venta

Last Thursday, despite the very best efforts of the M4 to otherwise damn and delay me, I squeaked into Camden just in time to fish ChrisC out of the World's End, grab a slice of pizza, and head to the Barfly at a fairly brisk trot.

Sadly, despite the trotting, The Indelicates were well into their set by the time we got there. On entering, I was confused by a song I didn't recognise, and which didn't sound anything like them. It was followed by a fairly poor rendition of a song I did recognise, and then an excellent rendition of a song I don't usually like all that much but enjoyed immensely. You notice odd things when seeing the same band a number of times in succession.

If you've still managed to avoid me wittering about the Indelicates before, then you really should catch up.

There was milling as the stage was cleared away. Then a tinny, crackling version of the National Anthem began to play and some bloke donned an acoustic guitar and stepped up to the mike. The following conversation ensued in my immediate vicinity:

"It's like being at a Billy Bragg gig."
"Only with better tailoring."
"And slightly more singing ability."
"And actually reasonable guitar playing."
"But an equal level of bad puns."

And, against expectations, it turned out that mumble mumble is actually a very competent stage performer, and very entertaining if you like daft lyrics and waffling banter. No, in the interests of my credibility, I can't possibly tell you who it was - some of you may have guessed from this post, in which case you're probably implicated by recognising the subject line. Searching the Barfly's recent listings is unsporting.

Suffice it to say, this was an individual who's more famous as part of an act. And yes, he did do solo acoustic renditions of some of said act's songs, and they were actually rather good. Sadly, he also briefly whipped out an electric guitar for three numbers which were screamingly awful; they sounded just like a pissed bloke in a bedroom trying to hack his way (without drums or backing) through somebody else's single. But if we ignore that, it was a fine evening all round.