Real-life Phoenix Nights... with the great Ricky Jarvis

The night started with such promise. In rehearsals, Steve and Dan did a rendition of John Martyn's 'Don't Want to Know' which sounded so much like the real thing (at least to my ears) that I assumed the CD was playing.














Dan (below playing the guitar) was also playing the Kora (seen in the background), an exotic string-based intrument which is played by standing it down in front of you and plucking the strings. It's has a very mellow, calming sound. Kind of, erm, emotional...














I don't know much about music, but I know about the Kora because I copied a whole CD of Kora music from Steve (don't tell the cops - or Steve) about a year ago, and played it with Ady while driving through France and Spain, Summer 2004. It calms the road rage.

Steve has two bands, Clatter and a Samba band (Brazillian drumming) but he's having a bit of success doing his own thing of late - just last week finding out that one of his compositions was played on TV during a Live 8 debate between Tony Blair and Bono... it's a struggle leading a music life, but through teaching in the week, he earns his keep, while keeping his band projects on the go.

So, anyway, back to the evening of the 24th September.

We drove into Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter with no small amount of banter ferrying us along the way, four of us in the car with Kora, Speaker system and guitar weighing it down so that the suspension was practically non-existent. Upon arrival, we were slightly perturbed found the streets virtually dead, and entered the Red Lion to find the regulars loking us up and down with inquisitive stares. We weren't known faces in these parts.














The music room was located upstairs, where myself, Steve, Laura and Dan sat, listening to a woman who'd "fallen off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down" (not my words - Steve's!) over-singing (nay, mutilating) a range of jazzy standards for our enjoyment... she finished her set by plugging her next gig and offering the chance to purchase her CD. There were guffaws from all seven members of the audience.














Next up were Steve and Dan. Steve's Mum and Dad arrived just before they began and sat with Steve's fiance and myself to listen in. It was good. Classy. I'm biased, but their stuff could be descibed as "electrifyingly mellow", or something along those lines. It was unusual, fusing a whole range of musical sub-genres. You now know why I never became a music journalist. "I liked it", perhaps that's the most enlightening thing I can say..!

There then followed what can be best described as an hour and a half of sub-standard, painful trash.

The band that came on (I've blocked their name from my memory - perhaps a good suggestion would be The Pits) comprised of a totally inexpressive lady and a rakish non-talented man for lead singers. They were joined by an incredibly over-ethusiastic fiddler, and somewhere halfway though their set, their mate who not only fell over on his way to the stage (the crowd gasped) but then followed up by singing the wrong verses out of tune. Pain was layered upon pain.













What made it worse is that he was wearing a Bill Hicks T-shirt and also a cap which he obviously thought was cool. I felt ashamed that Bill Hicks, (late innovative comic legend no less) should find his face worn by this oaf. Laura described him as Ricky Jarvis (she meant Ricky Gervais) such was the similarity. In a way, she got it dead on. He was an imitator. Although less Ricky Gervais than David Brent.

Things would have got better if we'd won the raffle, but unfortunately, Ricky Jarvis came out on top on this front too. He won twice. I'd decided not to buy a ticket, and he was next in line. It coulda been me.













All that was left was for the finely dressed old gent (pictured above) running the night to allow his dog to run amock through the crowd as we sloped off. I thought Phoenix Nights was a TV comedy, but for one night only, it was a reality show.