My Life Story – The Quarry, Liverpool

My 15th My Life Story gig since I first caught them live at the Jazz Cafe in 1995! I didn’t think I would ever see them this far from Camden, but here I am in Liverpool, an hour and a bit away from my new home in mid Wales.

We’ve stayed in an Airbnb which used to be the presbytery for a now-deconsecrated Roman Catholic church. It had a big bedroom and a huge communal kitchen. I thought it was quite charming, until we heard a couple rowing violently outside our room at 11pm. Storm Darragh hit Liverpool around 4.30am too, and we found out the windows had been tuned to let in the maximum amount of storm noise.

Anyway – we were staying in a very quiet residential area of the city, not that far from the centre. It was about a 10 minute walk to our venue, the Quarry, a room beneath some railway arches which had been decked out quite well with a stage and sound system.

The support act didn’t turn up, but no matter as the DJ had a great power pop set list – lots of XTC, Cheap Trick, The Cars – could have been transported back to my sister’s room in 1980 with these tunes (she had the record player in her room for some reason).

My Life Story are a very different band now to the one I saw in 1995 but the common factor is still Jake Shillingford and his kitchen sink drama songs. I loved Mornington Crescent and his other 90s/00s albums, and this year’s Loving You Is Killing Me shows he hasn’t lost his touch.

He can still execute the odd high kick too.

Playlist: