Day Four, Gig Four: The Decemberists @ The Zodiac
Colin Meloy / The Decemberists
It was back to the Zodiac once again on Saturday night, this time with
fairy_of_ice69 in tow as well. Actually, we went to the Zodiac twice that evening, because we'd barely been in five minutes before the fire alarm went off and we all had to file out again - cue a few hundred people milling around on the pavement outside waiting to be let back in again once the fire brigade had turned up to say, "nope, nothing's on fire".
Anyway, on to the point. First up were Howling Bells, a name I'd seen a few times but I'd never got round to tracking down some songs to see what they were like. They were actually pretty good, and even Vicky was impressed despite having an aversion to female singers (well, she says she has an aversion to female singers, but considering I've successfully introduced her to Shannon Wright, Beth Orton and Stephanie Dosen I think she might have overstated things somewhat).
The main attraction though was The Decemberists, whom I've seen once before (at ULU). They're were great live back then, and nothing's changed in the interim - stonking songs, great atmosphere, amusing banter ("I'm not sure how you pronounce 'redneck' in English" "I think it's something like 'chav'"). I'm trying to think what my favourite song of the night was, but to be honest they were all fantastic and it's tough to pick one - 'We Both Go Down Together' does spring to mind as a candidate though. Unfortunately we had to leave before the encore so Vicky could catch the last train, but to make up for it the last song we heard (just in time) was 'The Engine Driver' which is Vicky's favourite, so that had her bouncing around and beaming from ear to ear. On the way back to the station we chatted away like mad, and we both agreed it had been a fantastic night.
Before the gig I introduced Vicky to the Turf Tavern (possibly one of the hardest pubs to find in Oxford if you've not been there before). Having been taken to Chequers, shown the Wheatsheaf, and now the Turf, Vicky is under the impression that most places in Oxford are the end of tiny narrow alleyways (which is probably fairly accurate, to be honest). Sadly the Turf was absolutely packed, as is so often the case (it's not difficult considering the size of the place), so after Vicky had finished saying "awww, it's so cute" we left and headed to the King's Arms instead - I didn't think I'd been there before but once I was inside I recognised it, I went there with Justin and Nina a while back.
Anyway, that was Saturday evening... the rest of the weekend was pretty much entirely taken up with moving out - yes, I'm now re-ensconced at my parents' house for the interim. Getting the piano upstairs nearly killed my dad and I.