—Manchester, yesterday
Sale, February 18th 2013
What is Sale? I’m here, in Sale, I’m walking through its – what are they, streets? but I can’t determine what it is. Is it a town, a suburb or an industrial service zone? There are homes and businesses of every sort – built in every decade of the last one hundred and fifty years – a seventies high-street, a revamped canal and a futuristic multi-storey car-park. The Arts Centre is new but it’s stuck to a town hall which was perhaps built in the nineteen-thirties. It is a mad conglomeration, strewn haphazardly about some ancient snake-pit of a street plan. It is so odd and uncategorizable it’s almost charming. I feed some pita bread to the ducks and pigeons at the canal as we wait for get-in. I try to be equitable. I don’t wish to exhibit any favouritism.
Between soundcheck and show we check-in to our Manchester city centre hotel. It is a shock to be so suddenly urban. This part of the city is swarming with new architecture, mainly mid-rise residences but there are towers crammed with terminals too. It is all unashamedly modern and ambitious. Something is happening here and I don’t know what it is, do I Mr. Wilson?
The hotel is busy with young drinkers after the gig – urbanites all – so room service is backed up. Starving, I go looking for post-midnight grub. The only thing I find is a Pakistani place with some delicious looking food laid out in a display cabinet. I opt for a mixed kebab type thing by pointing and shrugging. Nobody seems to speak English which is refreshing. The place is bubbling with pan-asian flavour. I read some Urdu free-sheet as I’m waiting, which is filled with ads for immigration lawyers and halal meat purveyors. There are three articles in English, two on petty crime and one about cars. And a picture of a cricketer. It’s better than The Guardian.
I sleep for a long time and wake up in the middle of a dream. I had administered a drug called Vulcan to a jet-lagged friend which turned out to be for aborting foetuses. My friend being male, I discounted the seriousness of this information. How are you feeling? I asked him. Pretty good, he replied.
Manchester is stage-lit by the low morning sun. I crawl out to explore. There are impressive new erections everywhere. The BBC’s decentralisation seems to be having an impact – it feels a little more like London very time I visit. But I weary of walking early on and dump myself in a local restaurant for a long lunch with a newspaper and on the way back attempt to buy some undergarments without surrendering my post code, which proves tricky. What’s my post code? Just give me the pants and take my cash, Fuckface. What’s YOUR fucking post code?
Tonight we have a Chinese meal planned. Table for three, please. We saunter around the block in Chinatown a few times and plump for the first one we fancied. It’s fitted out like a baddie’s lair in a sixties spy movie. Later I watch the second half of an FA cup replay, Manchester United as it happens. I catch sight of myself in the room’s long horizontal mirror behind the laptop screen. Lines crawl around my eyes as if some demon is behind me trying to claw them out. Or drag me back into the hellfire of the past.
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“Lines crawl around my eyes as if some demon is behind me trying to claw them out. Or drag me back into the hellfire of the past.”
-beauty
This reply is for Gareth Jones, my computer won’t let me directly reply under his comment. Thank you for your comment, I have to say you are spot on with my lustful tones in my comments. I’m afraid I have been suffering from Justin Currieitis for the last 26 years and it seems to be getting worse. I’m wondering if the great man himself would have any suggestions for a cure, I doubt antibiotics would help. I better go coz I can feel another need for another cold shower. Thanks for making me laugh. Cheers.
After seeing you in Wolverhampton last year and Manchester/Sale (…the Ryanair location), I do hope you or your management choose more ‘standing friendly’ locations in the future. Remember the Academy a few yrs ago with the full backing band? Rocking!! Less of a performance, more of an occasion!
Brilliant gig in Sale. However, how was I refused my request of ‘baby, you survived’ because it was too mordlin and then you went onto sing ‘still in love’? Don’t tell me that was stepping it up a gear!
Fantastic gig at Whitley Bay last night. (Thought support sounded like Ray LaMontangue!) JC in great form – see you tonight in Kendal!!
If your travelling along the A69 JC, I’ll buy you a butty in Brampton!
why are you playing in these shit tin pot towns?
Because I am a tin pot pop tart with shit in my heart.
Oh, I wouldn’t be THAT harsh on yourself…..but sensorship…..very disappointing.
Censorship? I think not. Website moderation would be a more accurate term. After all, how would you like it if a man continually left lewd and vulgar remarks on your site? That is a bit of a double standard don’t you think?
Indeed, or if a Eunuch came along to your website, and scrawled lots of predominantly non-offensive asexual comments all over the place.
Yes indeed Mr. Crowthercunts. But at least he wouldn’t be wanking all over the blogs.
Exactly, and in that way, Gary Barlow is the same.
Digging your scene.
I can’t recall seeing any lewd and vulgar comments. Just a few people wanting to help someone they admire.
And who was wanking? And what double standard, prey tell Dr?
Yes Les. And I’m digging yours. All I’m saying is that the moderator of a website reserves the right to decide what is and is not appropriate. And TeenageCrush, I do believe we are speaking of two different things. I was reffering to someone else’s comments. I don’t wish to single her out any further than that.
It’s probably a computer glitch anyway. Have you seen the complaints section? I don’t think Justin is removing any comments. lol The whole censorship statement just did not sit right with me.
I used to live in that shit tin pot town y’know Monsieur JB. It has some charm (as I remember)…as has Manchester. Fond memories of my first ever Del Amitri gig there at the Academy way back whenever??…eek…was it 1992?
What a bizarre dream you had. It would be interesting to find out the meaning of it, maybe that jet-lagged person was really yourself. There is nothing worse than waking up in the middle of a dream, especially if it’s a good one. I’m glad you have started including the type of cuisine you are dining on, you sound like you have a very multicultural palate. It’s nice to hear you fed ducks and pigeons, I always feel sorry for wildlife as food can be quite scarce at times so on behalf on them thankyou. Hope your undergarment situation has been rectified, nothing worse when that happens, you could always go commando.
I always look forward to your comments Kim. There’s always an undercurrent of salaciousness to them. I have the feeling that Mr Currie would not hang onto his undergarments, if he was in your company, for very long.
Sorry. No chance.
Hi Justin it’s me Jamie, I was the one who asked for your autograph when you arrived at the Waterside Art Centre. Fantastic gig, both me and my dad loved every moment of it. Love your music Justin, keep on rocking! ;)
Jamie Spilsbury.
This year’s pilgrimage (she’s discomfited by the religious metaphor – but it is what it is) means her first trip to Manchester for years.
Salford Quays is now remembered for a woman clad solely in apparel which suggests that significant physical exertion is imminent. But it is not. It’s just a snapshot of the depressing inverse proportionality of sartorial to actual sportiness. The hag calls through a slurp of Fosters to a pre-school daughter “Ge(t) ‘ere or a’ll fookin’ ba(tt)er yer”. Revulsion rises and won’t be quelled…
Manchester city centre next. Her spirits lift. Much-changed, shiny, slick. She spends some of the afternoon quaffing overpriced fizz in the bar at Harvey Nicks, surrounded by young, beautiful consumers of overpriced tat. The irony of her judgment of them makes her smile.
Later, at the theatre in Sale (an aptly named, cut-price half-place) there’s an opportunity to eye up fellow devotees. They’ve grown older. Some have even grown old.
You are, as always, sublime. The voice is faultless, perhaps even the best she’s ever heard it. But it’s an evening of contradictions: practiced and professional, yet heartwarmingly forgetful; confident yet apologetic. Familiar.
The chat is, as ever, warm, funny, self-deprecating. She’s still, however, slightly bemused by the frequency of the expletives in one so articulate. But then she remembers an afternoon outside a bar off Buchanan Street: the air thick to the point of saturation and beyond with fucks which fell out and bruised her ears until they were numb and she no longer noticed them either…
By the end of the evening she is replete, satisfied, sated. Nearly. The gigs of recent years leave an almost imperceptible aftertaste of frustration. They suggest a familiarity, an intimacy, which is not real.
She sat recently in Mahler’s composing hut – listening, feeling, understanding. That still doesn’t happen with you. The different facets don’t fit together to make a coherent whole – a recognisable shape. Who are you? You don’t think it’s relevant, do you? She disagrees.
1) Why are you speaking of yourself in the third person?
2) What the fuck are you on about stating that Justin’s performances aren’t “real” and that his work is “not a coherent whole”?
3) What the fuck is your fucking problem with the word fuck?
I have my work cut out for me here.
Post codes are overrated.
“Something is happening here and I don’t know what it is, do I Mr. Wilson?” – classic! lol
Great photo Justin…it does look a bit rough there. Sound idea to keep postcodes to oneself in a neighbourhood like that.
You do realise that there are landfills filled to capacity with your jettisoned underpants! You’re so funny! lol
Have a lovely gig darling…live long and prosper! ;-) xxxxxxxxxxxx
We found Sale rather confusing too. We had a drink in the pub opposite the futuristic car park you mention and it was a particularly disturbing dump! Then just across the water from the venue we had another drink in what was like a converted prison, but which still seemed to exude some charm.
Wasn’t it flippin dark in the theatre?! But I must say the sound was absolutley superb the best I’ve heard yet and your voice, sir, was just glorious….. haunting…… beautiful… you get the picture!
You’re always in need of undergarments!
By the way, why so long to the new album? Are you burning them all yourself? ;-p
See you tonight hunny bunny… second outting…. can’t get enough of you xxxx