Sleazy Does It

Morecambe is grim. Let’s not pretend otherwise. Despite the sunny day when I arrived and the lovely view of Cumbria across the bay which has claimed the lives of many a Chinese whelk-picker, it is still an absolute rectum of a town.

It was ideal weather for drinking (but then what kind of weather isn’t?), so I set about getting sozzled in the sun, which would actually make a great name for a festival. But the festival I was in town to see was the legendary Nice ‘n’ Sleazy Festival.

The festival proper didn’t start until the Friday, so arriving somewhere where there is literally bugger all to do on a Wednesday was possibly an error of judgement. There is literally bugger all to do there any day, not just on a Wednesday, if the previous sentence seemed a little ambiguous. At least it gave my friend the chance to get a mild case of food poisoning at an Indian restaurant, possibly due to contaminated salad – I’ve always said that healthy eating was dangerous.

Thursday was an all-day drinking session followed by the free pre-show at a local pub. This pre-show was FREE, so I shouldn’t really complain. BUT I’M GOING TO.

This was my third year of going to this pre-show and I can honestly say that the quality has dipped a little since the first year I went. There couldn’t have been any more than 100 people to witness two absolute dogshit covers bands. It picked up a little bit with a decent skacore band, but they only really cushioned the blow of the bar running out of Doom Bar and me having to make the nostalgic switch to Brown Ale. Another dogshit covers band followed, so I went for a pizza.

“Where’s the best pizza place round here?” I asked someone I assumed to be local.

“Up the end of that road and turn left. You’ll see it at the next corner,” she said.

When I got there, there were two pizza places on opposite corners. One was called Gizmo’s and had a picture of the friendly mogwai on its sign. There were no customers in there and as it was perilously close to midnight, I decided to try the other one, which was probably called something hilarious like Pizza The Action or something.

While I was waiting for my pizza my phone rang.

“Where are you?” my friend asked.

”I’m at the best pizza shop in Morecambe,” I told him. “I’ll be back soon.”

“This isn’t the best pizza shop, Gizmo’s is,” said one of the girls who was buying pizza in the same shop as me. Err, OK.

She was right about it not being the best though. Every slice I pulled from the box was just a bready base, as all the topping slid off due to an inordinate amount of fat and grease. Yum. Although it didn’t make me vomit like the dubious seafood pizza I would eat on Sunday from a definitely-not-the-best-pizza-shop in a different part of town.

Friday should be a leisurely day with a walk to some Viking graves (they turned out to be Anglo-Saxon) and a visit to a micropub. The pub turned out to be shut, but luckily a Burger King milkshake laced with John Daniel’s made the walk to Heysham bearable.

The actual festival started at about 5 and my phone, containing my e-ticket, decided to play silly buggers right at the crucial moment of entry, making me look like an utter twat. I was the victim of some heavy eye-rolling as a result.

The first band on were Reject Renegades, a band lead by a big fella with a beard. About an hour later, someone told me they’d enjoyed my band. I realised immediately that there had been a “hilarious” beard mix up. It then became apparent that another big fella with a beard had been involved in a similar case of mistaken identity. Dave, myself and the other bloke (who turned out to be from Barnsley; more about that pearl of South Yorkshire in a bit) posed for a photo together where we all swapped hats so no one would be able to tell who was who.

“Now I know what it feels like to be black,” said Dave.

I bought him a pint and got myself a badge before spending the rest of the evening talking to/at Welsh mentalists, Trigger McPoopshute, who had already arrived for their Saturday set.

Trigger McPoopshute were excellent and I even got a shout-out from them before their ditty about department store self-soiling, Skidmarks and Spencers, because I was “the guy who once spewed in Woolies in Stockton on Tees,” an anecdote I had shared with them the previous evening.

The Eddies were Scottish and very good – my mate told me I’d definitely seen them before and it took a while for me to remember that it had been in Blackpool last year. The Kingcrows were good at what they did, but I thought they were shit. Lots of ska was coming from the outdoor marquee. I didn’t feel great and retired early.

The final day was marred by slight drizzle which will wreck the summer feeling in any polished-turd of a town. It wasn’t enough to ruin Clan of Anarchy’s performance though, and the excellent Beer and Fags, I’ve Got the Essentials (if that’s the full name of the song) caused a raucous singalong. And the marvellous Sinful Maggie who were described as accordion-core by a friend of mine were a definite highlight. System of Hate weren’t bad either, even if they were a bit industrial for my tastes.

The bad weather had caused both Mick O’Toole (presumably a Poundland Dropkick Murphys) and The Varukers to independently have “van troubles” and cancel at the last minute. Well fuck them, because I was going to the German hotdog stall instead.

And that was it. A good time was had by all. Unless you were in a wheelchair, because there was limited access into the venue from the outdoor marquee. Or if you were vegetarian or vegan, because there was no catering aimed at either of these groups.

Oh, and the Barnsley thing. When I told a mate that one of the guys in the mistaken identity trio was from Barnsley, she said “bloody hell, everywhere you go, you bump into someone from Barnsley.” I didn’t think this was true until I was at Morrison’s on the Sunday and saw a coach in the car park. From Barnsley. Is Barnsley so shit that they run coach tours to Morecambe supermarkets? Answers on a postcard please.