Hmm, so last Whitsun, we played Sweden, Camden at Christmas and now Brixton at Easter. Fosca are available for Epiphany, Mothering Sunday and general Moveable Feasts. Anyway, I was a bit suspicious of playing the Windmill which looks like a particularly run down Scout Hut and usually contains at least one drunk who’s been there since Tuesday….1998, but the HDIF crowd was fun and full of applause and by and large smoke-free. We started off with a new version of Confused and Proud, which begins with variations on the chord of A maj and reminds me of school orchestra days (A being the note for tuning up) and ended, 8 songs later, with an especially noisy version of Once Again I’ve Agreed to Something I Shouldn’t Have, slightly out of breath and smiling. The divine Tender Trap headlined and played some new songs, quieter, more melodic and less punky than the tunes from the first album. Amelia sounded like she had a cold but still her voice was a human chorus pedal. As an encore, they did my favourite TT song, Unputdownable, released now as a b-side. Afterwards, Ian played records that reminded me why 1990 was far more important than 1986 – The Fieldmice, the Orchids, The Sea-Urchins, Heavenly and then, from 6 years later:

Play me a song to set me free
Nobody writes them like they used to
So it may as well be me
Here on my own now after hours
Here on my own now on a bus
Think of it this way
You could either be successful or be us
With our winning smiles, and us
With our catchy tunes and words
Now we’re photogenic
You know, we don’t stand a chance

“This is the song!” I kept screeching to David, “this is the one that was going to change everything. This was the song for the likes of us!” but he is too busy taking photos and photos and photos. And even later, when he and me and Jo and Heike have consumed far more beer than is sensible for 4 people in their mid-30s, Jens Lekman’s truths about being young and drunk made me want to cry vodka tears: 

now at the central station

no time for being patient

I feel like going home

but at the same time I don't

they might be psycho killers

but tonight I really don't care

so I say turn up the music

take me home or take me anywhere

and by this time of course we have missed the last tram tube, so it’s an N159 with a strange man who lives in Russia and tells us about people taking over utilities with kalashnikovs (if only John Major’s government had thought of that), swinging around Piccadilly to run onto the 19 which is populated with some young oiks (“Hector” and “Joseph” and their public-school pals) who have discovered pictures of half naked women in phone boxes and are running up and down the bus, sticking them up on the windows, because that’s like, rebellious, yeah? And, like, Nuts tells them what to think, yeah? David tells them that they’re embarrassing themselves, but they don’t care, they are 17 and they know the future is theirs, they know the future is striped shirts and the Young Conservatives helping David Cameron’s party in power and the public sector being sold off for good this time, and more religious wars and faith schools and intolerance and the moneyed classes finding council tenants just too too hilarious….Well, we’ve been though this before and this time they won’t stand a chance. Pop music taught me that.

My gosh, we've gone all modern.

I think I have thoroughly failed at being a 21st Century person by not having a Friendster or a My Space account. I remember having to use fountain pens at school, you know....