Obsession

The main reason for my visit to Newcastle was to see Punishment of Luxury, one of my all time favourite bands, who were playing in the east of the city. The band hail from Tyneside so this should be a good place to see them live.

Before then, I spent some of the day wandering round Leazes Park and Spital Tongues area of town where I spent a year in a hall of residence. Not much has changed other than the sheer size of St James' Park which now dominates the skyline.

After a quick visit to the Newcastle Arms and a chat with the tickers, I met up with an old university friend, Cath, and her husband in the Forth Hotel pub.

It was good to see them both again and we caught up on all our news over a meal and a few beers. It's almost thirty years since we started university - where did all the time go?

I retired to my hotel for a couple of hours before meeting my sister Becky at the station and we wandered along the quayside admiring all the new developments. I had thought it would be good to walk to the gig but I'd misjudged the route so we caught a taxi.

The venue for the gig was the Cluny - another Head of Steam establishment but a world away from the Central Bar.

This is more like a venue with a big bar added on. Still, they had a healthy selection of beers plus some Belgian fruit beers for Becky.

(left) Punishment of Luxury

We wandered into the gig itself about 10pm, missing any support band that may have been on, and settled down the front.

After some problems with the keyboards the band came on with their usual opener, Puppet Life, which got everyone moving.

The setlist was mainly gleaned from the Laughing Academy album, plus a few singles, plus the odd song which never made it onto vinyl (as it was then).

The highlight for me was the rendition of Obsession, a tale of a man who stalks and kills a girl he fancies. Sounds jolly doesn't it? But it's a wonderful dark song which was often the last thing I heard as I went to bed as a youngster - it never fails to raise the hairs on the back of my neck even after all these years.

They'd not played it for a while and guitarist Nev obviously wasn't very confident of his memory as he had his lyrics for this track printed out and put in front of his mic stand. I suspect it was more of a mental crutch as he didn't need to use it. The whole crowd knew the lyrics anyway.

(right) Lyrics to Obsession written out for Nev

And then the gig was over and we were out in the cold Tyneside air where we got a number for a taxi from Jimi Giro's daughter. I don't think she was very impressed when our taxi arrived first.

On the way back to our hotel it was interesting to witness the nightlife in the centre of the city - every bit as stereotypical as you'd expect - scantilly dressed women tottering around in high heels defying the wintry winds blasting across the city.

We were delighted to see one young lass, eating her chips whilst sitting on a tiny window ledge - her arse slipped and she fell off, legs in the air and chips everywhere. I think it's fair to say she was more upset about losing her chips than her dignity...