February 2012: The morning alpine glow of the sun kissed
valley of Grindlewald greeted me as I threw open the curtains of our hotel
balcony. The thin yolky sunlight was gloriously shuffling its way up the
snowline flanks of the mighty, brooding Eiger North face.
I was pleased, that being in Switzerland, the satellite TV
could at least pick up a slim slice of blighty in the shape of BBC6 music
(thank god we fought hard enough for it) and along with the mix of garage &
indie blaring we started to pack for our day in the Mountains.
I don’t know why, in that brushing ones teeth can be so
personable and we deem it alright to strut about with our gobs foaming, raking
toothbrush too & fro in mouth, whilst almost utterly being unheard as we
slobber out the days plans or indeed more important, what the guy just said on
the radio…
“Gugghh!!” I shouted to my dearest who was tending to the
face slap. She didn’t flinch. The man on the radio continued to make my dreams
come true, announcing that the best band in the world ever, CUD had yet again
reformed & were starting a tour in Sheffield on June 2nd 2012.
Then heaven. Next song up on the play list was the glorious CUD band anthem
“Only a Prawn in Whitby”.
By this time I had taken the toothbrush from said mouth and
was wailing like the Carl “sex god” Putnam banshee, finger pointing as is the
law with me and dancing about like only a Space Cud – ette can do. My darling
girlfriend thought I had gone quite mad at this point, and to all intensities
& purposes, she would be absolutely right.
Fast forward 2nd June 2012 and in my haste to do
everything else but get a ticket for the concert, I found myself launched into
a dilemma after scouring the internet for a billet for the band I loved. Do I
go down to Club Leadmill like a dirty skanky addict and try to “score”?
I cursed myself as I had made a mental note to get tickets
for the 3 “Cs” – Cricket, Cud and… um … well it will come to me I’m sure at
some point. So I resigned myself to failure, the night was foul weather and I tried
to convince myself that 20 years way past their prime, they would be shite
anyway.
Yet like the proverbial itch you cannot scratch or the moth
at the light bulb, the nagging optimism would not go away, angel & devil
arguing on the shoulders… the devil, as usual, won…
Arse. Just two bouncers, no ticket touts and a bloke getting
stoned outside the club. “No returns?” I asked. Muscle man shook his head &
told me to bugger off. The guy getting slowly baked shouted to me he has just
given a ticket to some bloke that is in a pub somewhere. Thanks for that, very
helpful. Which, infact as it turns out, it actually was.
As the pot head was so wrecked and with him shouting down
the street, it seems he had alerted a rather fretful chap, whom appeared out of
the door looking furtive and asked me how many tickets I wanted. As he had lost all his mates before in the
pre-gig booze up he seemed a tad desperate to offload them. “One” I said. “Just
one?” he pleaded with sad eyes.
Now my answer would normally be “two” as my best buddy Dange
has always been with me at our CUD gigs and indeed on some other CUD- esque
journeys, more about later, and if Dange had been able to come with me to blag
a brace of tickets, our grins would have been as wide as Park Hill Flats.
Still, I was very grateful for this lucky charm and I was
only asked for the normal fee of £12.50. So I bought him a pint and later we
danced to strains of 20 years ago. Thanks to the kindness of strangers.
Usually at gigs, I don’t head straight to the stage, or the
bar, but the merchandise stand and at CUD gigs; it is religious to get a CUD T,
for they are many and legendary. A fat bloke heavily dressed as a Pirate was
not doing a very good job of selling his wares to the hoards of bank note
waving fans. He seemed distracted and far from competent in his knowledge of
merchandise. He sold me the wrong sized t- shirt, a play on scrabble (pictured)
but sometimes that’s not unusual at gigs.
Then it dawned on me – it was lead singer Carl “sex god”
Puttnam himself faffing about & getting it all wrong, typical Carl!
Missing the warm up band, time for a pint and a chat to the
fans in the bar to see the demographic of the ages, the hairlines & the
beer bellies. We were all reminiscing about the times gone past, the albums,
the gigs and the t-shirts, when two of my friends who had actually got their
arses into gear and booked tickets ages ago appeared. Joy! I can share the
event with my mates, something always very special to me, never a loner for
momentous occasions such as this!
The stage was tiny, the sound system crap, the crowd were
drunk & smelly, the light rigging looked like something from a dodgy carnie
waltzer, yet when the band came on, what a welcome.
CUD didn’t disappoint, and all the old classics were belted
out to some old school crowd surfing & people invading the stage. Shedding
20 years off themselves, the fans were suddenly living the great indie era
again and so was I. This was no polished, theatrical, pyrotechnical stadium
rock concert. This was a sweaty, heaving mass of fans throwing beer at the band
with a “Sheffield Welcome” (You fat bastard) arseing about like we used to,
tonnes of feedback, poor sound, duff notes with the obligatory sticky floor.
Like it used to be. No need to be nostalgic anymore, CUD had created the
greatest invention of mankind, a time machine!
When rock climbers do a new climb (route) that no one else
has done before, they get the privilege to give them a name that gets written
into international guidebooks. It’s a great honour and usually people spend
quite a while thinking about a name that will go down for all time in history
in the national library.
Not me. Nearly all the new routes my bessie mate and Cudette
Dange and I did on the Eastern Gritstone edges of the peak district got a CUD
reference. Our favourite being “Slack Time”, not the best of songs, but there
is a great line “there is a time to be tight and a time to be slack and that’s
the time to die”. Was fatty boom boom Carl a climber? We nearly went back stage
to ask him, I think he would be proud.
After two raucous encores, the crowd eventually spilled out
of the dimly lit Leadmill doorway, I swear everyone had a mile wide grin on
their faces and fire in their eyes.
As we made our way to the taxi, I danced a little jig,
thought of the sunny morning in Switzerland and could not resist a high pitched
wail of “Only a Prawn in Whitby”.
One day my Girlfriend will visit Whitby, stop thinking I am
mental, and one hopes at some point will witness the best band in the world…
