heavenly. 1996.

the text below is verbatim what i wrote in my notepad when i got home from this gig in nottingham in 1996. you can tell it's verbatim not least because the support band, bis, were entirely new to me then (i do remember amelia saying sthg along the lines of "i can't believe we're being supported by our favourite band") and for some reason i thought they were irish not scotch (and yes, they were on top of the pops within the year). you may also detect a downer already on my part re that particular city, which was basically because when i left my house to go to this gig, i had to dive down a side street to avoid a couple of kids that had marched me to a cashpoint and threatened to kill me two weeks earlier. er, anyway, heavenly were always an astonishingly good live band, and with the exception of napalm death and the fall, possibly still the band i've seen the most times. and it's a gig that matters to me because it was a pick-me-up, and in those pre-internet days it was pure fluke i ever knew about it - i'd literally been on a bus on alfreton road when i'd spotted a poster in the window of a shop with what looked like heavenly's logo, and on closer inspection later in the week, it turned out that it was, indeed, a plug for this:

Heavenly / bis / sugar & lust
Narrowboat, Nottingham 19/1/96

The bands appeared in ascending order of merit, but descending order of self-importance.

S&L are local kids, they started well then tailed off into general TFC-pastiche. An ill advised stab at Happy Days was the low spot.

Bis took the stage, 3 young-ish, fashionable looking irishpeople (they are Heavenly's favourite band). They were flawless, but very hard to pin down - imagine a Riot Grrrl band, except who can play their instruments, especially guitars, with a degree of Big Flame-ish panache, who can service shouted slogans with staccato rhythms, who've been listening to Pulp and the undertones. If you remember late 80s Dutch japester rhythmeisters Buy off the Bar (yes I do, just about) you'll like Bis. I certainly wouldn't rule out buying the single.

Now Heavenly never get stale & they're always slightly better than I was expecting. I suppose having released absolutely nil during 1995, what with helping out Nick Heyward etc & trying to find a new record label, it would have been greedy of me to expect just the back catalogue, but having been blitzed by an opening "modestic" several times more vital than the LP version, I was a tad disappointed that the next 7 songs were newies, though the absolutely brilliant one with the tambourine that sounded a bit like Tramway's 1991 Thekla christmas treat is indeed the new single and already the best song of 1996. Also it was good to hear a lyric about Nick Hornby. Anyway, the set rounded off with "Me & my madness" and in the atmospheric, Jericho Tavern-meets-Camden falcon-esque upstairs room, the smile on my face just stubbornly refused to subside.

And then came the encore. "Atta girl", & I dissolved into a dizzy smiling mess as galaxies collided and comets flew into black holes & Nottingham was all lit up & attractive and welcoming just for a few minutes.

the "new single", of course, was "trophy girlfriend". no idea why i thought bis sounded anything like pulp, though.