Sheffield, February 26th 2013
7th March, 2013
Like every English city Sheffield has been pimped, the yawning gaps left by sixties demolition and eighties recession suddenly filled in with the brash evidence of the credit boom of the early zeroes. It’s as if the tumbling of the Trade Centre spawned a desperate spasm of tower building all over the West as some kind of gesture of defiance. Fuck you, nutters – here’s a thousand more shining targets. That’ll keep them busy. It’s modernism as a political one-fingered salute. Look how fucking free we are, we can plant Manhattan everywhere at the drop of a Google Maps pin.
I’m sluggish today so hide in my high glass vestibule during load-in and tap more stupid shit into the gaping lizard’s mouth of my aluminium machine. Clickety-clack, don’t talk back. One day some clever dick will send out some malware that makes all those laptop lids snap shut. The dweebs and pokers, likers and loathers can sport their bruises like battle tattoos. Still, it’s better than the PHONE, that poisonous appliance, interrupter of everything. Mine is now tapped, mostly, and rarely leant an ear.
The venue for tonight’s final show is a perfect semi-circle at the back of the admirably sturdy city hall, often visited by the Dels. I have descended the stairs and am operating in the servants’ quarters which is fine by me. At least I’m not on the street. I sling my sorry songs to a warm and communicative crowd and have a quick chinwag backstage with Robert Vincent, the tall and loveable opener. He’s driving home to Liverpool before doing a few headline shows in Scotland. The restless life of the troubadour, that’s the one for me. Out behind enemy lines, let loose among the population, peddling cheap poetry and news from the other side. Taking that four-in-the-morning feeling to the punters like a lunatic with a warning from a dream.
That was beautiful JC “beware of the monsters you create” was once uttered, now we fester in the zoo of Technology, ironically capturing free-frame memories of what ruined everything. Memory sticks and dongles filled with posings from times apast, no friends around to inflict them upon lest a “forward” via an unreplied email. Thank the imaginary up-above for the old times, thank those happy in the rut, thank the wonderous internets for promising the hope of something great yet delivering a beast, thanks to technology, to advancement, to hypocrisy, thanks to the notion that everything goes in circles…..
You really saved my skin with this inoifmatron. Thanks!
Is it really beefeater gin? I’ll bet they’ve probably thrown in some horseeater gin too just for good measure!
You have your fist in beefeater gin? Makes a great martini…or antiseptic. Whad’ya do Justin!
Kisses to make it better xxxxxxxxxxxx
Monsieur Currie, l’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier.
S’il vous plaît slash Kim.
Merci!
This is all the French I actually know ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=LM62dysmYXU
Just got my copy of the book. Thank you Justin it was worth every cent and you have made my life good now. You and Geoff Young should be very proud of yourselves. You should think about doing more books.
kim
thank you…
those of you that bought the softcover version (now not on sale) please email me thru my website –
geoff
Justin, I’m sure if The Beatles were around today they would think you are special. It would be good some time in the future if you did an album of your favourite songs of theirs, although that may be difficult as I’m sure many of them are favourites. By the way, I Want To Hold Your Hand. xxx
Ever hear the Uncle Devil Show? Very Beatlesque.
Everyone is special. We all shine on you know.
Who on earth do you think you are? A superstar? Well right you are.
“I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we’ve passed the audition”.
I’ll only try if I get to be John. You can be Paul Justin.
You’re a much better bass player than me anyway.
I’ll miss seeing you on my little friends list. But I’m sure it makes much more sense to have a fan page now.
Still…I’ll miss you. And I’m sure I’m not alone in that sentiment today. xxxxx
I’ll be in the taxi with John Lydon, as Paul McCartney runs across the road to bang on the window.
LOL! xoxo
Hate to disappoint you Pontiff but I am in fact female. I really think you need to go to confession to get rid of all those impure thoughts. I am appalled.
You just keep taking the hormones dear. I hear the “change” operation is very effective. I absolve you. In spiritusdictusupyerannus. Amen.
TeenageCrush, of course the book will be worth it. I have never known Justin to do anything below standard. I had to laugh about one of your comments on the Bath blog ‘or are you too busy…’, I was thinking please don’t go there again. As for you Pontiff, not right now I’ve got a headache but thanks for the offer!
It is you who have made an offer sir. My high holy hard on is reserved only for the fairest of my flock. Preferably young, nubile alter or choir boys.
P.S. By the way I’d love to pope you up the chimney!
That’s what I’ve got alter boys for. But if you think you’re man enough I’ll open my chimney flue for you.
I think Justin should have been chosen to be the Pope!
blow it out your arse.
http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/4133931-my-life-is-good
Hope this helps, as it took me a while to find the book. I shall purchase as soon as my perilous finances allow.
Me too….took a while and a tad skint!
We should club together for a group copyKaren and then fight over custody.
You can have it Monday through to Wednesday. I will take it on Thursdays Fridays and Saturday.
We will meet up on Sunday and spend a hopeless day together for the books sake in McDonalds eating ironicly named “Happy Meals”and then cover the cracks in our crumbling relationship by taking the book to the park, and feeding the ducks whilst feigning happiness.
But our display of concord will inevitably turn to antipithy as we make plans for which of us the book will spend Christmas with.
Aint it Marvellous.
I concur…..marvellous!
Ordered mine… it better be worth it Mr Currie, I haven’t spent 30 squids on a book since my last year at university!!
I’m such a fool for you Sir!
MWAH
I ordered my copy of the book yesterday, can’t wait. I had a look at the preview pages and in answer to Justin’s question-yes it is marvellous. Thank you Justin. I’m just wondering if proceeds go to the Justin Currie Benevolent Fund!
I just wish I could borrow Robert Vincent when I go shopping so he could get things from the top shelf for me. Anyway size isn’t important, so I’m told!
I see what you mean about Robert Vincent being tall. Have just seen a photo of you with him on his website, my god he’s a giant.
He didn’t ‘feel’ tall. And his posture gave the impression of an unassuming, humble man. His daps were very clean, and when he sang he went pigeon toed and closed his eyes to block out the distracting audience – the better to align himself with the song.
This impression remained consistent during the short conversation I had with him in the foyer – he ‘felt’ gentle, and even a little vulnerable.
I completely understood the forceful energy of his friend/promoter/PR (she was larger than life in her vitality, enthusiasm and daring) given that he undersells himself. I liked them both without reservation
Knew they were coming to Glasgow and promised to seek them out when I got back, except I fell to exhaustion and curled up in a warm dark room for a week.
Apologies for that, Mr Vincent – it wasn’t my fickleness, but my energy levels that failed to bring me out.
Some people grow and shrink depending on their state of being at the time, and whether they’re ‘closed’ or ‘open’. Some people have an array of masks to wear to protect themselves from…saturation? It bears no relation to their physical size.
Curious that I never clocked his physical height…but maybe I was quite tall myself at the time.
Your presence in a room has more to do with the energy you’re harnessing than the flesh you inhabit.
I still have no idea what ‘size’ Mr Currie is, but consider it an irrelevance. He ‘feels’ about the same size as me – but suspect he shape-shifts as often as myself. And likes his invisibility cloak as much as I like mine. And which size is ‘true’?
All of them are.
Never trust the dimensions of a shape-shifter.
And now you’re all looking at me thinking “What the fuck is she talking about?”
I muse a lot in here. I like this undulating landscape, and as I’m currently isolated from peers and fellow thespians/arty types, this is where I come out to play at the moment.
Make your own assumptions.
But if I become too strange to grasp, I can always keep my own counsel.
mmmmmmm M. Welcome to my ‘people I would like to get drunk with’ list. X
Thank you, Emily.
That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in a long time. :)
The last time I saw Justin in Sheffield it was at a The Octagon. It was one of those low slung affairs where you couldnt catch your breath as the squat ceiling height heaped its oppressive tendancies on you.
When Iain struck a chord, at last the darkness of ‘twisted’ made little poisoned-tipped cuts around your “lying little heart”. Suddenly an album played live took comfort from the leaking malevolence that seeped from its darkened places. There was a stark and sudden realisation that in the raw, and in the round, this was nihlism.
The lyrics powerful and soaked in despair, were out to choke your hapless heart. Make no mistake these songs burst upon you like a death in the family, they couldnt be backlit by the sickly sonic sunshine of roll to me when played live.
The ceiling seemed to be creeping lower, the space around you compressing, throttling, gasping for breath, heart attacked, lungs bursting and the lyrics more threatenening, darker and darker,perhaps offering a vision of your what is to be. “So long to everything”, you scream, Its a nightmare backlit by the sun as it “sets in a coffee cup” whilst “the moon throws up” I see it all as my eyes are assaulted momentarily by blinding white lighting glaring like my mistakes as my “formless future floats”. Each new song feels like dirty glass ground into the wounds this music has already engendered.
Each song, each beat, each intonation takes you further along the road to regret, realisation that “these are not the people you wanted to be before”
Im affected by it all. Music should move you they say, and so I let it take me down to the pits of despair where I allow myself to be led.
And then “Here and Now” inveigles its jangling way into my conciousness. It takes a moment to penetrate before I realise. And now Im on the elevator going up, what a magical ride into the stratosphere. The contrast as I break free of this mundane world and rise through the clouds from so low is breathtaking.
And you just know whatever happens, You cant change here and now, just how good we can feel.
Maybe Justin is referring to the fact that Her Majesty is out of hospital and feeling better and the fact that Margaret Thatcher is still alive. Ha Ha.
Ain’t it marvellous? I couldn’t say. I haven’t heard it yet. You said I will have to wait until September. I could assume, but you know what they say about assumptions…
Ain’t what marvellous?
Global Thermonuclear War.
It was 1992 when my mate and I excitedly drove to see Del Amitri play in Sheffield. We were young and had nothing to worry about then except our love life, which was always a mess or on the brink of becoming so!! Those songs from back then have been played hundreds of times and these songs from here and now will also be played hundreds of times. Thankyou x
What a plasuere to meet someone who thinks so clearly
Just been watching the news and I’ve got some good news for you Justin. Scientists have just said if people drink lots of red wine they can prevent cancer and diabetes and live long happy, healthy lives up to the age of 150 so I’m assuming you are a fan of the stuff which means we will continue to enjoy your music for the next 102 years. Happy drinking!!
What! No photo to go with the blog, ripped off. I thought you were the tall loveable one. You must have got quite nostalgic about playing at the same venue when the Dels were together. It would be really good if one day Iain could join you on stage.
When Lucy turned around, it wasn’t there anymore.
C.S. Lewis – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
The Lion, the Witch and the iphone ;-) xoxo
“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!”
‘Ol Willie Shakespeare – A Midsummer Night’s Dream
I thank Goddess for lunatics like you.
xxxxxxxxxx