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Friday, November 09, 2007

It's Floors and Walls!

Floors...
I know it looks more like one of last week's zombie walks, but it's not. Although as you can see from the photo, I was standing behind two blonde midgets, and there's an undead arm in a plastercast trying to grab the bass guitarist on the right, so it was a bit of a freak show. And that's ignoring the fact that the mic stand's making the drummer look like the bloke on the Pringles tube.

Anyhoo, Lisa and I spent last night at Hector's House, trying to prove that just because you're over thirty (or pushing forty in Lisa's case) doesn't mean you can't get down and party with the kids. I'm not sure we succeeded. But as a long-time fan (it's almost six weeks now) of Floors and Walls, I was naturally keen to see them live again. Especially as it was free. So I persuaded Lisa to pay for my bus fare, and we headed on down to da House.

As it turned out, there were three bands on last night, of which Floors & Walls were the most sensibly named. I know, I couldn't believe it either. First up were The Deal Was For The Diamond. Yes, The Deal Was For The Diamond. No, I don't know what it means either. They were a four-piece instrumental band, something I eventually realised after spending the entire first number waiting for one of them to start singing. I have to admit that opinion is divided on TDWFTD (even as an acronym it's longer than Blur or Oasis). Personally I thought they were phenomenally good, and would happily go and see them again and part with cash to buy an album if they had one. Which is saying something when I won't spend £3.20 on a bus ticket. Lisa, on the other hand, called their music "a dreadful racket". It's all a matter of opinion. Although needless to say she's wrong.

The second band were The Chedington Incident, which sounds like a cheese spillage at a theme park. Lisa quite liked this lot, because as she put it, "at least they had some words and a tune", which I think is a bit harsh on the Diamond geezers. Personally I could take them or leave them. With a slight preference for leaving them. They weren't bad, but after the soaring prog-rock reverb of TDWFTD, I couldn't get excited about the Cheds, and would have been happy if the evening had passed without Incident.

... WallsHaving sat down through most of Chedington's world of adventures, I soon leapt to my feet, however, for the headline act of the night, Floors and Walls. I forced Lisa to join me near the stage, where we were able to fully experience the modern social etiquette of today's youth. Basically the rule appears to be that if there's enough of a gap between two people for you to slide in a theoretical credit card, then you're fully entitled to shove your way through and barge anyone out of the way, preferably whilst spilling a drink over them. I'm sure it wasn't like that in my day. Possibly because I tended to hang out at the library.

Anyhoo, the Floors were very good (obviously), although I felt like having strong words with the guy on the mixing desk who insisted on having the mic turned down so low that Alex Adams could have been reciting nursery rhymes for all we could tell. But I jumped around a bit, trying not to look like I was 15 years older than everyone else, and rapped along as best I could, before getting slightly scared by the mosh pit in the final song and retreating to a safe distance.

To Phil...When it was all over, the band started selling copies of their album for a fiver, which is an outrage as I paid £6.99 at HMV. But fortunately I'd taken my copy along, so with the self-confidence of a young rap fan, I quickly handed it to Lisa and asked her to fetch me some autographs. Three quarters of the band had wandered off by this point, but like a celebrity bloodhound, Lisa managed to make it onto the stage, flutter her eyelashes at the lead singer, and come back triumphantly holding a CD cover bearing the words "To Phil, Alex Adams". It's just a shame my pen wouldn't work. It's not so much signed as engraved.

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