Monday 2 May 2011

Towards the three-day week

These are the longest weekends; days spent in the sun trying not to spend too much money on bottles of wine which end up in the park bins. And of nights spent sat in beer gardens, or in the backrooms of tiny venues watching mediocre bands try and win your favour with some carefully-placed soul-baring.

And then these are the weekends when you find yourself stood, open-mouthed, at the majesty of bands like Haiku Salut, who are playing two maybe twenty people in the bar of The Chameleon in Nottingham on a Sunday afternoon. There are those of us in the audience for who this is personal. Gemma, Sophie and Louise used to be in The Deirdres - and band a handful of us here loved perhaps a little too much for a year or so. But then perhaps we didn't love them enough, come to think of it.

Haiku Salut playing instrumentals. Wait! Come back! There's something magical at work here. There's a hint of Ukranian folk music courtesy of that accordian, and then there's some duelling glockenspiels, some brushed drums, and a song where all three of these clever Haiku Salut types play the keyboard at the same time. Don't ask me for the names of these tiny masterpieces, because - frankly - it doesn't matter. For half an hour most of us in this room forget about being sunburned and hungover and let simple, beautiful pop music make us feel better again.

The longest weekends are often the best weekends, it turns out.

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