Support this evening is Helen McCookerybook, formerly of
Brighton-based band The Chefs (and later Helen and the Horns). McCookerybook
stands onstage, fairly hidden behind the guitar she picks so expertly, and
sings her self-penned songs in a voice that sounds at once joyful and anxious,
as though after years of performing in her bedroom to only her cat, her
budgerigar and occasional embarrassed glimpses of herself in the dressing-table
mirror, she can’t quite believe she’s actually playing on a real stage to a
real audience in a real venue. Onstage her manner is self-deprecating, though
there is a worldliness about her songs that is anything but.
I confess, I was a little baffled by the audience’s reaction
to McCookerybook’s set. During the course of each song the audience members listen
with a rare intensity, brows furrowed in concentration, occasionally scribbling
notes on scraps of paper or in notebooks which they happen to have brought with
them. What’s going on? Can this really be an audience entirely comprised of
music journalists bent on reviewing the gig? At the end of each song there is a
smattering of distracted applause which soon gives way to the murmur of voices
as members of the audience confer with each other. Reviewers exchanging notes?
It’s unheard of.
Noticing my bewilderment, Robert ‘The Chief’ Lloyd takes a
long quaff from his pint glass of High Commissioner and proceeds to explain. It
seems that woven into each song in McCookerybook’s set – regardless of the
ostensible subject-matter – is a recipe from any one of the many
Michelin-starred gourmet bistros with which Brighton
is endowed, though the recipe will be woven into each song in the form of a
puzzle. It might be in the form of an acrostic, with the first letter of each
line spelling out the ingredients; or it might be that the recipe’s name is
announced in the form of a pun (I heard her sing: “and the lad I once knew, he
was Irish too”. The recipe? ‘Irish too’ becomes Irish stew. Ingenious!)
At the end of her set, McCookerybook retires to a corner of
the venue and begins marking the various papers which the audience have handed
to her. Later, in a brief, improvised ceremony, she will present a Marco Pierre
White De-luxe Gourmet Combined Whisk and
Walnut Cracker to the person who has had most success in decoding the gig’s
recipes. Out of the corner of my eye I notice bowler-hatted Mark ‘Ace’ Jones
glowering enviously in McCookerybook’s direction. Her merchandising idea is far
more ingenious than any of the various trinkets and gewgaws ranged on the table
before him.
This far into the tour social media has done its work and the
audience is well aware that once Edward ‘Ted’ Chippington takes the stage
there’ll be no let up for well over an hour. The Nightingales’ non-stop set has
become something of a talking point during the course of this tour, and the
twittersphere has been alive with tales of unwitting punters caught short during
the band’s relentless scatterbox delivery. With this in mind, and having handed
their recipe sheets to McCookerybook, the audience vacates the room.
Downstairs, drinks are bought, cigarettes are smoked, and a queue forms for the
toilet while upstairs Paul ‘Carpet’ Squires takes up his position at the mixing
desk. Tonight is going to be brutal. No doubt about it.
Fifteen minutes later the room is packed, and the atmosphere
is electric. A spontaneous cheer goes up and Chippington is onstage, familiar
can of Stella Artois in his hand. As
the cheers begin to subside someone in the crowd shouts “Alright, chief?” They
say that comedy is all about timing and tonight Chippington proves the truth of
this adage. He glares in the general direction of the voice, and a heartbeat
later growls simply: “I won’t be doing any of my chief material this evening,
mate.” The audience goes wild - Chippington’s only just started the fight, but
he’s already won the war.
But tonight, it’s more than about winning, for Brighton is a seaside town and the Torquay material has a
special resonance for this crowd. Subtle changes to his set - “I was walking
along the beach the other day...” - demonstrate Chippington’s instinctive
rapport with tonight’s audience. I spot several pairs of Torquay trousers
amongst the audience, a self-conscious statement of solidarity with their hero.
Chippington’s set tonight is a Tour de
France of biting social commentary, bitter political observation and wry,
satirical humour, all delivered in the strange hypnotic acapella rap style he
has made his own.
Chippington leaves the stage to wild applause, but before
the cacophony can begin to fade down the Nightingales are onstage and the
opening riff of viral hit “Bullet for Gove” rings out. Chippington may have lit
the fuse, but tonight the Nightingales are the dynamite: the crowd erupts, and
for the next hour they are alternately punched and pummeled, battered and
berated, tickled and tormented, slapped and stroked, and occasionally led down
a dark alley on a moonless night to be mugged and left for dead, only to be
revived by some passing Good Samaritan before the whole damn nightmare starts
all over again. Now that’s rock ‘n’
roll! Or as we say in Germany
The band’s latest LP For
Fuck’s Sake has been getting a considerable amount of airplay during the
course of the tour, and it’s good to see a crowd that is evidently familiar
with much of the new material. It’s also clear that the band can sense the
audience’s enthusiasm - this may be the last date of the tour but their rock
‘n’ roll mojos are clearly being recharged by the energy pouring from the
crowd. Schmid, Kitson and Apperley are playing tonight with an effortless,
swaggering attack, switchblading between numbers, tempo changes, light and
shade - Schmid with eyes closed, Kitson hair flailing, face hidden,
occasionally surfacing to exchange a grin with Apperley. And Robert ‘The Chief’
Lloyd, barely moving from centre-stage from where he fires off his barrage of
lyrics, occasionally crouching down to give the band some visual space.
As the psyechedelic tornado that is “Real Gone Daddy” batters
the room, I feel something sharp poke me in the back. I turn quickly, and out of
the corner of my eye I glimpse the flash of a blade. The room is crowded and
the lights are pulsing a multi-coloured strobe pattern in time with the song so
it’s difficult to see clearly, but I’m sure I can make out a dark figure
slipping through the crowd in the direction of the merch desk. As best I can I
feel my back for any wounds but thankfully there’s nothing. Am I imagining
things? Is my paranoia running away with me? I crane my neck in the direction
of the merch desk. Mark ‘Ace’ Jones is there sure enough, bowler hatted head
nodding woozily in time with the music, Ozzy Osborne glasses flickering with
reflected light, a half-empty glass of beer in each hand.
It’s the last night of the UK tour, and so the band – as
much for their own enjoyment as to reward the audiences’s enthusiasm – play
that rare thing... an encore. Tonight, Don’t’cha
Rock is followed by a cover of one of the more obscure Troggs numbers – 10 Downing Street – complete with twee,
falsetto backing vocals from Apperley and Kitson. It’s unexpected, and it’s a
triumph. It’s followed by the last number of the night – and of the tour – and
it’s completely out of left field. It’s a cover of Right Said Fred’s one-off No. 1 global smash hit Deeply Dippy. The band have covered this
number on previous tours, and RSF’s main man Richard ‘Out-and-rageous-with-it’ Fairbrass
has been tweeting about the gig all week, so this cover is no doubt by way of a
thank you to one of the Nightingales’ greatest inspirations (alongside Reg ‘Elvis’
Presley and the Ramones, off course.)
Unfortunately, Fairbrass is in Bognor this evening playing
Widow Twankey in Werner Herzog’s neo-expressionist stage version of the
otherwise-populist pantomime Aladdin
and so has sent along his third cousin, twice removed – Charlie ‘Chuckles’
Finklebaum – as his Brighton-based representative and the ‘gales feel
sufficiently honoured to acknowledge his presence with their re-imagining of
Finklebaum’s distant cousin’s one-off No. 1 smash hit record. It’s a stormer,
and takes the audience completely by surprise. As the band leave the stage to thunderous
applause, Finklebaum smiles quietly to himself before lifting his phone to his
ear. No doubt his distant cousin is waiting with baited breath for the low-down
on the Nightingales’ tribute to his immortal pop smash. As I brush past
Finklebaum, I hear the word ‘awesome’. Or perhaps it was ‘lawsuit’?
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