Week 53 - New Year's Eve - The End

Week 53 – Saturday 31/12/2011 - Johnny Cage and The Voodoo Groove – Globe, Cardiff - £10

“That’s the end of that chapter.”

Although 2011 was already over 52 weeks old, it wasn’t quite finished with us yet. As anyone who knows his 52 times table will tell you, 52 doesn’t fit into 365 without some excess baggage. Earth still had a few hundred thousand kilometres to go to complete its annual orbit around that big yellow thing.

The 365^th day, became the 53^rd week of Gigaweek, which meant Sandro and I were compelled to spend it away from Jools and his rampant hootenanny at a gig of some kind.

Week 53 was also, of course, New Year’s Eve, so there were all sorts of events and gigs across the country. But where better to spend the night than at our most frequented venue of the year, The Globe?

There was a band playing and they were charging for tickets, which makes it a gig as far as I’m concerned, and as far as you’re concerned.

The band that were playing were local heroes Johnny Cage & The Voodoo Groove. The fact that they would have burlesque dancers with them didn’t even enter our thoughts.

They’d also played last year when I stormed the stage dressed in my ‘Sumo-in-a-tutu’ suit, so we knew what to expect. On that occasion, Sandro had been dressed as ‘O-Man’ in tribute to the country and superhero of the same name, but this year we’d disappointingly matured and fancy dress was out of the question.

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Sadly not all of the cast of Gigaweek were with us, but many regulars (and not-so-regulars) from the past year were present, including Salazar, Gavlova, Flapjack, Little P, Buster Douglas, The Wendys, J Meaty, Karen T, Lucy D, Little Bird and Little John. 


There were even some fresh faces in the form of Shell C (or Sporty Spice), Portuguese Tony (Hairy Spice), Sam eH (not-so-Posh Spice) and Hannah dC (not-so-ginger Spice), plus China Mike (China Spice), an old friend of Sandro’s who now lives abroad. He didn’t say where.

All I recall about the gig, is a rendition of a Tom Waits song, or as it’s more commonly known, the theme tune from The Wire.

One member of the band was half-naked, while the rest weren’t so shy. That was about it. It was probably the best gig of the year.

An excessive amount of alcohol  was flying around (particularly in the literal sense) which is why my memory is so limited. A beer bottle hit me on the head. 


Did we even sing 'Auld Lang Syne'? I’m pretty sure we did and I’m the most reliable witness I know.


For some reason the staff at The Globe started kicking us out well before closing time, which was supposed to be 2am and all that remained was an Onion Bhaji fuelled frenzy at local late night curry house Tandoori Mahal.


Then it truly was all over.


We were in 2012 and the Chinese year of the Gigaweek was over.

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It’s been a long year.

There’ve been highs (I didn’t mention them), lows, but mostly bits in the middle.

Sandro and I have been to over fifty gigs each, 4 music festivals (which featured 70 to 80 different sets, don’t you know), and we drank at countless pubs.

We’ve spent thousands of pounds, sunk hundreds of beers (slowly in some cases), and eaten dozens of unhealthy meals.

Many people have joined us along the way to make the experience bearable. Some have been welcome, some less so (Flapjack), but I thank all of them for their contributions. Admittedly, without you it would have been better but at least you tried.

At the very least, without you, Sandro and I would have come to blows and we all know that wouldn’t have lasted long. He’s renowned for his blowing ability.

To those who’ve read this blog (Marge), if you’ve managed to stick with Gigaweek from beginning to end, you should probably take a long hard look in the mirror. You may also remember that one of the initial challenges we set ourselves was to attend at least one gig abroad (in hot pants).

You will therefore note that we’ve failed. This is of course, irrelevant and I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it.

So what does next year hold in store for me and Sandro? Well, as my friend Ferris once said, life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. I would add that you’ll also get really, really tired, so next year I thought it would probably be for the best if I did nothing whatsoever.

But that sounds too difficult. The best idea I had is to travel, taking in a new country every week, but I couldn’t think of an inoffensive enough name for it. Plus I spent all my money this year.

The next bright idea was to go to the cinema once a week, but apparently you can’t drink beer or yell ‘Arriba!!’ during a film. With that in mind, we’ve settled on Pubaweek, whereby we drink at a different pub every single week of the year. Doesn’t sound like much of a challenge does it?

Feel free to do the same. Don’t worry, I won’t be writing about it.

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December

3-9 - The Drums - ✓
10-16 - Straight Lines, Cuba Cuba & Tiger Please - ✓ (2manydjs + Manic Street Preachers)
17-23 - Dopamine - ✓
24-30 - The Blackout - ✓
31 - Johnny Cage & The Voodoo Groove - ✓

The End