As I walked down Ormeau Avenue after leaving Blossoms in March 2020, I knew it wouldn’t be long until I returned to The Limelight to see Lightning Seeds the following weekend.
Lightning Seeds at The Limelight would turn out to be my next concert, I just didn’t anticipate that it would be twenty months away.
The original date was Saturday 14th March 2020. Yes, the week that everything all “Kicked off” if you will. It was a late postponement, but I was expected, having already seen Linfield v Larne postponed a few days earlier. Both my plans for that Saturday were postponed. It would turn out that my plans for a lot of Saturdays after that would bite the dust.
It was rescheduled for Wednesday 27th May 2020, because Covid was going to be all sorted by then. Such naive optimism. It probably would have been sorted by then if this country wasn’t so thick as shit.
Further postponements came, to September 2020, then Friday 21st May 2021.
Thankfully, that one in May was postponed as it would have clashed with the Irish Cup Final. Sorry guys, but priorities.
September 2021, try again. Nope, another postponement, this time to November 2021.
As my ticket for this was purchased in January 2020, this will be one of the last concerts for which I will have a physical ticket stub to go into my Ticket Tin, an empty box of Quality Street which holds all my ticket stubs from concerts and football matches. Stupid online ticketing.
In anticipation of the obvious question, yes, it’s the band that did that song, and yes, they’ve done other songs.
One of those bands that you probably know more songs of theirs than you realise.
Of course, with this year having an international football tournament, they’ve had a spell at Number 1 this year. With the 2022 World Cup being in Winter, they might even get next year’s Christmas Number 1 if England win it.
This wasn’t their first time at The Limelight, but it was the first in a while, 22 years in fact, in 1999.
As part of my Magazine Archive series, I have a copy of Melody Maker which has a discount coupon for a ticket. Now to build a Time Machine.
Regarding the Magazine Archive, you may have noticed no new articles. I’ve ran out of pre-written articles. I have a lot of magazines to review but no time to do it. I was too important to go on Furlough and i’m too young to retire. Some day i’ll get around to uploading new articles.
For some reason, I have tweeted my disappointment about a concert at The Limelight in 2010 being cancelled. I literally have no recollection of this.
I was a bit reticent at first about going to this, it would have been very reassuring if masks were a bit more frequent amongst the crowd.
Mask exemptions are the new bad back. Everybody has one when it suits in order to try and get out of doing something. Let’s be honest, the vast majority of them are spoofers. I don’t care how much of a Tory that makes me sound. Maskexemptionitis is so contagious, I fully expect it to be declared a Pandemic by the end of the month.
This gig brought out the stars. Well, sort of. I spotted Chris Page from Newsline.
Eagle eyed crowd member may have noticed Abi Harding, formerly of The Zutons, playing Keyboards.
The band were advertised as going on stage at 7.30pm, but didn’t arrive until around 7.48pm.
I know we’ve been waiting over eighteen months, it’s not that bad in comparison, but still.
This tour was to support the 25th anniversary of the release of Jollificiation, which was released in September 1994. Do the maths, this tour has been delayed so long, it’s still going on one week short of the 25th anniversary of the follow-up album Dizzy Heights.
You know the drill, they perform the album in full, and then move on to the hits.
Ian Broudie was rather excitedly telling the audience that “We almost there” eight songs in, almost moving on the the hits that people want to hear.
Those hits came after a short break, such as Sense, Pure, All I Want, What If, You Showed Me and Life Of Riley.
Of course, you can’t hear Life Of Riley without planning to vote for Ian Wright or Eric Cantona for Goal Of The Month in the hope of winning tickets to a team of your choice and £200 in Premium Bonds.
That song was written about his son, Riley Broudie. No longer a baby, now a fully grown adult who is now a member of Lightning Seeds, just to make you all feel old.
It was a bit disappointing that there was no piano solo in All I Want, it’s the best bit of the song.
We were treated to a cover of Be My Baby by The Ronettes.
It wasn’t all plain sailing, it felt like there were some sound problems with the speakers, while Ian Broudie deviated during one song to complain about feedback before making a series of shrugging gestures with his hands.
We weren’t treated to Three Lions though. I guess somebody would have complained. It’s Belfast, we have to find something to get offended about. Pity, you’d expect to hear Ossie’s Dream if you went to see Chas and Dave.
The week following this, I should have been going to see Paul Weller at Ulster Hall, but that got cancelled due to being unable to find a new date. That was the same for Beabadoobee at Oh Yeah Centre in September.
Doves at The Limelight on my birthday next year has also been cancelled, but that was due to Jimi Goodwin’s personal issues which he will hopefully overcome.
Up next is The Charlatans at The Limelight towards the end of November, although I may be tempted by OMD when I am in Brighton later in the month. We shall see.
2022 will see Queen, Erasure and Kings Of Leon visit Belfast.
I’d love to go, but I can’t justify the outlay.
£84 for Queen WITHOUT Freddie Mercury, while Erasure and Kings Of Leon have Booking Fees of £6 to £7 for tickets I have to print at home myself.
Taking the piss. Too many business seem to think that a bit of crying on the news, people will feel morally bound to give them money. That’s not how it works. If you’re going to rip people off, you’re not getting my custom. I may relent nearer the time due to my love of those bands, but i’m planning on holding out.
Yes, you’ve lost money, but you will get back to where you were, it’ll just take a while. If the last eighteen months have taught us anything, it’s important to do things right rather than quick. I’ll be amazed if any of these concerts sell out, then Concert Promoters will be on the news crying about people not buying concert tickets.
Booking Fees have doubled since the pandemic, without any justification.
Even the Northern Ireland football team are at it, where tickets for the match against Lithuania will cost more than it cost me to fly to Lithuania in 2019.
I’ve just had a quick look on Wizz Air. You can fly from Northern Ireland to Lithuania and back in mid January for 2p cheaper than a match ticket to Northern Ireland v Lithuania.
I was always going to give these World Cup games a miss and start again for Euro 2024, but this made my mind up. I’m expecting a lot of competitions on Social Media this week.
The amount of economic gaslighting through the media by Politicians is making me very uncomfortable.
“You must return to the office and spend at lunchtime”. Not if it’s not safe enough yet.
“You must go to the pub. It’s your duty”. No, it is not.
“You must spend your High Street Voucher in Belfast City Centre”. Give me a reason to go into Belfast City Centre. It’s a rancid shithole where you can’t go five seconds without having cigarette smoke blown into your face, where you can’t move due to the amount of building work and you are constantly having to avoid broken glass. Do better, and you’ll get my custom.
Especially so, when prices of other things are going up.
It’s a collaborative effort. If business want to rip people off, then people won’t and shouldn’t support them. Money is their oxygen. If they don’t play fair, starve them. It’s the only way they’ll listen.
I do want to actually attend some concerts in 2022.
It was nice to get back into the concert, can’t say I enjoyed having my feet stood on by women either side of me dancing too much. Literally every concert I go to. Even the annoying things i’ve missed. Ouch.
Analogue Boy In A Digital World 
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