Pop Will Eat Itself, Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer – Assembly Hall, Islington

Upper Street looking Christmassy

My first gig since the start of the pandemic, and I only had to wait nine months for it!

Pop Will Eat Itself managed to do the socially-distanced gig thing by arranging the hall in “pods”, which in reality were two chairs and a table. As much as I like standing around and dad dancing at gigs, seats are always welcome.

But I did something stupid too. Tickets went on sale at the always-awkward-to-use dice.fm app and they were in short supply. I got my tickets as soon as they went on sale, then just before I checked out I wasn’t sure if I’d ordered the right thing, so I went back in app, re-read everything, re-ordered the tickets … and they were sold out! I think only about 100 went on sale for a venue that would otherwise hold 1500.

This really annoyed me – but I joined the “waiting list” not expecting to hear any more and then forgot all about it until about two weeks before the show, when I was offered waiting list tickets. And lo and behold – front row tickets as well! So everything worked out in the end.

The whole arrangement was very well done, with drinks being ordered on an app, and coming quickly. I probably ordered drinks a few too many times as a result. Still it’s been a hard year, we have to enjoy ourselves …

I have to admit I wasn’t quite sure about Mr B, it did seem a bit too much like a joke I wasn’t in on, and yes that’s probably overanalysing too. (I enjoyed him more when I caught him in Collapsed Lung in 2021).

PWEI were, as ever, excellent and it was great to be out and about seeing live music again.

Another “play an album in full” set, once again featuring 1989’s This Is The Day … as we’d seen a year ago at the Craufurd Arms. But it’s such a good album it’s really no problem hearing it all again! The second set featured a couple of new songs too, which both bode really well for the future.