The Y Factor

Dearly Beloved and I went to Great Yarmouth last week to see some relatives. For those of you that don't know Yarmouth, it's stuck in a time warp. Until recently you couldn't walk down the high street without being reminded that Elvis is still the king but I'm pleased to say they have shifted forward now to sometime in the mid 70's. The town is still home to many of those small street corner pubs with a separate public and lounge bars where the decor has changed little in the last 50 years and neither have the patrons and It was in one of these we saw our first pub band for many years.  

I say band, it was more of a rabble. I don't think I have ever seen such an odd mix of people. The bass player looked like an elderly accountant who had turned up after work, whipped his tie off and started playing. The female drummer with goth overtones was probably still at school and the singer was on the wrong side of 30 and dressed in the rock tradition complete with Axel Rose style bandana. The two guitarists were a study in themselves, the old and the new. One was of indeterminate age with an elegantly wasted style that would give Keith Richards a run for his money playing the classic sunburst Les Paul through a Marshall amp whilst the second ,much younger, was clearly from the newer thrash metal school with an Ibanez and an array of pedals. They may have looked a mismatched bunch but they could all play and they ripped through their set of old hits from the 60s, 70s, and early 80s with no problem.

It was one of those bands where the more you drank the better they got. The bar we were in was tiny and the 5 piece band took up half of the floor space with the audience crammed against the bar. The audience themselves were a motley crew of die hard rock fans and they loved every minute off it. The local character turned up in his wheel chair sporting a cap saying 'Rock God.' The band let him get up and warble his way badly through ' teenage kicks.' He forget the words and lost his place in the song but he had a good time regardless. Due to the noise and lack of clarity of the vocals you often couldn't tell what the song was until they got to the chorus but nobody cared. The young guitarist put a solo into 'You Really Got Me' which bore no resemblance to the original and would probably have made Ray Davies drop his guitar in shock. Was anyone fussed? Not a bit. Did they manage to make all the songs sound pretty much the same? Yes they did. Did anyone care? No.

None of the band would have made it through the opening stage of the X Factor because they don't have any of the requirement for being a modern pop star. They don't have the look, the attitude or the swagger although the talent seems optional. However they managed to entertain a room full of people who had an excellent night out and that, dear Simon, is what it should be all about.