GIG NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE

Who
Half Man Half Biscuit
Support
Shifty Chicken Shed
Where
Bilston The Robin 2
When
26th January 2012
Price
£16.00
Who with
No-one
Position
Towards the front
Comments
Amazingly this was the tenth time I'd now seen Half Man Half Biscuit, and the fifth time at The Robin in Bilston, which was comfortably a record for the number of times I'd seen a band playing the same venue. I purchased a ticket as early as possible and was surprised to note that the show didn't coincide with a Tranmere Rovers fixture. I'd got the impression that the band combined their gigs with away matches, but maybe not? I tried my best to persuade someone else to come along but to no avail, reminding me of why I don't invest the effort of asking around, as ultimately once a band appears onstage you can quite easily lose track of your friends anyway. I heard through their entire back catalogue and re-watched the live in Manchester 2001 video I had, which threatened to snap the tape on me when I attempted to rewind it, making that the first problem I'd had with a VHS in a solid twenty years! I then heard through CSI: Ambleside and 90 Bisodol (Crimond) a couple more times and headed to Bilston straight after work, not having any opportunity to get changed but figuring I'd explore the town a little bit. The first challenge was to travel from Willenhall to Bilston but I played it very safe and went via Wolverhampton, catching the slowest bus imaginable into town, not knowing which one went there directly having always gone by the Metro before. However as I now had a Black Country bus pass I was keen to make the most of it, but at the same time wanting to avoid the cheeky local bus companies who tried to make me pay more. Ultimately the speed didn't matter as I knew I'd have plenty of time to hang around and the challenge would be not getting too drunk! Additionally it was an utterly freezing day so I had little choice but to sport my very thickest coat although on the plus side I'd carefully planned everything so I didn't have to take my backpack with me. Once I reached Bilston bus station I was so disorientated by the very unclear maps indicating which way to exit that I didn't even look at the return bus times, but once I got my bearings I realised it was right next to the Metro station anyway.

In fact this was the "nice" side of town, with a quite respectable white church dominating the area but being gaudily lit up with neon lights, odd bits of street art and a genuinely impressive-if-small town hall to complete the cultural quarter. I had less luck when I ventured down the high street, with the main point of interest being a rare cash machine that allowed you to take out just £5! I was on a mission to find somewhere to eat but I saw no restaurants apart from a scummy-looking Indian which was mainly a takeaway. Upon spotting a seemingly lovely pub claiming on the sign to serve "good food" I headed inside to realise that the interior was horrible and beer range appalling, but I had a good excuse to make a swift exit when they said they'd stopped serving food at 2pm anyway. Thankfully I discovered an ever-reliable Wetherspoons a little further down and even got to enjoy something a bit different as they had a couple of haggis options on the menu, it being the week of Burns night and all. It was impossible for me to order anything other than the massive steak with haggis on the top, knowing that haggis, neeps and tatties is a bit bland. The menu however failed to say how much it would cost and I was shocked to find it was £13 with a drink included! I was assured that my bill was correct but I'm still not sure, yet ultimately I was just happy to pay to get my teeth into some haggis. I also got a surprisingly nice pint of British beer followed by a Budvar whilst reading the Metro and successfully completing the easy version of Sudoku. I decided though that I wanted to see a bit more of Bilston and utilised Google Maps on my phone to lead me to The Greyhound And Punchbowl pub slightly further down the road. This proved to be one of the most ambivalent pub experiences of my life as it was an utterly stunning Tudor pub building but inside it was perhaps the scummiest Midlands-style pub I'd ever seen, with a truly awful choice of beer, tired decor, dodgy customers and a miserly landlord who managed to have an argument with his wife while serving me!

I drank up my pint of Banks's as quickly as I could manage before dashing back to Spoons for a quick Erdinger. This was my fourth pint and it was probably one too many but as I didn't drink another drop it put me in a suitably good mood for the night and it was still early enough to allow me to escape any hangover the next day. I then headed to The Robin and could now fully appreciate the place, as it was a top quality venue in a town with little to offer which even seemed to be serving hot food. However after all the beer I'd consumed I dashed to the toilet, observing that Geoff from Probe Plus was manning the store as usual. Later on Nigel would give him a shout-out during the show and he'd even walked across the stage before the band were on. The support band were Shifty Chicken Shed and were already onstage when I arrived but I'm afraid that the details elude me as the beer was at the peak of its influence. There were quite a few members and they were of mixed gender but fronted by a lady. They also claimed to be from Oswestry and introduced a Kate Bush cover as having being the first thing they'd ever done together. They were certainly acceptable and claimed to be big fans of the main act but I can't remember much more! Once Shifty Chicken Shed finished everyone edged forwards and the evening seemed close to being a sell-out. I recognised three people from before who were all occupying the same positions, with a geeky looking guy who may not have left the house since their last show to the side and staying well away from the moshpit, then the very big guy in a fleece dominating centre-stage again and similarly spending much of the show turning around shouting the words back at the rest of us. There also was a younger guy who never seemed to stop moshing, but most interesting was the guy in the Hi-Vis jacket who had King Of Hi-Vis plastered on his back who I'd never spotted before. I'm sure most people tonight had been here previously but that gives the show a very friendly vibe, with even the band keen to chat with the front row during the performance! There was a little cheer as Ken and Neil appeared briefly onstage to check their instruments but the band actually had their own roadies doing much of the setting up for them, which is always a plus. Nigel in fact claimed that they travelled separately to the shows now, but I suspect he may have been teasing us on that point.

When Half Man Half Biscuit bounded onstage properly they were greeted with a much-deserved heroes welcome whilst Nigel took his time emptying out his Asda bag and chatting to the guys in front. Someone shouted out to ask if he was wearing a Christmas cardigan, which he denied, but pointed out that he'd be too hot later so it would have to go. After this customary fiddling the band launched into the excellent Joy In Leeuwarden (We Are Ready), which was a forward-thinking choice and a natural opener. I thought it was about football but in fact it's about korfball, however the entire premise that it was a rejected song to celebrate a tournament is apparently fictional anyway. For some reason I'd thought it was for when Holland/Belgium hosted the European Championships, but I'm now shocked to read that was way back in 2000! Frustratingly the sound quality was too loud and not up to the usual Bilston high standards and Neil shouted out several times to the soundman to sort it out so his monitors weren't dominated by Ken's playing, whereas Ken mischievously pointed upwards to indicate he wanted it even louder! Nevertheless this gave the show an enjoyably ragged edge and the sound either gradually improved or we just got used to it as the show went on. Leeuwarden was followed by a delightful take on Bottleneck At Capel Curig before When The Evening Sun Goes Down, which sounds so much better live than on record. Meanwhile Turned Up Clocked On Laid Off remains the definitive recession anthem and just seems to sound better every time I listen to it. Perhaps predictably the star heckle was "play one the drummer knows!" which was so obvious that I'd even thought of it myself but it was hilarious when done for the first time, if a little cruel to Carl! Nigel also made reference to Bob Marley accident claims as "no win, no fee" and spoke of feeling as if he was in Stalin's Russia in regard to a guy at the front writing notes on what he was saying and doing! He also spoke of his approval of The Vaccines album, apparently seriously, which is nice as they were the best that 2011 had to offer. Finally I recollect that Nigel made a joke about the mayor of Dudley, who upon being informed that he may be impotent replied with "of course I'm impotent, I'm the mayor of Dudley!"

For some reason I got confused with A Lilac Harry Quinn, thinking it was Outbreak Of Vitus Gerulaitis for a while, but the "six weeks to live but at least I'm not in Journey, sign on you crazy diamond" lyric is worth its weight in platinum and will never fail to impress. Maybe I can blame the beer or my failure to make detailed notes afterwards, but I don't recollect as many details of the show as I usually can, just obvious things such as Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes being a delight, always going down well as so many fans don't know it and presume it to be improvised. It was similarly fantastic to hear Improv Workshop Mimeshow Gobshite, which as far as I can gather I haven't heard live since way back in 2003! Meanwhile All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit was distinctly unseasonal and Nigel pointed out that he'd just noticed he was playing it on the very guitar that he'd written the song on, before leaving us to do the "errr" at the end as usual. Nevertheless it always gets a moshpit going, although surprisingly I didn't see any Dukla Prague tops in the pit until later on with Irk The Purists. L'Enfer C'Est Les Autres was introduced as Hell Is Other People, which is what the title translates to, and is the lyric we can all relate to, whereas National Shite Day was the first of several typical closing songs performed in the main set which gave the show a weird momentum, making you feel as if we were approaching the finale when we weren't even halfway through. We were then treated to the ending of The Best Things In Life, which is great but it would be nice to hear the full song one day perhaps? Old favourite We Built This Village On A Trad. Arr. Tune followed before the pleasant if strangely ever-present 1966 And All That appeared yet again. The biggest moshpit so far was saved for Irk The Purists which featured an excellent drum solo from Carl and silenced any criticisms of the drummer, joking or otherwise! Floreat Inertia was the first of just two oldies I'd never heard live before and it's a good song, yet easy to overlook due to the catchier numbers on This Leaden Pall. In fact I half-thought it was one from the new album. Vatican Broadside was unusually played as a standalone song, which was excellent as it gave it maximum impact, plus kept up its record as the only song HMHB have played every time I've seen them.

Another "closing" song played well before the end was Rock And Roll Is Full Of Bad Wools, which attracted another frantic moshpit but I don't feel it to be that strong. Certainly the new album is pretty good but I firmly believe that Achtung Bono represented a high water mark that the band will struggle to match, even if they are better than they have any right to be thirteen albums down the line. I resisted the moshpit but took great pleasure in leading the foot-stamping for an epic take on Twenty Four Hour Garage People, where the Pringles were an extortionate £2.96, Nigel requested some alphabet spaghetti with the vowels taken out and then yet again produced his list once he started to run out of amusing comments to say. He gave a brief shout-out to it being Australia Day and also admitted that there was no such flavour of Pringles as sour cream and chive, a fact he'd become aware of shortly after writing the song. A stunning run-through of Joy Division Oven Gloves was then delivered with more energy and carnage than arguably anything I'd heard the band do ever. It was insanity only equalled by the crazed reaction from the moshpit! For What Is Chatteris... followed before the band left the stage, returning for an encore with the brief Petty Sessions and then the main point of interest which was a very rare airing of I Love You Because (You Look Like Jim Reeves)! It was undoubtedly the highlight of the night for me as I'd never heard it live before and it's wonderful how any tracks from the debut album provoke such a warm fuzzy feeling which I never expect until I hear them played live for the first time. This was followed by Fix It So She Dreams Of Me which stood up bravely alongside such mighty company and was greeted well, plus I'll never again be able to think of the name Gok Wan without immediately adding the word "acolyte" to the sentence! The show then ended in unexpected manner with 99% Of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd, no doubt because it had gone down such an utter storm last time and was deemed worthy of the honour of being set closer. I certainly have no arguments with its greatness anyway!

I'd half-expected the band to reappear but this was the end so I made my way for the exit, picking up a ticket from amongst the leaflets as usual. I always emerge through an unexpected exit from The Robin and have trouble finding my bearings, but I made my way to the tram as quickly as possible, in fact catching an earlier one which was running late. A charge of £2.70 for such a short journey into town is pretty shocking but is ultimately worth it rather than chancing a bus and then missing the last train home, then having to fork out the outrageous rates needed for a taxi. In fact a few other guys got off at my stop and I was tucked up in bed by midnight. Nevertheless I was still exhausted the next day, which is always the downside of attending a midweek gig. I made far less notes than usual as it was utterly freezing and I didn't much fancy the idea of getting frostbite, but I'm surprised to observe that Half Man Half Biscuit had played a stonking 28 songs! Due to the "closing songs" of National Shite Day, We Built This Village On A Trad. Arr. Tune, Rock And Roll Is Full Of Bad Wools and Twenty Four Hour Garage People being played in the middle it had completely skewed my perception of the evening. However it had been a bit of an unusual one, as besides Some Call It Godcore which is always cruelly overlooked, the band also didn't play anything off the glorious Voyage To The Bottom Of The Road or Four Lads Who Shook The Wirral, plus ACD and McIntyre, Treadmore And Davitt were represented by just one number each. Even the recent CSI: Ambleside was overlooked, with just two tracks played. It is quite mind-blowing that HMHB are capable of missing out so much and yet still manage to play a reasonably strong set, but the real shocker was how many big hitters were left out, such as Fuckin' 'Ell It's Fred Titmus, Running Order Squabble Fest, The Trumpton Riots, Everything's A.O.R., Paintball's Coming Home and Look Dad No Tunes to name just a handful. Ultimately though I've said it before so I must reiterate again that Half Man Half Biscuit simply have too many fabulous tunes for their own good, and I very much look forwards to seeing them playing a few more of them next time around in Bilston!
Setlist
Joy In Leeuwarden (We Are Ready)
Bottleneck At Capel Curig
When The Evening Sun Goes Down
Turned Up Clocked On Laid Off
Left Lyrics In The Practice Room
A Lilac Harry Quinn
Excavating Rita
Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes
Improv Workshop Mimeshow Gobshite
All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit
L'Enfer C'Est Les Autres
National Shite Day
The Best Things In Life
We Built This Village On A Trad. Arr. Tune
1966 And All That
Irk The Purists
Floreat Inertia
Vatican Broadside
Rock And Roll Is Full Of Bad Wools
Twenty Four Hour Garage People
Tommy Walsh's Eco-House
The Light At The End Of The Tunnel (Is The Light Of An Oncoming Train)
Joy Division Oven Gloves
For What Is Chatteris...
Petty Sessions
I Love You Because (You Look Like Jim Reeves)
Fix It So She Dreams Of Me
99% Of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd

Mark: 8.0/10