still have to name at least one more,” I said to Sandro.

“No problem. How about, The Knobbed Russet?” he replied.

“Now I know you’re just making them up!” Cousin Bish said dismissively.

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When we arrived in Bristol, like me, the taxi driver we happened upon seemed oblivious as to where the venue, Anson Rooms, was. In fact, he didn’t seem to know where Bristol University was. Nor Park Street. Nor Bristol for that matter. With a little direction, he did his job well enough for us to arrive in time to see the support band, Braids.

We picked up a pint of Gaymers from the bar before heading into the main hall, immediately spotting Big Jeff up front, although amazingly he appeared to only be in the 2^nd row. Having not listened to Braids before, I was quietly impressed by their quality and would have to say that they are undoubtedly the best Canadian band I’ve seen since The Russian Futurists.

Once they’d finished we scrambled for another drink, but the main bar was so busy that we headed to the bottle bar instead. From there we bought a couple of bottles each for £3.50 a pop, which was quite disgusting but I’ll learn to live with it one day. 

Wild Beasts took to the stage professing their love of Bristol, harking back to a gig at The Louisiana a few years ago and declaring what a delight it was to play a city that had treated them so well. I felt my heart warming before realising that I’m not actually from Bristol and they weren’t praising me at all.

“Incidentally, Cardiff is shit,” they probably also added.

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Unlike Braids, I have listened to Wild Beasts a fair amount, particularly their second and third albums, Two Dancers and Smother. It was these two that provided the bulk of tonight’s material, with only ‘The Devil’s Crayon’ from their debut Limbo Panto featuring. They opened with the luxurious Bed of Nails and followed it with ‘We Still Got The Taste Dancin’ On Our Tongues’ which gave their singer a chance to show off his distinctive, high pitched vocals.

They have two singers as it happens. One, Hayden Thorpe, specialises in a high-pitched, haunting voice, while the other, Tom Fleming, wields a much lower, perfectly complimentary voice. Fleming was given the opportunity to flex his larynx on ‘Two Dancers (ii)’ and ‘Deeper’ which was appropriate, given his dancing skills. 

The crowd was tooting and applauding as the band finished on ‘Hooting & Howling’ before they departed for a moment, destined to return for a few more. Their encore featured 3 songs, beginning with the wonderful ‘Lion’s Share’. 

‘Woooah ohh ohh, woooah ohh ohh! Oh, oh, oh, oh oh! Oh, oh, oh, oh oh!’ was the catchy refrain of the night (if you can figure out how that sounds, feel free to hum it to yourself), and came from ‘All The King’s Men’, which saw Fleming hooting in a high pitched tone, while Thorpe howled in the background. It was all terribly confusing.

‘End Come Too Soon’, signalled the end of the show, and not a moment too soon considering what happened before it. 

A young lad had brushed past us as he led his friend by the hand. It was unusual to see two grown men holding hands, but it’s the ‘90’s, so I didn’t bat an eyelid. Neither did the second lad actually, even when his nose collided with my cheek, nearly giving me a black eye.

“Did you just kiss a blind man?” Cousin Bish asked moments later.

“No, I didn’t. He just bumped into me is all,” I replied.

“You did. I saw you pucker up and everything,” Cousin Bish said. “Poor guy, at least he had an excuse!”

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Once outside, Cousin Bish drained our bladders against a nearby tree, much to the tree’s frustration. Judging by the wet patch on my left dap; we’d stood too close to each other.

“Jesus H! Are you blind!?” I asked furiously.

“Nope, but that bloke you kissed earlier was.”

“It wasn’t a kiss, it was a head-butt. That’s where you’ve been going wrong.”

Childish bickering apart, we once again found ourselves in a very real predicament. We were already too late for the last train home from Temple Meads, which left at five to eleven, so we had to get to Bristol Parkway by half past eleven, or face a wait ‘til ten to ten in the morning.

When a Taxi driver is aware of this information, there’s a danger of being bent over a barrel, and I bend over for no man, blind or not.

When we asked our Taxi driver of choice to take us to Parkway, he reached for his trusted handbook.

“That’s 25 quid,” he said after finding the relevant page.

“25 quid!” we exclaimed in unison.

“Yes, look, it’s in the book!” he said defensively.

I peered through the glass. I could have sworn it said ‘Last train is 23:30. Bleed the buggers dry.’

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Cousin Bish said. “We paid 15 quid last week!”

“No, it’s 25,” chuckled the adamant driver.

“I reckon we can get it for less from someone else,” Cousin Bish said chancing his arm.

It was five past eleven so it was a dangerous game to play, but the driver buckled.

“Look, 23 quid, that’s my final offer!” he offered.

“Can’t we just have the meter on?” Sandro suggested.

“No, it’s outside the Bristol limits,” the driver said. We sighed collectively. 

“Look, I’ll do it for 20 quid, Ok?”

“Sure!” Cousin Bish said. “Don’t worry lads, it’ll be 18 by the time we get there!”

It wasn’t. It was 30.

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The wild night continued on the train home. We’d arrived at an otherwise abandoned Bristol Parkway and Sandro was hungry enough to buy a Bounty from one of the archaic vending machines. This particular vendor had a sense of humour and gave him a Twix instead. Being a Twix fan, I thought this a result, but Sandro was enraged.

“If I’d wanted a Twix, I’d have pressed the Twix button!” he argued with the vending machine, who rudely ignored him.

Aboard the inspectorless train, we decided to sample the luxury of first class travel. The seats were each equipped with a screen and a selection of videos to choose from. Rather than discuss varieties of Oranges with Sandro and Cousin Bish, I plugged my headphones in and settled down to watch Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon bicker for half an hour.

Unfortunately, the counter on the buffet car was closed. There wasn’t a Knobbed Russet in sight. Dizzy with thirst and hunger, Sandro and I emptied more than 20 milkettes into a stray cup, before Sandro decided that he wanted milk about as much as he wanted a Twix, and left me to it.

It was only after I’d drained the cup that I decided that, like Ron Burgundy before me, milk was a bad choice.

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November
 
29-4 - Arctic Monkeys - ✓
5-11 - Girls - ✓
12-18 - Wise Blood - ✓
19-25 - Wild Beasts - ✓
26-2 - Foster The People + Kasabian