Weekly > Reviews
Half Man Half Biscuit - The Cockpit Leeds
1984/5 , Oh the memories. Everton’s most successful season ever, Transformers – robots in (not a very good) disguise and the release of Half Man Half Biscuit’s ‘Back in the DHSS’. Teenage years, blissfully high highs, painfully low lows.
And HMHB were a bit different. They were witty and scornful. Their albums actually contained swearwords. Now you may find this hard to believe kids, that was pretty unusual then. I remember attempting to shock and maybe even entertain my dad and his mate with the classic ‘Fuckin ‘ell, it’s Fred Titmus.’
Half Man Half Biscuit are probably most famous for the thing they didn’t do. Poised to become a major success, the four Lads Who Shook The Wirrall turned down the chance to appear on ‘the’ influential music show of the era, Channel 4’s ‘The Tube’. In fairness, they had a pretty good reason not to attend, they preferred to watch Tranmere Rovers instead. An offer from Channel 4 to fly them home afterwards by helicopter fell on deaf ears.
To give you a quick flavour of the band before moving onto the gig, they have recorded tracks with glorious titles such as ‘I left my heart in Papworth General,’Sealclubbing’, ‘Dickie Davies Eyes’ and the classic but now outdated truism ‘Rod Hull is alive – why?’
Lyrically they are peerless. My favourite HMHB lyric changes all the time but today I like
Oh darling sugar honey
When it was nice and sunny
And when I had some money
We would go and see Echo and the Bunny…………..men.
This is all against a backdrop of some decent guitar work and the deepest of deep voice vocals.
I really got into the band around the time of their first two albums. They then split up in the late 80s and then reformed, making a few more albums. I went to the gig oblivious to their recent work and hoping to hear some of their old masterpieces.
Onwards to The Cockpit, which should officially change it’s name to ‘The Armpit’ coz it’s so damn sweaty in there. And the first thing to notice was the age of all involved.
First, the band. I’m guessing these lads must be early 40s and you would see more hair on stage at a ‘Right said Fred’ gig. Luckily the similarities start and end there. Turning to the audience, it’s a warm and fuzzy feeling to be in your mid-30s and feel like you are about average age for the crowd. The band has undoubtedly built up a cult following, and the Pit was absolutely heaving.
So to the music. The band got a rapturous reception and rattled through their tracks at an almost Futureheads like pace. I reckon they did around 30 tracks on the night with a few little impromptu lines in between as well.
- Half Man Half Biscuit
- The Cockpit Leeds (28th July 2005)
- Category: Live
- Label: Probe Plus
- Reviewed by: Graham Cookson
- Published on: 08 Sep 2005
- Photography by: Jacqui Chapman
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
Weblinks
Add to favouritesSo the tracks which stood out, first up Bob Wilson, which contains the brilliantly observed lyrics ‘Lord, I’ve tried the best I can. I’ve asked everybody in Kazakhstan but I still…don’t…understand… Bob Wilson – anchorman?’
You can’t accuse the music of being intricate or hugely sophisticated but the band do know how to play their instruments (more than could be said for some) and you’d hate the music to be too overpowering as you wouldn’t be able to make out the words.
Hot on the heels of Bob was a tune which refers to another sporting legend, Len Ganley. Len Ganley Stance contains the line ‘ Shine your shoes and head for the crucible, brush the baize and keep the crowd in check’. Sporting legends continued to rain in and, fuckin ‘ell, the aforementioned Fred Titmus made an appearance, not physically you understand.
Some of the unfamiliar tracks also contained some great lines and some pretty good titles, such as ’24 Hour Garage People’, ‘Joy Division Oven Gloves’ and something to do with Natasha Kaplinski.
Then came a track I forgot they ever did, probably because it has such an unremarkable title. ‘99% of gargoyles look like Bob Todd’. He’s the other bald geezer off of Benny Hill, not the really small one, and he seemed to be gurning before anybody actually new what gurning was. Best lines from this one ‘If you’ve ever wondered how you get triangles from a cow you need butter, milk and cheese and an equilateral chainsaw’ and also ‘Mary had a little lamb the doctors were astounded, everywhere she went gynaecologists surrounded.’
A couple more tracks and HMHB were done. They finished on one of their better known numbers ‘Trumpton Riots’ and you’d have to say it was a thoroughly stirring and pleasing performance.
The only regret was that they didn’t play my own personal favourite ‘All I want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague away kit’ which is all about Subbuteo and annoying tossers who had floodlights and all the rest of the gear. Me, well yeah I had the floodlights and some of the other stuff. It didn’t last long as the floodlights were a bit unstable and regular stadium disasters followed as the floodlights fell on to the pitch, killing a few players in the process.
Now where can I buy that Dukla Prague away kit………………………….
Have your say...
Comment Guidlines
You must be logged in to post a comment. Go Login or Register first.
We waffle on enough without letting you lot do it too. Comments are limited to 300 characters.
Try and keep on topic if you can and no insulting the contributors. All hate mail can be addressed to Kev.