Ah, Norwich Arts Centre. This was where Lee and Herring used to begin their tours, usually a couple of nights here, before things kicked off, doing our dress rehearsal in front of the mustard eating inhabitants of this East Anglian town.
I remember drinking with Stew and Kevin in the bar here and the early fans who used to come to as many gigs as they could on each tour. There was a couple called Paul and Linda who came to a lot of our gigs - we liked them and the fact that they had the same names as the then Mccartneys. I think they used to camp out so they could come to as many gigs as possible. We didn't have so many die hard fans back then and it was possible to remember them all by name. Especially when they had names like Jeanette Muff and the Bean and Paul and Linda.
It felt like the start of something. Small scale, but excitement all around. Like it might explode into something huge.
It never quite happened.
But weirdly, given that I was a grown man during all of this, today the Norwich Arts Centre seemed much smaller than I'd remembered. It was like returning to your primary school as an adult and being astonished by the small scale of everything that you recall being huge and laughing at how tiny the urinals are. Except that I am exactly the same height now as I was when I first came to this venue.
The room itself was about a quarter of the size that it occupies in my imagination and the bar, in which we drank and laughed and I got my first indecent proposition from a fan - I said I was going to the toilet and a girl said, "Can I come with you?" in a more than suggestive way and I said, "Er... no, not really. Cos I'm going for a wee. It'd be weird"- which I have memories of being thronging with dozens of people, barely had room for thirty at most.
How could I have remembered it so incorrectly? Why had it seemed so much bigger to my 24 year old eyes? Hadn't I been back here in the last couple of years anyway, so why hadn't I recalled the actual size of the place from then?
My diary from 1980-1983 that I read from in the show has taken quite a battering over the last year. The spine fell off quite quickly and the front cover is mottled from being stuffed clumsily into various bags and bumped and scuffed around. For the last couple of weeks I've been worried that it might fall in half on stage, as I slam it shut or chuck it on the ground.
Today as I walked into the venue with it tucked under my arm, it slipped and fell on to the floor and the cover broke off. I was slightly heartbroken, even though it was easily reparable with sellotape. Was this a bad omen? I'd broken the book. Would the ghost of me from the past haunt me demanding retribution for the disrespect I had shown his teenage writings? Not just physically, but psychologically.
Apparently not. The show was a cracker.
With just three more dates to go (if you don't count the late additions of an
extra Liverpool date on the 4th and the
DVD record at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol on 2nd June) I am pretty much exhausted. I don't dance backstage during High Fidelity any more. I've over eaten and drunk too much and am horribly unfit again. I hope to do something about this in May. Mainly though I am just tired and relieved that tonight was the last longish drive of the tour.
Funnily enough for a show which includes material about Elizabeth Fritzl, Jade Goody and paedophiles being wanked off, the thing that most offended the punters tonight was when I had the conversation between the older me and the younger me. The older me took the piss out of Norwich and the younger me questioned this saying wouldn't it be a better idea to mock a different but local town such as Ipswich. The older me chuckled at the younger me, saying it was more cutting edge and exciting to mock the town I was in, rather than try and crowd please by going for a local rival. I then proceeded to say that I much preferred Ipswich (though in reality I am not sure I've ever been there and Norwich is actually one of my favourite UK towns) and that I was delighted when Ipswich beat Norwich at the weekend, thus pretty much ensuring the latter's relegation. I have never had as many complaints after a show as I had for that remark! Though luckily the complainants took it in the spirit it was intended and were jocular, though wounded, rather than angry and punchy. "Don't you remember the bit about wanking off paedophiles?" I asked one guy, "You're more upset about a football result."
But such is the human condition.
One of my two favourite bits of the show got a good laugh today, which is unusual.
There are two bits, which for me, are the funniest things in the show, but which are very rarely recognised as such by more than one of two people in the crowd.
The first, which got a mild chuckle from a familiar looking face on the front row is the line "I held no truck with these retronyms" which comes in the Adidas bit (and I look forward to any blog readers in Brighton now laughing too over loudly at that bit to show how clever they are). I just think it's a lovely phrase and is probably my favourite line in the show - gets next to nothing in terms of laughs though,
The other, which got a laugh tonight (though I may just have given it a bit more time than usual) is in the penis song when my penis sings, "I certainly can." It's just the use of the word certainly that I think makes it, and its redundancy given that it is singing and has already sung a line. The people of Norwich saw that as comedy genius, where no other audience really has. It got the laugh it deserved.
Had fun meeting the crowd after the show, even though none of them wanted to accompany me whilst I urinated. The woman from the front row who had liked my use of the word retronym came forwards and said, "Do you remember me?"
I had been pretty sure when I'd seen her in the crowd, but it was Linda, from Paul and Linda, another link back to those early days. The years have been kind to her - fifteen years on and she looked not a day older. The same can not be said for me.
I haven't seen her for a while, but last time we'd met I had found out that her and Paul were no longer together. I like to think that when they split up he went out with a girl called Heather, who took him for all his money (maybe £500) and now he's on his own again.
But it doesn't quite work because Linda is still alive. Unless she's a ghost haunting the Norwich Arts Centre, which would explain why time has not withered her. Perhaps my broken diary had somehow released her from her deathly bonds and she had come back for one more night at the Norwich Arts. But only if my life is being written by JK Rowling. In which case it doesn't quite have to make sense.
Thanks to everyone who came and if it's any consolation I am actually glad that Ipswich have missed out on promotion and their manager has been sacked. Any slight to Norwich is a slight to myself.
And we're still in the top 10 at iTunes, though sliding downwards - pass on the website
www.loftcast.com to all your friends and encourage them to subscribe. We can do this! And if you're on Twitter, Andrew Collings is back @CollingsA is all you need to know.
