"Rainy city, Sheffield, Thursday"...
... to paraphrase "Mario's Cafe" from the Saint Etienne album "So Tough".
It seemed like madness to travel from Blackpool all the way over the Pennines to Sheffield for a gig on a "school night", but this was Saint Etienne, who I've not seen live since the Summer of 2005 in Manchester. And they were performing their 1991 debut album "Foxbase Alpha" in it's entirety. It's not that far...
Well, Thursday the 14th May arrived, and it was time for the off. Celia was up for the drive and had got directions preset on the iPhone. Tanked up with petrol & cheeseburgers we set off down the M55.
In theory, as long as we headed towards the M60 and Oldham, we'd be on the right route. Typically we miss the turning and have to head towards Warrington in order to turn round and get back on the right part of the M60. Doh. Some 25 minutes later and we're back on course for East of Manchester and the delights of the A57...
... Snake Pass. The main route from Lancashire & Greater Manchester to Yorkshire and specifically Sheffield is over this winding road across the picturesque Pennines. Never been along this route before and it's got at times some breathtaking scenery. Bizarrely on the way along you pass signs for two towns which have become televisual landmarks over the years - namely Holmfirth on the left, which can be seen in "Last Of The Summer Wine", and on the right Hadfield which doubles for Royston Vasey in "The League Of Gentlemen". Alas, no time to visit today, we've a gig to get to.
Predictably for May, the weather turned dreadful and we only avoided some of the rain because the route taken took us above the clouds raing down on the ground below. Weird. Also predictable was that the route on the iPhone would get a bit confusing and bore no resemblance to the road we were travelling on. So we end up following signs for Sheffield along the M1...
Luckily, this route more or less took us directly to our destination, the Leadmill in Sheffield. Another brilliant drive from Celia. I'd never been to Sheffield before, let alone this venue, but it was easy to find with good nearby parking.
The venue itself is lovely - nice big bar area cum dancefloor, with a nice sized stage area next door. When we arrived the support act Go Kart Mozart were already underway. I knew nothing about them apart from that the singer was the legendary cult figure Lawrence (from Felt). (Shrugs shoulders in an Alan Partridge way). They were quite good, and had a fair sized audience, but there was enough space for us to squeeze down to the front for the main attraction.
A boffin in a white lab coat pottered around on stage whilst roadies finetuned equipment, a person I later find was Gerald, Saint Etienne's unsung backroom musical genius. Then the radio transmission that is "This is Radio Etienne" blares through the PA and the band come on stage. This time out it's just Sarah, Pete & Bob, with Debsy on additional vocals and the odd bit of guitar. No "band" as such compared to previous tours, this was mostly programmed & sequenced as befitting the original album's cut and paste nature.
The main part of the gig was the album "Foxbase Alpha" played start to finish for the first time, tying in with the reissue of a deluxe version in the shops. The first thing noticeable about the arrangement of the songs was that they all had, how shall we say, a bit more bollocks. The bass has been bumped up and everysong was a bit more danceable that the original recordings. "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" sounded as fresh as ever, even with Sarah singing in the place of original vocalist Moira Lambert. Sarah went on to hand out sweets rather appropriately during "Wilson", and during the two instrumentals on the album "Stoned to Say The Least" and "Etienne Gonna Die", she sat and played cards with Debsy at the side of the stage. Amusingly Sarah didn't bother to learn the spoen world part of "Girl VII" instead reading from a clipboard.
Great use was made of projections on the backdrop and on the video screens dotted around the venue, with what looked like clips of cult 70s scary kids drama "Children Of The Stones" during the penultimate track "London Belongs To Me", strangely sounding unfinished on record but played live sounding amazing.
With an extended "Dilworth's Theme" ending the set, Sarah promised to be back in 5 minutes; then the band left the stage to be replaced by a Daffy Duck cartoon... which is original. The rest of the show was deliberately up to date dance tunes, beginning with "This Is Tomorrow" from "London Conversations", running through the likes of the underrated "Burnt Out Car", a fantastic version of "Sylvie" which was channeling Pet Shop Boys' "Suburbia" in places, "Like a Motorway" (after witnessing Debsy's percussion during that song I felt the need to shout "I need more cowbell" at her - which made her laugh if nobody else did), and of course the obligatory fantastic "He's On The Phone" at the end, which meant lots of dancing from the appreciative crowd and mucho feather boa action from Crackers.
And then that was it. They were gone. I smiled nicely at the security bloke who kindly nipped up on stage to get Debsy's setlist for me. Time to get back to the car and the drive back over the Pennines home (a bit scary but another fab adrenaline rush drive from Celia). A great venue and a great gig from a band who've proved that you can dip into the nostalgia whilst still looking forward. They'll never be a mainstream successful band, as they missed that boat back in 1995, but they'll always have a loyal following. Comfortably cult.
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