The Courtesans and The Voyeur
Part III
10. 12 Bar Club,
London, 21th December 2015
To be continued…
Saturday 12th December 2015
The Courtesans, Howard, Sidewalks and Skeletons, Leashes
12 Bar Club, London
Well they well and truly fucked that up didn’t they… But, as
usual, I’m jumping ahead of myself.
Dear reader, before I go any further, a little house
keeping. As I reached the end of Part I, my porn machine went tits up tonto and
became The Catholic Church, sorry I meant to say corrupted. The same thing
happened as I reached the end of Part II, only this time my porn machine became
FIFA and the whole of my blog was transported to Qatar.
Having nearly lost all of my work - twice - I’ve decided to
not take any more chances and to change the format, from now on it will be one
gig per post.
Also, because my blog got transported to Qatar I wasn’t able
to finish Part II in the way I wanted, so I’m putting the end of Part II at the
bottom of this post, it ruins the symmetry, but shit happens… Oh the irony…
Moving on…
I eventually got the venue just before 6pm, a few quick
photos, before diving inside and heading straight for the bar. What a fantastic
little venue. I’m not exactly sure what I was imagining but this wasn’t it.
I didn’t notice it straight away, in fact I didn’t notice it
at all, I even walked around the corner of the bar to where what was happening
was happening, I even took photos of it, but it still didn’t click - if you’ll
pardon the pun.
Back at the bar, I bought my first beer of the evening,
which set the wheels of events spinning and later on my head and room, before
watching the rest of the Euro draw.
And I’ve still not noticed.
Time rolls on, band members, Howard and crew walk past, say
hello, stop to chat, texts from Mick who’s on the red eye from Stratford and
even after chatting to band members, Howard and crew, I’ve still not
noticed.
Saff, for whatever reason has decided to dress as Marley’s
Ghost from Scrooge, well a younger, female, in her underwear, version of
Marley’s Ghost. That girl could wear a dust bin and still look fit as fuck. Actually,
she’d probably look like a Dalek and who wouldn’t want to do a Dalek, with all
of those small perfectly formed pert domes and that big sucker thing on the
front of it, the suction… I can’t be the only one that ever thought of doing a
Dalek… Oh… Right… It is just me then…
I’m introduced to Dan and as and we chat about the demise of
Chelsea up rocks Mick, “Spurs fan”, I shout across the bar and everyone turns
to look while Mick just laughs it off… Let the banter begin… For all the people that don’t know the 12 Bar
Club is literally a few hundred metres from The Emirates and as we all know the
pride of North London is… Enfield Town FC.
And I’ve still not noticed.
While chatting at the bar about football, or more accurately
listening to Dan and Mick trade points - and let’s be honest Chelsea need them -
about which team has won what and when. It was simply a matter of time before
Dan played his Top Trump, “Who’s won the European Cup?”
With incredible timing up rocks David (see Milton Keynes,
Bishop Stortford and Evesham) who’s from Northampton and so obviously supports
Crystal Palace. “Guy’s this David”, I said, “I forgot who you support”, I
continued. “Palace” replied David. “He’s
Chelsea and he’s Tottenham…” “Both teams we’re above”, said David, before
walking off. Oh God it so funny I just fell about the place. Top Trumped by a
Palace fan…
Somewhere around to close to 8pm The Courtesans are on stage
and sound checking. I looked at Mick and said, trust me, they sound a lot
better than this. I promise.
And I’ve still not noticed.
What I hadn’t noticed was that the bands were sound checking
in reverse order and everything was running stupidly late.
Eventually someone somewhere decided that someone somewhere
should tell at least one of the bands to go stage and get on with it.
Leashes, bless them, I still don’t get it, but at least they
give it everything and I love that about them.
Skeleton and Sidewalks are the surprise of the night and
they play a blinder of a set.
Then Howard gets up on stage with some old friends and plays
a few songs. Turns out he was in a few bands back in his younger days before
getting involved with band management.
As we chatted at the bar, we started to realise that
something was going wrong, apart from running late, it just wasn’t happening,
it was all very disjointed, oh look… it’s a De Lorean and suddenly were back at The Watershed in Newport Pagnell.
If all of that wasn’t enough, up rocks Mark from SANE http://sane.org.uk/ The Courtesans being The
Courtesans had agreed to get involved with SANE for tonight’s gig and Mark was
going to get up on the stage say a few words, the only problem was that he did
it just before the band went on stage, instead of doing it at the start of the
night and then spending all night just chatting with people and handing out
info and advice… and again, it just like the events at The Watershed, it killed
the vibe, well, it just put more nails into the coffin.
Eventually, sometime after 10pm The Courtesans are on stage.
By now it was too late for me. I’d drank too much. I’d swopped too many stories
of seeing other bands doing similar things and far worse and frankly I was
beginning to wonder if they were going to be able to rescue the situation.
I dived to the front of the stage centre, knelt down - I
know my place. The Courtesans did what The Courtesans do best and just launched
into their set and they played a blinder. Bloody hell they were on fire…
I could see the set list, track 6 and a new song, “John Doe”
(I see what they did there) I flip my camera to film mode and recorded the
song. But it started to go wrong again. Sinead couldn’t find her drum, neither could
anyone else. Eventually the drum is found and the song begins. Impressive, very
impressive.
OY! Sinead, your drum
is behind you, it’s got some Irish bird stood in it… Am I the only one that
thinks she almost looks like a Dalek…? WHAT!? Oh come on…
From then on in, the gig just dissolved into chaos. Curfew. Did someone somewhere say curfew? Suddenly the race was on. How many songs can they play? Which one are they playing next? No, really, which one are they playing next? No one has a clue what the hell is going on and before anybody takes control of the situation the situation takes control of them. Gig Over!
It’s all going wrong…
If I can’t hear it
then it’s not happening…
Suddenly there are two long strips of flame across the floor, we jump into the De Lorean and Halford at Graspop 2002 looms into view… http://nogginwalsall.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/bruce-dickinson-in-search-of-now-man.html
I found myself at the bar chatting with Mick. With cold
forensic logic Mick picked the evening apart and it was difficult to disagree
with him, especially since he was right.
I did speak to a few band members and they were not happy
with what had happened. I don’t know the full facts of the evening. Maybe it’s
best that I don’t. All I know is that The Courtesans fell into the oldest trick
in the book. Lesson learnt? Well, time will tell.
Trying to put right
what has just gone wrong…
I stepped into the cold night air, my head was spinning, the rain was falling, I stumbled into the tube station and started make my way home. Thanks to the events of the night I got to Tottenham Hale with literally seconds to spare.
WHOOOSSSHHHHHH!!! Litter is blown into the air, cold damp
air thunders all around me and instead of finding two strips of flame to warm
myself with I’m greeted with a very mucky cold and clammy train.
I jumped on the last train north, it didn’t take me all the
way home, so a long walk in the pouring rain it was. I got home at 01.15 Sunday
morning. My clothes slumped onto the floor and I crawled into bed.
Just like the Lexington, London gig and The Box up in Crewe,
this will be another one of those gigs that people will say, I was there… Seeing a band play a gig and play it well is
one thing, but seeing a band play a gig and have it go wrong is another, this
is where you see just how much they want it. How much they deserve your
attention. You work hard for your money, let them give you a reason why you
should spend it on them…
Personally, I wouldn’t have missed it for all the money in
the world. I have a sneaky feeling that the next time they play live they are going
to be so angry that whoever witnesses that gig will simply get battered. I only wish I could be there.
Within 24 hours The Courtesans had posted a message on their
Facefuck page apologising for the previous night’s events and promising to send
all of those that bought tickets in advance a little something in the post, Iron
Maiden, 18th October 1986 Ipswich, Gaumont, springs to mind…
Tonight was my 10th Courtesans gig, what a way to
move into double figures. I’ve just looked at my gig list, Iron Maiden 54,
Wolfsbane 52, Bruce Dickinson 42, Living Colour 25, Terrorvision, Jagged
Edge/Taste/Skin, The Stranglers 16, Blaze Bayley 14, The Wildhearts 12 and just
bubbling under double figures, Sack Trick, Stretch, RUSH, Slayer, Status Quo…
far too many to mention… Just how funny is that, The Courtesans are up there
with the best…
All of which brings me to this, The Courtesans logo. I
mentioned their logo after the Tamworth gig (Part I Chapter 04) and as I’ve
already mentioned I wanted to conclude my thoughts after the Crewe gig (Part II
Chapter 09) but I couldn’t. So here I go… (Again…).
Sometime after the Tamworth gig The Courtesans decided to
change their logo, not once but twice and as I write/type, I’m wondering if
they have completely dropped the word “The” from the band name.
I loved the original logo, it was a fantastic piece of
artwork and a wonderful graphic and it would have looked so cool on a T Shirt,
but as far as I’m concerned the word “Courtesans” didn’t read “Courtesans”.
fig 1
fig 2
fig 3
It took months and months to get my head around it, why, in
my opinion, it didn’t work, and then in a flash of inspiration it just clicked,
“Whitesnake”. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t noticed it before, to be honest
I couldn’t believe why I hadn’t noticed it straight away.
fig 4
If there’s a cooler band logo than the Whitesnake logo then
I’m yet to see it. As a kid I loved it until someone pointed out to me the
glaringly obvious mistake… Once someone
had pointed out the mistake in the Whitesnake logo I was more than a bit
gutted, but it didn’t last too long.
Have you spotted it? Look at fig 1 and now look at fig 4.
Can you spot what’s wrong? No, neither could I.
Here they are back to back or should that be top to bottom…
OK, I’ll put you out of your misery. It’s the letter “t” or
more importantly the loop at the top of the letter and the cross that runs
through it.
A similar mistake was staring at me from The Courtesans
logo. In my opinion, what complicated the image more than the Whitesnake logo was
the scroll in The Courtesans logo that runs from right to left and through the
top loop in the letter “t”. The downward movement on the scroll as it moves
towards the letter “C” making the letter “C” look like a letter “K”. To my eyes
it almost looks like the Kellogg’s letter “K” (but not a Special K… See what I
did there…?).
In my opinion, if they had just cut the scroll short so it
was literally just a short dribble through the loop at the top of the “t” I
think it would have worked. Anyway…
None of the above is meant as a criticism just an insight
into how I look at the world because of my dyslexia and an observation of the
band, growing, changing, evolving.
Over the last three years I’ve watched and listened to the
band as they simply got better and better and better. Every time I interact
with the band they have grown a little bit more, became slightly more polished,
whether it is on stage or off. The band logo is just an extension of that
growth.
I know what you’re thinking. It’s easy. Well if it’s so
easy, try it. Pretend you’ve just started a band. Now pick a name. Now pick a
logo or a font. Not so easy is it. I know to at least four bands named “Iron
Maiden”, three bands named “Nirvana” and as for “10CC” they actually had a hit
record before a band name never mind a logo and it wasn’t until someone
mentioned that they had seen the word “10CC” in a dream, that someone somewhere
decided that it would be a good name for the band, that the single is released
and the rest as they say is history…
Finally, as I’ve watched The Courtesans over the last three
years I’ve very often found myself thinking about Keith Wilfort and I’ve been thinking,
at what point did he think, that the band (Iron Maiden) were not just another
band, there must have been a point where he thought, hold on… there’s something
going on here, also there must have been a point when it wasn’t just him that
was seeing and hearing what he was seeing and hearing. There must have been a
moment when it all started to change. I
wonder…
L to R, Newport
Pagnell, London, Welwyn Garden City
L to R, Tamworth,
London, Bishop Stortford
L to R, Evesham, Crewe,
London
Look at how the set
lists have developed over the last three years, just look at some of the songs
that have been dropped, bloody hell fire…
And yes, that is my duvet
cover, no I’m not gay, it just fucking looks good… deal with it…
And… while I’m on the subject of “Iron Maiden” they have actually had at least THREE different logos since 1980 and their debut album, so if it’s good enough for Maiden then it’s good enough for The Courtesans.
The good thing about the latest Courtesans logo is that it
makes it easier to draw on a school book or make from LEGO or embroider onto
the back of your denim jacket… EEK!
Oh God… What were we thinking? Yes kids you read that right,
we used to embroider the back of our denim jackets or denim cut offs.
None of this not being able to pull your trousers up over
your pants (if I wanted to see your under wear I’d take you home – learn to
dress yourself you fucking retard…) or carrying a bag around that is bigger
than your girlfriends bag (seriously… what the fuck have you got in the there…)
or those stupid Tony & Guy comb overs (you’ll have plenty of time to do
that when you’re old, bald and fat).
We were hard core. We would rush home after a hard nights
rocking and or a rolling, we would raid our mothers sewing kit and start
embroidering our denims… Anyone can go out and rape a Nun or burn down a church
but it takes a really evil bastard to embroider the back of a denim.
Embroidery, truly the work of the Devil.
Only real Metal fans embroider…
*places head in hands and shakes head from side to side…*
To be continued…
Noggin xx
