Paperjam

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dirty Pretty Things and !!! @ Ricoh Arena 2nd July

Gigs // Jim // 4th July 2006

Couldn’t give the spare ticket away for this one. The original intended recipient, big RHCP fan, Keef, blew me out due to risks to his free pie supply from work. James objected on what I believe were religious grounds, Matty came up with some bollocks about his “girlfriend moving in”, Jane had a previously booked engagement involving posh watersports and Tom saw the whole thing as a threat to his career progression.

During England-Portugal (no, I don’t want to talk about it) it turns out that James’ better half, (who, because of the complexities of the Data Protection Act, can only be named as) “Sarah” is a fan and she is duly invited.

Over to the Ricoh courtesy of Kate from work and her husband, Troy, who drums in a heavy metal band. Getting in to the cathedral of quality midlands football is incredibly easy, we park outside Tescos and stroll in. The place is pretty busy, the only bit you can’t go in is the main stand where the corporate boxes are. Eschewing the comfort of a seat we head down onto the pitch area (a big moment for me) to an area, which I would describe to other Cov fans as Michael Doyle territory. Even at this early stage the air is filled with half empty bottles being flung all over the place, someone to the right of us has an amazing arm.

After a short while the guitarist out of the Chili Peppers arrives on stage to give the least enthusiastic introduction ever for the amusingly named !!! (pronounced Ching Ching Ching). They storm on and things start out well, there are definitely shades of LCD Soundsystem going on. The singer has some energetic dance moves and it looks like everyone gets a go on the drums at some point. During the third or fourth song my desire to get a drink starts to outweigh my desire to hear much more of !!! and I head for the bar. When I get back the consensus is that although they started well, I haven’t missed much.

The band finish, so the bottle, pint and trainer throwing competition starts up again in earnest. I decide to head for the front to get nearer for the arrival of Dirty Pretty Things. Striding through the inside left area, as Dele Adebola does so often, Sarah and I finally end up in Stern John country about fifteen metres from the stage.

Dirty Pretty Things crash on to Deadwood, followed by Doctors & Dealers. There is a pause for Carl Barat to mention that they have previously played the Coventry Collosseum - someone at the back claps. Then they are off through a large chunk of the album, standouts include You Fucking Love It and (Morrissey reference alert) Last of the Small Town Playboys. About halfway through they do The Libertines’ Death On The Stairs, which certainly cheers up the bloke next to me who is snorting industrial amounts of Bolivian marching powder. They finish off with a big pounding Bang, Bang You’re Dead replete with nice trumpet intro.

DPT are very good, but the crowd seem a bit perplexed until the finale which they must have heard on the radio, they don’t get bottled off or anything, so not bad. I really need to go and see them somewhere smaller, darker and grubbier. A football ground at 6:30 in the evening is not their natural environment.

Pop to the gents, which with this being a footy ground, is literally a piece of piss. On the way back I go to grab an ice-lolly that Kate has requested. The girl selling them is Spanish, so I roll out two of the five Spanish phrases I know, she takes this the cue to launch into a big conversation that I can’t even begin to join in with. When La Chica realises this she looks a bit grumpy, I feel bad and buy a Magnum as well even though I don’t actually want one. Gracias.

On the way back out I am fortunate enough to bump into a familiar group of ladies including: Becky, (whose hobbies include screaming my name outside my flat at two in the morning) Justine (whose hobbies certainly don’t include running the Jim fan club) and Kelly (whose hobbies include chasing skinny tykes around parks while attempting to douse them in lemonade). The ladies aren’t really raving about Dirty Pretty Things, but Kelly is happy to take the spare Magnum off my hands, so that’s a result.

Another of the ladies, Sam, points at my T-shirt “What does that mean? ‘Sinner’?”, “Err, bad person.”, I reply, feeling very confused. We talk about moving house instead. As I leave the ladies to it they chant my name in its full, unexpurgated two-syllable version and clap in time, I feel elevated.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers stride on and start pounding away manfully, Kieldis arrives and they launch into an energetic Can’t Stop. The crowd gets excited, especially a bunch of portly, balding, thoroughly drug addled geezers next to us who have a pretty good crack at burning each other’s eyes out with fags.

RHCP are mostly playing stuff off the recent albums, which I have to confess I don’t really know at all, although Dani California off the new album isn’t bad at all. After a while it is a bit samey, there are a lot of guitar solos and it is all quite muso. Now and again they play something a bit short, sharp and funky which is much better and goes down a bundle with the portly gents, one of whom has just pulled off what seemed an initially unfeasible but none the less fairly spectacular back flip.

What the crowd are really here for are the anthemic likes of Californication and By The Way, when they arrive the atmosphere perks up and everyone stops aimlessly throwing bottles and instead start aiming them with some purpose at the shoulder riding birds in front. One of whom catches an absolute belter in the temple.

Kieldis says something about dedicating “this one to the Tractor Boys”, err that’ll be Ipswich Town, Anthony. Then he gets booed for repeated references to Portugal, sigh.

The band doesn’t exactly seem up for it, ‘perfunctory’ is probably the word I would have to use, not bad but not bothered either. The guitarist does a solo version of How Deep Is Your Love? and I start to lose the will. They return for an encore involving the most boring thing that they have played all night but then rescue it with a big, if inevitable Give It Away which goes on and on and on. They leave to empty sounding declarations of love and awe. Flea does a handstand.

We shuffle towards the exits where a bouncer is getting very upset, “Don’t give me no latitude”, he yells at an irate punter, like an arsey geography teacher. We are all puzzled by that one.

Back to the car park where the Police have shut one of the exits for absolutely no fucking reason at all, it takes us an hour to get out. We spend the time swearing a lot and speculate as to what exactly was in the plastic pint glass that Sarah got full in the face.