First up, driving into a city I’ve never visited before without a map or directions may not have been the smartest thing to do. After repeatedly orbiting the ring road, and seeing somewhat more of Bradford than I intended, I gave up on the guess-work and bought a local A-Z.
Bradford is known (at least down south here) as being one hell of a shit-hole. I don’t know if it was just my low expectations, but it was nowhere near as bad as I anticipated. One of the most depressing things was the apparent abundance of empty warehouse-type buildings. Living in a city where property is stupidly expensive (and that can’t expand much for reasons of simple geography), a part of me was insanely jealous. If there were buildings like that around here, they would have been snapped up by some rich, fat cunt of a property developer and converted in un-affordable, loft-style apartments. (I’m bitter, I know…)
My hotel was exactly what I expected for a GBP 30 a night room above a pub. Labyrinthine corridors and narrow staircases led me to a small, furniture-packed room. It had a tiny en suite bathroom, with a pleasingly powerful shower that generated enough steam to strip the paint from the walls. The window didn’t shut, and rain-water had damaged to contents of the ubiquitous basket of tea, coffee and sugar. (At least, I’m assuming that is what had happened… either that, or they were recycling the teabags, and even I can’t believe Yorkshiremen are really that cheap.) Anyway, I hadn’t chosen it for glamour… it was the only affordable place in easy staggering distance from the venue.
Over the years, I’d heard about Rio’s. It was only when I was queuing outside that I realised quite how small it is… just my kind of place! In front of me in the queue were some of the people I’d spoken to at Camden. They said they had been particularly impressed with Head On (the support band that seemed to loving smashing up old video recorders for no apparent reason). They told me the song that included this carnage was called Here Comes the Hammer (I didn’t bother pointing out that it was actually a wooden mallet the singer was wielding with intent, but what the hell…) The bloke proudly informed me that he’d carried the mallet hammer into the venue for the band earlier... This made me feel slightly less tragic for driving nearly 200 miles to see a band I’ve loved for the last 16 years.
Fortunately, the gig more than justified the trip. But the only problem with repeatedly seeing the same band on the same tour is that you become somewhat immune to the between-song banter. Yeah, shit has happened in the world. Yeah, the UK is a great place for rock and metal. Yeah… whatever... just shut up and play the next fucking song. In all fairness, the locals lapped it up and the band rocked.
All to soon, it was over.
And in record time... I wanted more. I consoled myself by getting a fantastic chicken curry on the way back to the hotel (I figured to come to Bradford, and not eat curry would be unforgivable).
(I'm writing this some time after the event, and should add that I am now addicted to curries...)
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