The Breakfast Club – Spirit of Dee

I’ve had a fairly quiet one today. Yesterday was a fun but long day – I went to an ’80s nostalgia mini-festival at the Wheatsheaf pub in Newcastle in the afternoon so that I could see the Breakfast Club (the ’80s tribute band that played at South Shields a few weeks ago) again.

Geth joined me for the second half of the gig, as well as some pub chips!

Rio shirt and chips — Both the Breakfast Club’s guitarist and the DJ complimented me on my ‘Rio’ top. Duranies represent!

After that, we went home to get ready for a night out clubbing. It took a little longer than expected, largely because our next-door neighbours are away and so their cat wants a lot of attention at the moment!

We took a quick detour to the Brewdog pub to meet up with friends and see the Re-Issues – yet another covers band! They had a lot of energy and really worked up a good atmosphere in the room.

Finally, we headed to Grey’s for the Rise Or Die synthwave night, NightDrive. It’s only the second time they’ve run the night (the first was four months ago, on Maundy Thursday), so it was really good to be able to hear some of my synthwave favourites on a night out.

I’m still finding nights out sober to be a bit difficult when everyone else is drinking, but hopefully I’ll get more used to it as time goes on. Either way, it would be nice if synthwave nights in Newcastle became a little more regular.

It was a long walk home from town (next time I’m taking the car!), so I didn’t get to bed until nearly 5am. As such, today has been a bit of a write-off! Geth and I ordered Domino’s for something to eat, and our friend Pete has been round to play some Keyforge with Geth, but we’re planning just to have a quiet evening with a film tonight.

Back to work tomorrow.

OOTD 26th August 2019 — OOTD: ‘still half asleep’ outfit! T-shirt Gildan for Preverse (2015, modified 2018), leggings Miss Fiori (2015), boots Carefree (2017).

Today’s earworm playlist:

Timecop1983 and Primo – My DeLorean
Timecop1983 and The Bad Dreamers – Back To You
The Midnight and Nikki Flores – Jason
Rod Stewart – Baby Jane
The Midnight – Crystalline

It’s taken me nearly a week to get round to doing this review due to all my internet issues earlier in the week. Better late than never!

South Tyneside Council puts on a lot of free gigs in Bents Park in South Shields during the summer, but Geth and I hadn’t been to one for three years. The last one we went to was the Proclaimers and Lindisfarne in 2016, on a much more changeable day that required both suncream and a brolly!

However, it was a no-brainer when we heard about this one – Midge Ure was fantastic when we saw him in November supporting the Human League, and neither of us had seen Nick Heyward before – so I bought early-access tickets (well worth it at six quid each, as it means you’ve actually got the chance to set your deckchair up fairly close to the stage) and we headed out to South Shields for the day with my beloved vintage deckchairs in tow.

Vintage deckchairs — I love these chairs. Around since my childhood (and probably before) and still going strong!

The support act were a local ’80s tribute band called The Breakfast Club. They played a lot of the most well-known pop hits of the decade, which went down very well with the dreaded ‘I’m wearing an ’80s costume’ crowd (those people are an absolute scourge – I see them at every gig now!). It got a good atmosphere going, and I might go see them again if they come across to Newcastle and I fancy a cheesy ’80s night out.

Their setlist included two Duran Duran tracks, and I’m still not sure whether to be pleased as a Duranie or annoyed as a setlist purist who was always taught when learning to DJ that you should never repeat artists within a set!

We hadn’t been organised enough to bring lunch, so we scraped enough change together for a couple of portions of chips from one of the food stalls. I need to remember to take some snacks with us next time we go to one of these things.

Nick Heyward was on next, performing a very well-balanced set of two big hits (‘Love Plus One’ and ‘Take That Situation’), followed by a bunch of stuff you’d have to be a fan of his to know, followed by another two big hits at the end (‘Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)’ and ‘Fantastic Day’). I really enjoyed this set, largely because the people in front of us weren’t standing up to dance during the middle bit so I could actually see! I’m not familiar with his catalogue other than the ’80s hits, but they were all very nice tunes and I’ll have to look into them some more.

Midge Ure finished the day with his usual hit-laden set – highlights for me included ‘Vienna’, ‘Fade To Grey’, ‘If I Was’, and an epic crowd singalong to ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’. It was a slightly rockier performance than when he was playing with Electronica in November (Geth dubbed it ‘if Ultravox had been prog’), but I enjoyed it just as much.

Already hoping that there’ll be some exciting choices of artists for next year’s Bents Park gigs – it’s always a good day out when the weather holds!

Tag: The Breakfast Club

Finishing off the weekend

Gig Review: Midge Ure and Nick Heyward at Bents Park, 28th July 2019