Blackwood Miner's Institute Fri April 1st

It’s only our second ever visit to South Wales, the first being a cracking little show at Newport Riverfront on the last tour. Tonight ( and it IS April Fool’s Day, so we were a tad dubious about this when our agent sent the date through ) we’re at a venue which glories in the name of Blackwood Miner’s Institute. It may well once have echoed to the bombast and rhetoric of the pitmen’s union, but these days it’s a cool little theatre, and it’s even hosted such biggies as Stereophonics quite recently. We may not quite have reached their dizzy heights sales-wise yet, but we’ve done pretty close to sell-out business tonight, and if last time’s experience was anything to go by we’re in for a good night. There’s a great deal of clichéd garbage talked about “ The Valleys “ and Wales being the Land Of Song and all that malarkey, but Blackwood really IS in “The Valleys “, although these valleys are so far up the mountains that you half expect to see a species of dinosaur hitherto thought extinct striding up the main street. The venue is also on a hill more suited to goats than ageing, overweight road monkeys such as myself, so by the time we’ve got the gear in I’m already cream – crackered. It’s all a bit tight inside and there’s a fair amount of flightcase Tetris going on just so we can get everything onstage, but as ever we get it nailed , if a little later than usual. The main topic of conversation regarding the venue is that for some inexplicable reason known only to the architect who built the place, it has no backstage toilet, and by extension, no backstage shower. No doubt he was a hardy miner who felt that washing was some kind of girly fussiness, and that getting rid of the coaldust weakened your back or something, but for our sorry band of bus-encrusted travellers this is bad news with a capital Smelly. There IS a washbasin which allows us to lower our undercarriages into a bowl of icy mountain stream water, but the bloodcurdling screams which emanate from the little room where the sink sits are enough to chill even the bravest heart, so for most of us discretion is the better part of valour, and we decide to wait until tomorrow. Rather typically, the fact that there’s no shower coincides with this being the hottest, stickiest venue on the whole tour, but them’s the breaks, as they say...You always know when you’re in for a good evening when the audience clap and cheer as they see the shadowy figures of the band making their way onstage during the intro footage, and tonight is one of those nights. Although they don’t cavort as early or as freely as the Dumfries crowd, this lot are loud loud LOUD and make their appreciation crystal clear. Tonight’s megacheer number is Suspicious Minds, and it’s a REAL megacheer….they clearly LOVE The King here, and when the photo of him comes up on the screens you’d have thought he WAS in the building , as opposed to still being dead. From here on in it all goes a bit banzai, and the place turns into a sea of waving hands, bellowing voices and sweat, adding yet another layer of funk to our already grimy bods. It COULD be shaping up as another Spirit In The Sky night, but the band want to keep their powder dry ( it’s the only thing that is, mind ) and so they close with the normal one-two combination of Daydream Believer and Walk Alone. The singing we hear back from the crowd is totally brilliant, and all that Welsh choir cliché nonsense suddenly doesn’t seem so daft after all. A fabulous night, then, and it isn’t over yet….a fairly elderly lady and her young female companion are still in the front row after everyone has left. She’s remained behind to politely ask if the band would play at her birthday party. She can pay them the princely sum of £ 400 but, and here’s the clincher,
“ she’ll also do a spread of sandwiches “. Sadly the date coincides with a hair-washing night for the band, so they have to regretfully decline. The response of the people here tonight has been fabulous, though….after the show we all repair to the local Wetherspoons for a restorative libation, and there’s a constant stream of folks coming by saying how much they loved the gig, when are we coming back, it’s the best thing they’ve ever had there and so on. Lovely, lovely compliments, and it just reinforces what we all believe here….that we’ve got a show which can go all the way. For now we’ve just got our sights on knocking That’ll Be The day off it’s perch, but after that, who knows ? I head back to the bus and resolve to dig out my jackboots and that map of the Sudentenland, Poland, and the Low Countries……………