I met JAMES THOMAS (JT) and his wife LUCY,SHUGZV and TAMZIN(sic) and GARYMAC and his incredible brother tonight who makes BEZ look and SOUND normal.They were going to see THE POGUES and i decided to go to MANCHESTER and meet them.SHUGZV turned up 2 hours LATE and i was a LITTLE under the weather having been on my WORKS(yes) do last night and spent all afternoon in PUBS and SHOPPING.I bought my son a BOX for XMAS as he always liked to play with the package as a KID.This time it was a DJ MATEL case.After 3 hours of lugging this about i had had enough of carrying this about.Some BRILLIANT patter and as for the game i had wanted to watch...i missed 6 GOALS. But a great early evening but i had to get back cos i was DOG-SITTING.Now watching MOTD to see what i missed. ROCKET MICK
A Fairytale In MANCHESTER
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What a fucking craic!
Great to see ma old sparring partner Rocket Mick in fine form as usual! Women getting ready to go out should carry a health warning, cos me and Stevie were downstairs waiting in the bar:D
Finally met up with everyone at about half 6 in the Hard Rock Cafe, Celtic topped was donned for the special occasion of The Pogues being in town. We met up with Mick, JT and Lucy first, and bored Lucy to tears with our sad stories of neworder and Factory for a good while, Lucy asked my missus if I was as sad as JT, with the obvious reply of YES
Then we were joined by the brothers Mac and their entourage, plus several Spanish people who they had "adopted"
One of the Spanish guys pointed at my Celtic top and said he'd just bought one! Gary's kid kept me entertained with stories of The Clash and introduced us to the rest of the clan, I can remember speaking to Brett and the legend that is "Teddy" needless to say they are all mad as fuck. We waved our goodbyes to the Rocket, pity he couldnae come with us cos he would have loved it.
The Pogues were absolutely sufuckenperb, played all their best stuff, and the MENA was packed to the rafters, the busiest I've seen the place in my 4 visits so far. Everyone on their feet and singing and dancing like loonies. I remember phoning Mick during the set so he could hear it, I also received a text from JT saying Stuart Pearce was 2 rows in front and did I have a message for him, to which I replied "Call him a wanker":D Shane Mac was totally on the ball and we were treated to 2 encores, the first was Sally Maclennane, a new song (no doubt a single) called Yeah Yeah Yeah which was brilliant then Fairytale which had everyone singing along. They came out again for the last time with a roof raising Fiesta and it was time to go.
The idea was that we all met up in "South" Jt and Lucy ended up with directions to their hotel so they headed home, myself and the missus, Stevie and Kelly walked for what seemed an age to try and get a taxi to take us to "South" but to no avail, we even bumped into one of The Mac brothers pals Teddy who was heading back to Bolton! In the end freezing and hungry we found a private hire to take us back to our hotel for a late drink.
This morning I awoke to find an answer message from The Mac brothers at 5.18am - all I heard were Northern voices saying "It's Shuggy say hello everyone" and True Faith being blasted from the Stereo in someones house
As I've said, it was a top weekend, Mrs Shug says hello and thanks to everyone for making it an enjoyable experience, hope to see you all soon at the NewOrder gigs ROCK ESTA NOCHE
Great night, meeting up with numerous people being the highlight. Hopefully there will be something next year we can have a right good day at it. If Shug can get there on time.
Our new mate, England legend Stuart "sorry but I only have two backstage passes" Pearce is a TOP bloke. Only chatted for a couple of minutes but he's obviously into his music. He'd been to see the Manics the night before, and was obviously looking forward to a Norder tour next year.
We were a bit disappointed by the Pogues or more to the point Shane MacGowan to be honest. He has been a shambling wreck for the 20 years I've been watching them and I stopped watching the Pogues / Popes after seeing a couple performances towards the end of the Pogues and the beginning of the Popes, but went to the reunion two years ago where he really hung it together. I didn't think having big screens showing close ups of his face helped, it never was a pretty site but at least in the old days he usually had dark glasses but the screens made his personal state only too apparent. Maybe he was in a similar state two years ago but from a distance we couldn't notice. Its a sad fact that for us the highlights were the instrumentals and the songs sung by Woods, Chevron, Stacey and of course Cait O'Riordan who looked fantastic.
Finally, did you notice how Shane really perked up after one of his numerous breaks about 20 minutes into the set? The anti slur powder seems to have worked a treat.
Were we at the same gig JT?
The 4 of us thought Shane was brilliant.....I'd love to have been at that gig two years ago;)
Originally posted by ShugZV© Were we at the same gig JT?
Never mind two years ago, try 1985-1988 - Golden Years, but you're always hearing that from old gets like Mike and I aren't you?. I have some stuff on video I'll get to you next year. Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah was released at the back end of the eighties.
Originally posted by James Thomas > Originally posted by ShugZV© Were we at the same gig JT?
Never mind two years ago, try 1985-1988 - Golden Years, but you're always hearing that from old gets like Mike and I aren't you?. I have some stuff on video I'll get to you next year. Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah was released at the back end of the eighties.
Foowk, you know what my memory is like, but I'm sure that was the first time I'd heard that song
The video stuff sounds good me ole fruitcake, I have nothing by The Pogues on video
Well I knew that I would and I indeed expected to meet JT and the round dodging wee street urchen SHUGLET , but in a most Cilla Black scenario who should be in attendance , ROCKET DUVALL 
Boys we really must do this sober some time , but as you now know the kind of company I keep , well perhaps we should meet a bit earlier in the day and then I'll know if I'm being libellous :D The Spanish people we had adopted seemed to enjoy themselves , though having spent three years of a four year degree course studying Linguistics and Spanish , I cant help thinking that the final year may have left me better equiped to deal with a conversation fuelled by lager , perhaps I'll see if they'll let me finish the fourth year:( . I cant really be objective about the gig , I enjoyed it for what it was , ourkid reckoned he'd seen them better , still I was feckin made up with '1000's are sailing ' being played and that aint one of Shanes vocals . I dont know how it looked from the seats but down at the front it was gettin a bit hairy fer a five foot five fella , and then Fiesta started up !!! Bruising of ribs ensued .
We tried blagging in to the aftershow , by sitting with some competition winners , however when five of us claimed we had all lost our laminates in the crowd , they smelled a rat , Brett then askin what a feckin laminate was didn't help , we were then asked to leave by some fella in a hi-de-hi get up , we'd lost Little Ted by then and we figured he'd gone into the party , hi-de-hi fella said he didn't know who little Ted was and he wasn't gonna ask fer him . so we took the hint , we saw that footie man too , but I thought it was a Shuglet relative .... the rest is a blur and Sunday brought a fealing akin to influenza , though accompanied by a told you so look from mrs garymac .
Look forward to doing it all again though , but this time I wanna start off sober and have a relatively sane conversation first .
I thought I'd given you'se directions to South , so apologies fer not doin so , I sometimes assume people know what I'm on about ....
So anyways I'm glad you enjoyed yourselves , next time I'll be a better guide
now where did I put them Spanish people ......
Tell your kid that the message he got yesterday was from me, dunno which one of you lot phoned me at 5 in the morning but the answer message cheered me up when I got out my pit around 9! I will send you a mail with all the Clash stuff we were talking about on Saturday, so you can pass it on to yer Bruv.
From our seats at the back facing the stage - it looked like a New Order concert down the fron - plenty of pogoing and raised / punching air arm movement. Just wish I could have got past the hi de hi security people. White Blazers? Wass that all about?
Originally posted by ShugZV©
The fella mithering us was in yellow , I think he took his anger out on us for having to wear said apparel , well that and the hi-de-hi jibes in appaling ruth madoc welsh type accents .... and the fact we pointed out his uniform was a little tight .... and something to do with pie eating , and I think Jez might have ventured the opinion that only a cuntwould wear a yellow blazer in winter , oh and the small matter of the laminates.
Phone message , I'll take the fifth ... as ye know , I aint moved on from two soupcans joined with string :(
Oh , security found some mittens and a bobble hat Shug , I thought you had the ones that are joined together to prevent such loss:D
