Picture from Pinterest (yes, it is still going)
The first Thursday of the month is when The Kimberly Sessions takes place and having missed the January gig I wanted to make the trip up last night but was scuppered thanks to the ineptitude of Nottingham's bus company Trent Barton. I always try and avoid Trent Barton if I can, but they are the only service that goes that way. Thanks to the fact that Nottingham Council once again paid someone cash under the table to set fire to a building in Canning Circus, traffic was all to bollocks. While I was waiting for the bus, three buses went past all declaring the message that they were not in service. If a bus isn't in service there is no reason for it to be on the road, if it is on the road and going that way anyway, there is no excuse for not stopping. I was in text contact with Bainy, who organises the show, who at one point told me that the second of four acts had just started. The journey was not going to be worth it so I gave up and went home. Having vented my disgust at Trent Barton's shoddy approach to running a service, I was prepared to have a night in.
My night was saved thanks to checking Facebook and seeing that Frankie Vacuum was going to be performing in town so I put my shoes back on and left the house. Although I thought I would miss the beginning of Frank's set I have failed to take into account the fact that the show was in Hockley, therefore running times mean very little and I was able to have a few drinks with him beforehand. The show was a bit of a mish-mash of musicians, a comedian who didn't go down too well, someone who appeared to be reading a shopping list for all the sense I could make of his set and Frank, who went down well thanks to his on stage persona grabbing attention straight away and commanding the audience to listen.
The Angel is a venue that needs to do something about the talking during live performance. I have an idea for a system similar to the old Pub Watch in which if someone gets barred for bad behaviour from one pub, they are barred from all of the pubs involved in the scheme. Nottingham needs for all of the music venues to work together to crack down on this appalling disrespect for the artist and show that they mean business by taking a zero tolerance approach, perhaps employing people to eject offenders from the premises, by force if necessary. Given the attitude of one of the bar staff, a stroppy little fucker with small man syndrome who had overdosed on the arsehole tablets, I am surprised he wasn't more pro-active in shutting the customers up. If he took it as seriously as he did the chalked up rule about not standing in a specific area of the bar he could be running a tight ship where you can hear the artists.
I'm not a fan of The Angel any more since it underwent the dreaded R word, but thankfully it still sells some proper beer. After the night I had been through the last thing I wanted was to have to drink some wanky avocado and banana organic wheat free vegan craft ale.
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The first edition of The Random Sessions Podcast is available here.
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