Darlington & Stockton Times

Despite the Kidderminster game being called off well in advance - not a huge surprise to anyone living in the north-east as the Arctic conditions , both John W and I were in the north and decided to have our pre-match session. It was either that or shopping.

I was a bit worried about getting through there from Northallerton - many trains had been cancelled - but Trans-Pennine trains were running a severely reduced service which only went to Bank Top.

The town centre was extremely quiet when I arrived with not may shoppers braving the conditions and I popped into Alfie's above the covered market for a very good value breakfast - the best I've had in Darlo.

The Quaker was open on time and so I started making my way through the card - quite a few Christmas beers but thankfully some were not the Xmas pudding-style that some brewers seem to thing we want.

(left) Brian Bond - no socks? In this weather?

John and then Tony arrived and it was quite noticeable that there were quite a few unfamiliar faces in the pub today - we wondered whether they were refugees from the Tap & Spile which appears to have closed it's doors, at least for now?

Tony was not in good drinking form though he joined us for a short while at Number Twenty-2 before decided to call it a day. John and I persevered and had a few more before we both headed back south, he to London and me to Northallerton.

Later that evening I went to the Georgian Theatre at Stockton with my sister and niece to see Punishment of Luxury.

The event was being put on by the Rock Garden Revisited team - including our very own Steve Harland - who are dedicated to celebrating the history of that iconic music venue as well as bringing some of the bands back to the area for gigs.

Thankfully the roads were clear and it was a nice easy run for us up the A19. It was probably over thirty years since my last visit to Stockton - delivering an injured heron to a bird sanctuary - and it was quite dead.

It was nice and lively (and warm) when we got to the theatre - Steve on the door to welcome us as we arrived - and we headed for the bar. No real ale but they had some bottles of Keltek King which made up for it.

Two local bands were on the support roster - openers British Lichen Society had similarities to Joy Division whilst Russell & The Wolves had overtones of garage rock and rockabilly - they reminded me of the Batfish Boys, a grebo-band from Leicester that I used to see back in the mid-eighties.

They were quite a number of old punks in the crowd - they don't age well though some of them admired my niece's pink hair - very punk.

As usual, Punilux came on to Puppet Life - their 'hit' single - which got the crowd jumping around and then they went through their usual set taken from the Laughing Academy album and early singles.

(right) Jimi and Neville rock out to Brainbomb

The highlights for me were Obssession, Fracture - a number that has been developing over the past year or so - and closing the gig, Brainbomb. Fantastic.

If you want to see some of the live action, you'll find it on Youtube - you may even see me "dancing" (shuffling side to side arrythmically is probably a closer description) but don't check it out too closely.

Many thanks to Steve H and his compadres for putting this gig on and good luck with their future shows, bringing back those bands that time almost forgot...