Aberystwth University 1999

BACKSTAGE at Aberystwyth University, the 106 members of My Life Story mill around waiting to play, while yours truly sits in a heap sorting out CDs. Welcome back to the second leg of the Steve Lamacq Sideshow tour.
As far as I can make out, Aberystwyth is the furthest flung date on this trip, a Welsh coastal town which goes about its life with its collar turned up, occasionally stopping to greet tourists or the incoming freshers students.
Interesting fact one: students make up something like a quarter of Aberystwyth’s population (might be more, but the PA was up full blast when I was being imparted with this information).
Interesting fact two: Aberystwyth has more model shops per square mile than any place I've ever visited. Every street you go down, there’s - another Airfix display, or shopkeeper offering up role-playing games, Star Wars models and World War II aircraft. Odd.
Interesting fact three: Aberystwyth Uni has an "Indie Society". I know this because I met a few at them at the gig. Very nice folk, who gave me a lighter, which doubles up as a flyer (the Indie Society meet to dance the night away every Thursday at the Angel lan. So if you’re in the area....). Anyway tonight's gig is a stormer. The aforementioned backstage is in fact the promoter's office and a meeting room, but a good place to wind down after miles of A road and arguements between myself, Emma B and driver Liam over whether the countryside is any cop or not.

The guy who booked us is one Pat Smith, a man I first met nearly 10 years ago when he was promoting gigs in the north west - and one of the famous few who was with us, when band, crew and journalists were snowed in at a hotel in Wolverhampton for two days after a Ned's Atomic Dustbin gig. Smith's now managing some local bands (including Scuba who have a perky little single out on the ffvinyl label).
Interesting fact four: the next wave of new Welsh groups appears to be building, and its sweepingin in off the coast. Aberystwth is responsible Murry The Hump - tipped by virtually everyone in the local media and championed by Peel and the Session In Wales. By an annoying twist of fate The Hump are actually playing in town on the same night as us, at a hotel two minutes from where we’re staying, which sounds good till we find out they're on at exactly the same time we are. Further proof that the Gods are cruel bastards.

lnstead, after a quick interview with the good folk from The Courier magazine, It's Emma’s set, then an hour of chaos from yours truly. Of the requests that rain down on the DJ booth, there's all the usual ones plus shouts for Hefner and the Vandals (neither of which, distressingly, I had with me, but the thought was there). Thanks go to everyone who heaved onto the danceloor and didn’t storm the barricades when I accidentally stopped the CD that was playing - a trick which is fast becoming my version of Peel playing records at the wrong speed.

My Life Story ended up going on quite late, but were an eye-opener on the night. Not so much for the music which most of you will knew of already- but for Jake Shillingford’s between song rhetoric. Shillingford, as someone who's lived through several eras in pop, is a man on a mission. Roughly summarised, it’s don’t settle for second best, don't follow the wrong leaders, and most importantly, Reclaim The Charts. All of a sudden, he is head of the Pap police. Maybe, you had to be there, but it was compelling, and rabble-rousing stuff both on and off stage.

Afterwards, back in the meeting room, he shows me a few Xeroxed copies of the punk/new wave mag Zigaag (an energetic aad anarchic publication from the late '70s which one of the band has given to him). Is this a clue to the current defiant mood of the singer?
Don’t know. We had to leave for Newcastle.

Next week, Jake Shillingford for Pop Shock Jock.
Melody Maker - October 16th 1999

blue bar

This page http://www.twelvereasonswhy.co.uk/gigs/mlsau99.html
was created by Chris and is maintained by Richard Harrison