Live report December 7th, Utilita Arena, Birmingham UK

Who knew that Birmingham & the Black Country had such a turbulent history?
Birmingham was first settled by Sauron in the second age of Middle Earth. Due to an overwhelming demand for jewellery, he ordered the local elves to construct many blast furnaces to supply 40% of the the UK’s necklaces, rings & shiny stuff &, while they were busy knocking out tacky trinkets for Hobbits, Orcs &, online giant, Pandora, he forged the finest piece of bling Middle Earth had ever seen in secret. However, when wearing it in battle one day, his ring finger was chopped clean off by Isildur. Then, several owners later, it fell into the possession of Bilbo Baggins who, too shy to complain to the manufacturer, left it to his cousin to take it back to the main store in Mordor which had been fobbing them off with cheap tat all this time.
Joined by a few brave friends, Frodo made it &, when denied a refund, he furiously tossed the ring into the main blast furnace at Mount Doom, in the Lickey Hills.
The Black Country was soon transformed from an industrialised region into sprawling market towns in Hobbiton (now known as Birmingham) bustling with life as the blast furnaces closed down one by one & Mordor was renamed Moseley in a bid to re-brand itself.
During this transition, local sheet metal worker & part time guitarist, Tony Lommi, having lost the tips of his fingers in a tribute to Sauron, likened the sound of the mega-factories to his rock band.
Rather than fall in with the dwarves, Lommi shunned the rock label & christened his sound “heavy metal”.
Judas Priest soon followed suit &, with the word spreading, Slade, a four-pice outfit from The Shire (now Wolverhampton) also adopted the old sounds of the metal stampers & steel mills of days gone by.
Heavy metal was now a force to be reckoned with but one lad from Enedwaith (now West Bromwich) embraced the newer, friendlier presence of elves & fairies, even penning an ode to a love cruelly taken from him during his long march to Mount Doom with Frodo’s mates. It’s a song that has endured & is still played on the radio & spotify a thousand years later.
Since the evil wizard episode, the city has also become culturally important outside of the music industry including he creation of the world’s first talking trains & a fun-for-the-whole-family board game about murder happily co-existing with a giant steam-punk cow.
Foregoing a stop off at Mount Doom today will be czuczu , hellboy , wilgy & maccatori making sure they try the fidget pie & the Brambling Bitter (even the food & drink still has Hobbit names) & we wish them a terrific time.
Three colours to juggle with today. Let’s do this!

The Cure onstage at 8:15pm local

TheCureForever podbean channel

Soundcheck:



As usual. If you stumble across a stream, you should be able to embed it in your post using the </> button on the tool bar. If you can’t then just post the link so those of us who can’t be there can at least share in the experience with those that can