I find myself dragged unceremoniously out of bloggerly hibernation today to post a brief account of last night’s excursion to the hitherto Jillings-unexplored wilds of northwest London.
It was one of those evenings which prompted Mr J, on hearing my personal experience of what was in fact a shared event, to say “Well, you’ll get a good blog-post out of that!” and this has somehow shamed me into a brief return to the laptop. Here’s how it unfolded.
We venture to Kilburn. Separately, of course. Him in the car with his drums, me on the train an hour later, with my book and a slight thrill to be exploring the Mildmay Line for the first time (since it’s been called the Mildmay Line anyway).
The Kilburn Arms hosts regular live music and is to host Mr J’s band Bourbon Street Revival for three sets. THREE! Good lord, do I have the stamina? And it’s a bit out of the way. But I have the usual offer of a ride home in the car if I stay the distance and, with nothing other than Casualty on the TV and a small bag of Maltesers to keep me home, I decide to go for it.
Alighting at Brondesbury Park station, shuddering as I am immediately obliged to negotiate the most copious pile of sick I have seen for a very long time, I find my way rapidly to the venue along deserted residential streets, already wondering whether this is really where I want to be on a Saturday night. Still, the pub looks cheery enough and I spot my return conveyance parked jauntily in the side alley, so I am secure in my escape route should it be required. (I have strategically brought the spare car-key in case of emergencies.)
Spying Mr J at the bar, I am swiftly and most generously rewarded for my bravery with a half of lemonade and seek out the reserved table for WAGs (in fact WADS this evening – wives and daughters) where the rhythm guitar’s partner, daughter, her partner and many loyal friends are already installed.
We chat, compare journeys including the relative merits of the Mildmay Line and the local buses, admire the proportions of the room in which we are gathered, and endure the longest and most public soundcheck I can recall. We all have a go at commenting on the amplification balance, although no-one takes a blind bit of notice of us – probably quite rightly, as we are neither sound-engineers nor narcissistic and acoustically competitive performers, just mindful of our poor ears.
I am reacquainted with friends of friends, including a delightful woman with a gentle Irish voice and the twinkly eyes one would stereotypically associate with her accent. She pulls up a stool next to me, apologising for squishing. I strangely don’t mind. Already we are getting in the mood.
The playing begins. And then stops. We are still checking the sound.
At last, the first number rock-and-rollicks along and a diminutive gent with cotton-wool coiffed hair and a jovial demeanour, struts out from the busy bar area onto the ‘dance-floor’ in front of the band, eyeing up the punters and then determinedly making a bee-line for the rhythm-guitar’s daughter’s young man at our table. A nice friendly-looking young man, clearly, with his pint of Guinness and his slim good looks. So begins a recurrent theme. Throughout the evening, this guy circles the room, winking and twinkling at the assembled listeners, dancers and assorted onlookers whilst focusing – insofar as his inebriated self can focus at all – on this nice young man. I lose count of the number of pleading looks and graspings of hands as he tries to entice his prey into the sporadic dancing melees or indeed into a solo embrace.
The first set concludes with enthusiastic flourishes and rousing whistles and applause. This is indeed an appreciative and, a glance behind me reveals, now quite numerous audience.
The bar does good business, as does (the WAD table surmises – possibly with no firm evidence whatsoever) the local ‘dealer,’ with punters slipping in and out to the smoking area and wafting the weed in their subsequent conversational or dance exchanges.
There is no shortage of characters here. In addition to our jovial cotton-wool predator, I spy
- a man in a sombrero and natty faux-fur coat where perhaps his poncho should be
- a tall, stooped and mightily-long-grey-straggly-bearded man with a stick and a wonky pint spilling at intervals onto the floor near the bar
- a dishevelled and unshaven man in an old overcoat and a comb-over, clutching a pint in one hand and a battered penny whistle in the other,
- a chunky Irishman of a certain age also with a pint in one hand but a complete absence of arm on his other side, and
- Timothée Chalamet surprisingly doing a shift as a teenage barman serving drinks, collecting glasses and occasionally bringing fish and chips to tables. No-one else seems to bat an eyelid at this Hollywood star but no doubt his next fillum will be in The Commitments genre.
- Quite a lot of (probably) perfectly normal people who feature not one jot further in this account.
Enough staring at people! It takes no more than a couple of bars of the familiar number Nadine as the second set begins, to rally the WAD table to their feet. We are joyously on the dance-floor waggling, to varied effect, our hitherto weary bodies and shamelessly disporting our over-excited Saturday-night selves. Sure, I am following the lead of others rather than leaping up of my own accord, but with few inhibitions despite my adherence to ‘dry’ January, I am happy to join in.
Oh how foolish to let down my guard! Within seconds I find myself clasped to the bosom of sombrero man, now minus his hat and sporting a swarthy dark-curly-haired head above his furry coat. He attempts some twirls with me. This is ludicrous. I can bop about but I cannot, and never have been able to, dance with any degree of coordination with others. Oh sticky dance floor, please swallow me up! Sombrero man gallantly continues to alternately clasp and release, twirl and pirouette me before finally admitting defeat and gliding back alone to his sombrero on the far side of the room, leaving me to rejoin the bemused WADs and briefly wish my gin was real.
By now, my squishy-near companion has switched from beer to wine and has warmed up accordingly. She and I manage to shout conspiratorially at each other over the ever-louder band as we observe the increasingly deranged behaviour around us. Cotton-wool hair predator is gliding towards our table again with a serene smile and several pronounced winks. Dishevelled overcoat man is approaching the band, brandishing his penny whistle and insisting he wants to play. He receives a slightly less than positive vibe from the lead guitarist and has to remain on the floor to one side of the band, but resolutely – and with an almost-discernable sort of joy – accompanies the next few numbers on his whistle. This sends squishy and me into tear-inducing giggles as we assess our bizarre situation. Timothée Chalamet gives us an intense and confused look as he juggles empty glasses away from our table and no doubt memorises the lilt of the snatched Irish dialogue he’s overheard, tucking it away with the glasses under his arm for future reference.
As my eyes clear, I glance across to see whether sombrero man is glancing across at me (he isn’t, phew) and instead I clock the tall mightily-bearded man lurching on his stick towards us, a half-empty glass in his dodgy grasp. He towers over my friend as his pint drains yet more beer onto the floor and the edge of her coat. She somehow persuades him to take the extremity of his beard from out of her face and in fact to retreat completely, before mopping surreptitiously at her coat and informing me that the recent proximity of his straggle-beardiness had betrayed a certain recent visit to the ‘smoking area’.
As she recovers from the spillage, my friend notices a presence on the bench behind me. The chunky Irishman of a certain age is sound asleep, propped oddly against the rear banquette, pint carefully placed on a nearby ledge. “Aw, would you look behind you. He’s asleep. How can he sleep with all this volume going on?” (This all shouted multiple times to allow me to get the gist over the pulsating Midnight Hour.) I turn, observe and laugh appropriately, at which point she adds, in shock. “Sure but he has only the one arm!” Which results in the two of us clutching at each other as we dissolve in renewed and prolonged hysteria.
The third set is full of bangers and much dancing ensues, although I am too scared to leave my seat for fear of further humiliation. Most of my fellow WAD-table inmates have departed for the night buses home, with fond hugs and last giggles, and I am left with one genial couple. We agree to dance in our seats rather than risk a visit to the dance-floor with its dangerous collection of characters.
Much later, when the third set is finally over, the one-armed Irishman awakes from his sweet rock-n-roll dreams and strikes up a conversation with the billy-no-mates woman (yes I am now the last WAD remaining) on the seat in front of him now her other friends seem to have deserted her and the band are dismantling their instruments – or at least the drummer is dismantling his and the others are variously at the bar, chatting to punters or already half-way down Kilburn High Street. He, perhaps disappointedly, establishes that I am ‘with the band’ and after a cursory enquiry to check that my husband treats me well, shuffles off to refill his glass.
I gather up my belongings and go to chat with some of the band members whilst Mr J marches to and fro with drums, mic stands, monitors, amps etc. The ‘characters’ are mostly still ordering drinks, while penny-whistle-overcoat looks despondently at the now-vacated stage. What might have been if only there were more mics.
Of course, all good things have to come to an end. I wave my goodbyes to the room and scuttle outside with Mr J on his final packing run, easing myself into the trusty Volvo in which he has gallantly left a small space amongst the drums and related paraphernalia for his loyal wifey…
…even if she has just rather publicly attempted the light fandango with El Sombrero under his very nose.
We are crossing Putney Bridge when I finally stop laughing.
NB. Who needs alcohol when other people can drink it and provide the entertainment for you?