One of the most eventful gig journeys ever for this one! Myself, Dave, PG and Jared set off in good time, but were held up for ages on the M4 and North Circular, and didn't hit the A40 going into London until 8 pm. That's when the troubles began... we took a wrong turning at Kings Cross, doubled back but were unable to retrace our steps due to a diversion, and ended up driving through The City! Eventually, in desperation, we just dumped the motor in the next car park we could find, which happened to be in Smithfield Market, found a thankfully nearby tube (Farringdon) and tubed it over to Kentish Town.
We got to the gig at 9.20, completely missing support the Ordinaires, and had to negotiate our way in; the promoters had cocked up our tickets but had put us on the guest list, but nobody seemed to know that! Bah! So we eventually got in a couple of minutes after TMBG had taken the stage! We piled down the front for the band; Messrs. Flansburgh and Linnell, the two Johns, the Wizards of Odd, again put on a spellbinding show of polkas, style and genre clashes, good old fashioned pop music and wild outlandish entertainment and fun. Highlights were a frenzied "Polka", a hoedown version of "Cowtown" and a brilliant, almost touching "Angel". Some mad screaming (the "audience participation element," the band called it) greeted the final encore "Folk Family". In retrospect, not quite reaching the heights of the ULU show, but still utterly unique and hugely enjoyable.
And just to cap off an eventful evening, we found out we'd parked the car in the middle of a load of meat warehouses, and returned to find huge articulated lorries offloading carcasses all around us! Never a dull moment, this evening... TMBG's John Linnell was moved to describe it onstage as, "an evening without parallel"; he didn't know the half of it!
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