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| My final Gents live photo. |
The Final Gig
- Thurcroft Miners' Welfare 2.2.89
Well as I've told you in the history lesson section, I tried to tell them that this wasn't
the sort of gig to finish with, that a band with such a long and proud history and tradition should be going out with the
biggest bang possible, in the biggest style possible, with a huge show in either Doncaster or Barnsley, where hundreds of
people would come together and cry buckets and see the Gents off into oblivion with the send-off it all deserved. But
they wouldn't listen, they just wouldn't listen, the main reason being that I think really that at that point, and especially
have spent time bedding two new bands in around the Gents, they just wanted rid of it. The slow death had come to a
point where it needed to be put out of its misery and the corpse of the Gents humanely disposed of.
So, that being
the case, it all came down to this last gig, another three-biller, with Lip Service followed by the Men's Club followed by
the last testament of the Gents.
I still don't
agree with doing it this way and that even seventeen years later I think there should have been a massive show in Doncaster
or wherever, but when did anyone ever listen to me...
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| The Men's Club |
Now remember that this threesome lineup had been playing shows together for a couple or three
months by now and so the format was pretty well established. Lip Service first, then the Men's Club and then the Gents,
because the gigs they were doing together were intrinsically Gents' gigs. So even though it was a historical moment,
last gig, emotion and all that, it all went just like all the others. Most of the bands' friends were there etc, family,
all that nonsense, I of course took photos, being the last one etc, but to be honest they're not my best, what with being
a bit pissed I have to tell you. And then suddenly that was it, the Gents had finished. No big bang, no final
triumphant huge show, no trumpets, bells or whistles. Just gone. Everybody crammed into the dressing-room, bodies
were hugged, a few words said by quite a few people, myself included (something along the lines of "I want to sincerely thank
you for wasting the last six years of my life, you were my misspent youth..." and that was it. The bitter end.
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| Lip Service |
I don't regret one single minute of the six years of my life that I "wasted" with the Gents.
It was just what I did when I was young, it was me, it was them. We were a bunch of mates together. I did miss
out on a couple of good things in the early days, like Battle of the Bands and Bubblin' Under etc, but I have to say
that that was made up for by the six years fantastic times we had together. And I really don't feel conceited
about saying that I really do count myself as the Gents' number one fan and authority. I made one or two really good
mates in the band, mates who I still have today, regardless of all the unfortunate fallouts and all that, and although I don't
really expect it will happen I do cling on to the blind faith that one day something somewhere will take a hand of fate and
cause the band to play again. But like I say, it couldn't seem further away at the moment and so really that only leaves
the one thing to say about it all, which is the age-old question, to which there has only ever been one answer...
"So lads, when's the Gents' reunion then...?”
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| And whaddya mean this emotional end-of-final gig photo looks contrived? |
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