the day i didn't see the chesterfields (or mighty mighty for that matter) | dudley | 1987

"kettle" had just been released.
i'd bought it but i wasn't a big fan.
one afternoon a friend came over for beans on toast.
the reason i know this fact is that at that point beans on toast was THE ONLY THING HE ATE.
he was of a slightly orange hue from it too.
he'd brought the NME with him and in the concert listings it said mighty mighty and the chesterfields were playing that night at dudley JB's.
like the exciting young men that we were we decided there and then to go.
he finished his beans (i didn't have any - to this day they make me ill) and we wandered down to the station.
dudley, though only 15 miles or so from telford, is not the easiest place in the world to get to.
trains all go via somewhere else and neither of us could drive.
so we got a bus.
it took a disgustingly long time.
when we finally arrived we spent a good half hour wandering round looking for the venue.
no-one we asked seemed to know where it was.
eventually we found it.

or so we thought.

it seemed odd that there was no-one on the door.
on getting inside it seemed even stranger that the floorspace was littered with tables and the tables were littered with old men drinking heavily.

it wasn't immediately obvious that this wasn't the right venue.
but it was immediately obvious that neither the chesterfields nor mighty mighty were playing there that evening.

i can still feel the hard stares on the back of my neck when i think about leaving that place that night.

we caught the next bus home and i made beans.