Dodgy Ryan Giggs, (not so) Secret London gig, Kingston and We Need To Talk About Winchester

On Tuesday (Nov 8th) Dodgy are bringing 'Stand Upright In A Cool Place' to The Bowery in central London. This is a tiny showcase gig and as we just intend to play the new album live - it was originally listed just under the name of the album and a 'secret gig' for Dodgy but even before Gary Crowley announced it ... TWICE ...on BBC London Radio,  it was already heading towards the record books, as one of the worst kept secrets ever, I mean we never even managed to persuade the cat to get IN the bag.
Dodgy will be hitting the stage at 8.30pm sharp, we'll be playing the album in full and be quickly followed by a set by our guests, support band The Rise. After that there may be further surprises involving Dodgy and we're hoping to run a quick seminar with Ryan Giggs on how to keep a secret.

Tickets for Tuesday's London gig are still available at £10 plus booking fee but everyone who buys a ticket will be able to take advantage of our *£5 Cashback Offer* if they pre-order the new album at the gig.
You can get tickets HERE via strikebackrecords.sandbag.uk.com/Store
- and feel free to spread the word, Twitter, whatever, to your friends

EVERY GIG has had it's special moments and we would be the first to admit, that even though we are growing in confidence and encouraged by the by the overwhelming amount of positive feedback about the new songs, that it's a big ask of audiences to take a big chunk of something so new in one sitting. However, We Need To Talk About Winchester. Now firstly, The Railway, is one of the best and invaluable small venues in the country but we  would just like to focus on one person in particular, wearing the checked shirt, standing down the front appearing to use his i-phone voice boost app to talk very loudly through the first 5 songs; for us, he represented the 'face of adversity' which we had to overcome, which can only be a good thing. He had a good excuse though, he was talking to his mates about when he saw us at V97. That's OK then, he obviously had more memories of it than I do.
One of our favourite ever artists, Nina Simone was famously severe on anyone who talked during her shows and I can understand why - even though it may be just a couple of people, onstage it feels like everyone and it's very off-putting, but hey, it's a rock and roll show and the talkers generally get the message eventually. If they don't, we put them in the grudge book where their names remain ;-)

It certainly led to a bit of hesitation at the start of the next night's gig @ The Peel in Kingston-Upon-Thames but we needn't have worried, even though we asked the audience to bear with us at the start of the gig and held Mr Chatty up from the night before as a reason why. Indeed the gig turned out to be one of the best of the tour so far, up there with St Helens. A few factors contributed towards this - it was the first time we had played Kingston since we ran the Dodgy Club at Bacchus Wine Bar there 21 years previously (see our pilgrimage there in the video below); also because it was the 4th anniversary of our friend and associate, Andy Moore's death.

Andy was the lighting tech for Dodgy since the start, he was such an integral part of our gang, so much so that he features somewhere in most of the funny stories we tell from those times. He was the reason why we got back together, asking us to reform for a couple of songs at his testimonial. The cheeky bugger knew we couldn't exactly say no.
Besides the spirit of the Gary Numan loving Manc at the gig, there were also a couple of other vitally important people to Dodgy - Dave Ripp and H (who can be spotted in the background of the pic above with Moorsey and a particular handsome drummer). Maybe by coincidence or cosmic design but we hadn't all been in the same room since 1997. We played his favourite song for him, Big Brown Moon and you can see the video below of the version we played at River Cottage the week before... anyone for a crisp sandwich?

Hope to C U nxt Tuesday and if you're not following us on Twitter yet @dodgyuk please feel free to sign up.

DODGY'S KINGSTON RETURN