For Marisa’s 17th birthday we went to see her (and our) favourite poet John Cooper Clarke. We met Si and Bel, who had got us 2nd row seats, for a pint in the Victoria first and bumped into Di, a neighbour from across the street…… Britains premier poet came to Leeds at the head of all star show that thouroughly entertained a packed Town Hall. Magazine‘s Dave Formula lead a soul covers band and Salfords Ren Harvieu played first, but tonight was really about the spoken word.
Luke Wright was very funny with poems about his kid in reins and a posh blokes in the Off licence. His Essex Lion was a hoot. Mike Garry‘s performance started much darker but brightened beautifully with an A-Z Manchester poem about Tony Wilson (‘St Anthony’ – which gave a couple of mentions to De La Salle) and ended with a lovely one about what his mother taught him. We got Marisa both their books and look forward to discovering more…..
Dr Johnny Clarke was on sparkling form with hilarious banter between poems new (bipolar inmates & product endorsments) and old (Hire car & Twat). There were jokes that chimed wiith the mainly grey-top audience “I don’t buy green bananas anymore!”. He strayed into the surreal when talking about how to make a butler chimpanzee look more aloof but still kept the crowd in stitches. He finished with his own personal favourite ‘Evidently Chicken Town’ (“Banned by the BBC after the person in charge of the bleeper sued for repetative strain injury”) and then was sent back on by ex-Clash manager Johnny Green to do ‘I wanna be yours’ as a thank you to fellow Yorkies The Arctic Monkeys who covered it on their last LP.
A top bloke – a top top night!
Bob the Chiropodist