Gigs 8 and 9 - Manchester
MANCHESTER THE FIRST - SMOKING AND DRINKING AND DYLAN, aka "MORE!"
Where would we be without a little spontaneity? Well, probably a bit richer, with a longer life expectancy, fewer hangovers and less mornings spent walking around strange houses asking "what happened last night, where are we, and who the hell are you?"
We would, however, have considerably less amusing stories to tell involving shouting nonsense into phone boxes at 2am.
Wiggymonster's visit was an example of such spontaneity. I made the offer of crash-space-plus-Dylan-ticket totally off the cuff, as being a generally dull and lonely person I have a tendency to coerce people into visiting, sometimes with no real reason at all. "Come up to Manchester this weekend! Go on. Because.... well, we've got some stuff. It's great. Go on the tram and everything." But we had reason to gather, and good reason too, and it was for this reason that I found myself ploughing through heavy duty Mancunian drizzle from work at seven in the evening to rescue Wiggy from a traffic island. No vodka was involved in the incident. Well, not at this point anyway.
The evening was spent in a pub over the road from the hotel where I work. Here the world was put to rights, plans were made, our own fangirlishness was celebrated and Dylan was swooned over (but not in the physical sense as he wasn't in the building. Shame.) We staggered home and Wiggy presented me with my payment for offering her crash space - a packet of cigarettes and a bottle of wine. This is the Jam Mafia way! And so we settled in for an evening of watching Dylan and smoking and drinking a lot.
The following day went by in a similar way. Wiggy ran me to work at some ungodly hour of the am, whereupon my shift shuffled by in one relentless cig break before Wiggy eventually rescued me in the car once more. We changed for the show - Wiggy had a t-shirt with "Also available in sober" in the front, while I opted for the black suit and black shirt look, topped with my rarely-worn glasses because we were not all that close to the front, and ended up resembling an emo accountant.
Our plan to take the tram was foiled by the evil machine thing with refused to take our money and we decided we would just walk as we had loads of time. It was at this point that fate decided to do a number on us. Halfway there and miles from any reliable public transport, the heavens opened and bucketted it down on us. You know that point you get to where you get so wet that you don't even care any more so you don't bother to even TRY to keep dry and it all just seems SO VERY FUNNY? Well, that's wasn't where we were. There is a little known place a while after that where you just want to cut your frostbitten feet off with a breadknife and die in a gutter somewhere. THAT'S more like it, but we didn't have any breadknives so we just sat on the kerb and chewed our own elbows for a bit.
As we loitered outside the theatre - smoking, naturally - there came about a sudden hustle and bustle. A car pulled into the driveway by the stage door. Lots of movement. Small crowds flurried up to the entrance. Dylan Moran had entered the building. Lucky building.
There was a bar. We sat. We drank. Technically we drank MORE as we had already been drinking before we left the house. We went outside. We smoked some more. We came back. Continue ad infinitum. Or until Dylan is due on stage. Whichever comes first.
It was the latter in the end, which was good because otherwise we would have been rather disappointed, not to mention trapped in an endless loop of infinite consisting of nothing other than a bar and smoking on a doorstep, which could be fun for a while but after a few days I can see it becoming rather tiresome. But I digress. Dylan - yes. He came. He saw. He got photographed. A LOT. He made a snarky comment and told people to put their cameras away.
He was in full 'Monster'-style force tonight. Angry and exuberant, relishing every ounce of venom, building to crescendos of ranting before quietening to an embittered mumble for a while to kick his heels and huff and puff some more before getting going again. A friend of mine who is actually quite a big Dylan fan but has only seen 'Like Totally' seemed quite shocked. "He seemed in a really bad mood!" she said.
This could not be further from the truth. Yes, he was shouting and ranting and raving, but by God he was enjoying it! At one point the world-hating facade cracked and he collapsed in a fit of the giggles at one of his own jokes. "Look, observational comedy!" he declared, setting up a routine about rows between office workers. "I'm relating to you, I'm empathising. It's upsetting, it's depressing." He paused and spluttered with laughter. Nice empathisy Dylan made a break for it upon getting royally clobbered by bitter cynical Dylan: "Like I care!"
Bitter cynical Dylan got a chance to really flex his muscles when some girly in the front row, who had clearly been merrily photographing him for the entire first half, finally pushed him too far. "Young lady," he said, calmly and commandingly, "if you take one more picture of me I'm going to take that thing off you and smash it into little bits and beat you to death with...." Here he paused, leaving space for laughter, but also to think of something suitably obscure. He eventually found something: "Old Curly-Wirlies!" Cue rapturious applause. "Now," he sighed, "where was I before I was interrupted by that miscreant?"
By about halfway through the second half, Dylan's voice was going. He was coughing like a trooper: "Sorry about this, I have a touch of everything." He nearly lost a lung singing 'Strangers in the Night'. Which I now have as a ringtone by the way. And now every time my phone rings I have a mental image of Dylan bending over on stage and miming being molested by doctors.
We honoured his catargh-y greatness by smoking and drinking. More. We hit a couple of pubs on the way to the tram, then went home and finished the wine while watching.... oh, something else that had Dylan in it. I lose track. Monster, I think. There was just SO MUCH! So much Dylan. We OD-ed. Bad us.
The following day we bought yet more wine and cigarettes from Tescos on the way home from work. My day off was spent - yes, you guessed it - smoking and drinking. We did him proud. For a light smoker, I think three packs in a week is pretty impressive. And now if you will excuse me, I need to go and filter the tar out of my bronchial pipes.
MANCHESTER THE SECOND - WHEN DYLAN COMES OUT TO PLAY aka "FUN!"
Dylan was very happy to be in Manchester today, "And not just because I've only recently returned from Stoke." Stoke was apparently all he had predicted it to be on Tuesday: "People crying in the street because it's all so awful. 'Oh look, they're putting up a new building, and we KNOW it's going to be shit!'"
The hecklers were out in force tonight. One girl shouted "Show us your arse!" as soon as he walked on stage. He completely ignored this. However, some bloke on the balcony was not quite so lucky, as his incoherent vowel sounds were expertly honed in on by everyone's favourite razor-sharp Irishman. "What was that? Don't be shy. This is your time. You give it your best shot. I've only been on the road for twenty years...." Silence. "Ok, well you mull it over and I'll get back to you." And off he went.
Today, Dylan surprised me. Now I must digress from the evening for a moment here to reminisce. Over the course of this tour I have seen with my own eyes and ears (yes, I see with my ears, I am a miracle of modern science. I also talk through my belly-button and can occasionally sample savoury delicacies through a tiny hatch in the back of my head. What can I say? I'm just lucky.) the true extents of Dylan Moran's talent. He does not just have ONE on stage personality. Thus far I have spotted at least four.
In Falkirk and Findhorn we got quite a laid back rambly Dylan, very 'propping up the bar and talking for the hell of it'. In Inverness we got 'highly animated drunk' Dylan. By York, his growing confidence through rehearsal had lead to a 'worldly-wise and authoritative' Dylan, bestowing his wisdom on the people gathered below to listen. And Manchester of course, the best known of the lot - 'Angry Young(ish) Man' Dylan.
Here we had something different. Something new. Something I had not seen before and in all honesty I hadn't expected. Playful Dylan.
Now I am not generally a fan of improvisational comedy. I like to know that when I have paid to sit and listen to someone for a couple of hours, they have at least had the decency to prepare. I can acknowledge that it takes a huge amount of talent to totally make something up on the spot with just what the audience are throwing at you, but there is always this nagging cynical voice in the back of my head that gnaws away at that admiration, whining: "Look, he's making it up as he goes along!" I like Dylan's stuff because he has thought about his words. The order of the stuff may be different, the bridging stuff is all totally made up on the night, but I think what I love about him is that he is weaving together an entirely different show every night, but with a good stable base of prepared material. Today, he almost scared me.
"Name me some countries!" he demanded, deviating from his normal opening routine. And thus he proceeded to respond to various suggestions from the audience. Armenia? "Armenians are lovely people. They all have gold teeth. Even the babies. They're born with gold teeth." Australia? "Australians, lovely people, but Australia has nothing. It's pointless. It all looks like it does in the pictures. You don't need to go there anyway because all the Australians have left Australia because it's so pointless and they're all over here behind bars serving us drinks."
It was daring. It was new. Even if he had spent an hour or so poring over an Atlas and jotting down a couple of words for as many different cultures as he could think of that people might shout out, I say hats off to him for doing that.
Once again, I love watching the new material build up as he adds to the existing stuff as he goes. His definition of male PMT? "Someone talking to you while you're trying to do one thing. 'What do you think of the....' 'Shut up! I am trying to build this small child's thing.' Or 'Would you like...' 'No! Go away! I was trying to lick this envelope! I ended up licking myself and posting my hand.'" And thus we were treated to live tongue porn as Dylan expertly stuck his tongue in the direction of his left ear.
Live porn continued in the form of various mock-seductive poses as he impersonated female models advertising perfume. And then he flipped his "I'm more feminine as a man now" thing on its head, talking about how women are judged for not being feminine enough. "You know, feminine, that kind of thing." Girly pose. Finger lick. Finger trail ALL over body. Two females in row F explode.
The evening was spent in O'Sheas, reliving JamMIT 08 (and in my case, Paddy's day) and listening to all the fun Irish accents. A live band were playing a bunch of sixties hits and I was in my element (no better decade for music in my opinion). Much wine was consumed, and by the time we eventually rolled through the door at half four, neither of us could remember how we had managed to kill eight hours of the evening.
Total cigarettes that night: 13. I really really need to stop.
Where would we be without a little spontaneity? Well, probably a bit richer, with a longer life expectancy, fewer hangovers and less mornings spent walking around strange houses asking "what happened last night, where are we, and who the hell are you?"
We would, however, have considerably less amusing stories to tell involving shouting nonsense into phone boxes at 2am.
Wiggymonster's visit was an example of such spontaneity. I made the offer of crash-space-plus-Dylan-ticket totally off the cuff, as being a generally dull and lonely person I have a tendency to coerce people into visiting, sometimes with no real reason at all. "Come up to Manchester this weekend! Go on. Because.... well, we've got some stuff. It's great. Go on the tram and everything." But we had reason to gather, and good reason too, and it was for this reason that I found myself ploughing through heavy duty Mancunian drizzle from work at seven in the evening to rescue Wiggy from a traffic island. No vodka was involved in the incident. Well, not at this point anyway.
The evening was spent in a pub over the road from the hotel where I work. Here the world was put to rights, plans were made, our own fangirlishness was celebrated and Dylan was swooned over (but not in the physical sense as he wasn't in the building. Shame.) We staggered home and Wiggy presented me with my payment for offering her crash space - a packet of cigarettes and a bottle of wine. This is the Jam Mafia way! And so we settled in for an evening of watching Dylan and smoking and drinking a lot.
The following day went by in a similar way. Wiggy ran me to work at some ungodly hour of the am, whereupon my shift shuffled by in one relentless cig break before Wiggy eventually rescued me in the car once more. We changed for the show - Wiggy had a t-shirt with "Also available in sober" in the front, while I opted for the black suit and black shirt look, topped with my rarely-worn glasses because we were not all that close to the front, and ended up resembling an emo accountant.
Our plan to take the tram was foiled by the evil machine thing with refused to take our money and we decided we would just walk as we had loads of time. It was at this point that fate decided to do a number on us. Halfway there and miles from any reliable public transport, the heavens opened and bucketted it down on us. You know that point you get to where you get so wet that you don't even care any more so you don't bother to even TRY to keep dry and it all just seems SO VERY FUNNY? Well, that's wasn't where we were. There is a little known place a while after that where you just want to cut your frostbitten feet off with a breadknife and die in a gutter somewhere. THAT'S more like it, but we didn't have any breadknives so we just sat on the kerb and chewed our own elbows for a bit.
As we loitered outside the theatre - smoking, naturally - there came about a sudden hustle and bustle. A car pulled into the driveway by the stage door. Lots of movement. Small crowds flurried up to the entrance. Dylan Moran had entered the building. Lucky building.
There was a bar. We sat. We drank. Technically we drank MORE as we had already been drinking before we left the house. We went outside. We smoked some more. We came back. Continue ad infinitum. Or until Dylan is due on stage. Whichever comes first.
It was the latter in the end, which was good because otherwise we would have been rather disappointed, not to mention trapped in an endless loop of infinite consisting of nothing other than a bar and smoking on a doorstep, which could be fun for a while but after a few days I can see it becoming rather tiresome. But I digress. Dylan - yes. He came. He saw. He got photographed. A LOT. He made a snarky comment and told people to put their cameras away.
He was in full 'Monster'-style force tonight. Angry and exuberant, relishing every ounce of venom, building to crescendos of ranting before quietening to an embittered mumble for a while to kick his heels and huff and puff some more before getting going again. A friend of mine who is actually quite a big Dylan fan but has only seen 'Like Totally' seemed quite shocked. "He seemed in a really bad mood!" she said.
This could not be further from the truth. Yes, he was shouting and ranting and raving, but by God he was enjoying it! At one point the world-hating facade cracked and he collapsed in a fit of the giggles at one of his own jokes. "Look, observational comedy!" he declared, setting up a routine about rows between office workers. "I'm relating to you, I'm empathising. It's upsetting, it's depressing." He paused and spluttered with laughter. Nice empathisy Dylan made a break for it upon getting royally clobbered by bitter cynical Dylan: "Like I care!"
Bitter cynical Dylan got a chance to really flex his muscles when some girly in the front row, who had clearly been merrily photographing him for the entire first half, finally pushed him too far. "Young lady," he said, calmly and commandingly, "if you take one more picture of me I'm going to take that thing off you and smash it into little bits and beat you to death with...." Here he paused, leaving space for laughter, but also to think of something suitably obscure. He eventually found something: "Old Curly-Wirlies!" Cue rapturious applause. "Now," he sighed, "where was I before I was interrupted by that miscreant?"
By about halfway through the second half, Dylan's voice was going. He was coughing like a trooper: "Sorry about this, I have a touch of everything." He nearly lost a lung singing 'Strangers in the Night'. Which I now have as a ringtone by the way. And now every time my phone rings I have a mental image of Dylan bending over on stage and miming being molested by doctors.
We honoured his catargh-y greatness by smoking and drinking. More. We hit a couple of pubs on the way to the tram, then went home and finished the wine while watching.... oh, something else that had Dylan in it. I lose track. Monster, I think. There was just SO MUCH! So much Dylan. We OD-ed. Bad us.
The following day we bought yet more wine and cigarettes from Tescos on the way home from work. My day off was spent - yes, you guessed it - smoking and drinking. We did him proud. For a light smoker, I think three packs in a week is pretty impressive. And now if you will excuse me, I need to go and filter the tar out of my bronchial pipes.
MANCHESTER THE SECOND - WHEN DYLAN COMES OUT TO PLAY aka "FUN!"
Dylan was very happy to be in Manchester today, "And not just because I've only recently returned from Stoke." Stoke was apparently all he had predicted it to be on Tuesday: "People crying in the street because it's all so awful. 'Oh look, they're putting up a new building, and we KNOW it's going to be shit!'"
The hecklers were out in force tonight. One girl shouted "Show us your arse!" as soon as he walked on stage. He completely ignored this. However, some bloke on the balcony was not quite so lucky, as his incoherent vowel sounds were expertly honed in on by everyone's favourite razor-sharp Irishman. "What was that? Don't be shy. This is your time. You give it your best shot. I've only been on the road for twenty years...." Silence. "Ok, well you mull it over and I'll get back to you." And off he went.
Today, Dylan surprised me. Now I must digress from the evening for a moment here to reminisce. Over the course of this tour I have seen with my own eyes and ears (yes, I see with my ears, I am a miracle of modern science. I also talk through my belly-button and can occasionally sample savoury delicacies through a tiny hatch in the back of my head. What can I say? I'm just lucky.) the true extents of Dylan Moran's talent. He does not just have ONE on stage personality. Thus far I have spotted at least four.
In Falkirk and Findhorn we got quite a laid back rambly Dylan, very 'propping up the bar and talking for the hell of it'. In Inverness we got 'highly animated drunk' Dylan. By York, his growing confidence through rehearsal had lead to a 'worldly-wise and authoritative' Dylan, bestowing his wisdom on the people gathered below to listen. And Manchester of course, the best known of the lot - 'Angry Young(ish) Man' Dylan.
Here we had something different. Something new. Something I had not seen before and in all honesty I hadn't expected. Playful Dylan.
Now I am not generally a fan of improvisational comedy. I like to know that when I have paid to sit and listen to someone for a couple of hours, they have at least had the decency to prepare. I can acknowledge that it takes a huge amount of talent to totally make something up on the spot with just what the audience are throwing at you, but there is always this nagging cynical voice in the back of my head that gnaws away at that admiration, whining: "Look, he's making it up as he goes along!" I like Dylan's stuff because he has thought about his words. The order of the stuff may be different, the bridging stuff is all totally made up on the night, but I think what I love about him is that he is weaving together an entirely different show every night, but with a good stable base of prepared material. Today, he almost scared me.
"Name me some countries!" he demanded, deviating from his normal opening routine. And thus he proceeded to respond to various suggestions from the audience. Armenia? "Armenians are lovely people. They all have gold teeth. Even the babies. They're born with gold teeth." Australia? "Australians, lovely people, but Australia has nothing. It's pointless. It all looks like it does in the pictures. You don't need to go there anyway because all the Australians have left Australia because it's so pointless and they're all over here behind bars serving us drinks."
It was daring. It was new. Even if he had spent an hour or so poring over an Atlas and jotting down a couple of words for as many different cultures as he could think of that people might shout out, I say hats off to him for doing that.
Once again, I love watching the new material build up as he adds to the existing stuff as he goes. His definition of male PMT? "Someone talking to you while you're trying to do one thing. 'What do you think of the....' 'Shut up! I am trying to build this small child's thing.' Or 'Would you like...' 'No! Go away! I was trying to lick this envelope! I ended up licking myself and posting my hand.'" And thus we were treated to live tongue porn as Dylan expertly stuck his tongue in the direction of his left ear.
Live porn continued in the form of various mock-seductive poses as he impersonated female models advertising perfume. And then he flipped his "I'm more feminine as a man now" thing on its head, talking about how women are judged for not being feminine enough. "You know, feminine, that kind of thing." Girly pose. Finger lick. Finger trail ALL over body. Two females in row F explode.
The evening was spent in O'Sheas, reliving JamMIT 08 (and in my case, Paddy's day) and listening to all the fun Irish accents. A live band were playing a bunch of sixties hits and I was in my element (no better decade for music in my opinion). Much wine was consumed, and by the time we eventually rolled through the door at half four, neither of us could remember how we had managed to kill eight hours of the evening.
Total cigarettes that night: 13. I really really need to stop.