Thursday 13th July 2006

To The Supper Club, part of the Blundell Street Building, to see T-A's boyfriend Michael sing tonight. He's a crooner and started proceedings tonight with a scarily good Dean Martin impression, before mixing up all the greats after the break. There's a world of difference between a great singer and a great singer who's also a showman and Mike falls into the second category. It's always nice to watch someone enjoying themselves on stage and he really did have the audience in the palm of his hand the whole night and so it was extremely entertaining.

I love the whole look of the swing and Rat Pack era. Mike's got a backing band (no tacky mini disc accompaniment here - no Sir) called The Rhythm Kings who consist of two older gentleman on piano and double bass, as well as a young German drummer. It's great to see them all decked out in tuxedos, hand tied bow ties looking immaculate, and it does allow you to escape to a more glamorous and exciting time. As for the music, well it's hit after hit - there's such a wealth of classics to pick from. I'll put some of Mike's future dates up here so you can go along yourselves - he's really worth seeing.

I was sat with T-A during the show and it's interesting to people watch. There was a long table of women out celebrating a birthday close to the stage and they were a Godsend because, you know what a gaggle of women are like after a few glasses of wine, they sung along and danced without ever taking it too far and trying to pull Mike's clothes off. They were the best behaved old slappers I've ever seen. Which is lucky because a group lf middle aged women out en masse can be a truly petrifying and destructive force if they choose to get ugly. There's not a bouncer in the land that knows an effective way of suppressing a squad of thirty call centre workers from Warrington when they've got a litre of Smirnoff Ice inside them. They're like the SAS - a crack command unit capable of taking out any target. And they're fearless too. I suppose the only difference between a group of ladies out on the town and the SAS is that the SAS rarely chat to each other for twenty minutes in the toilet, loose their handbags, or have a little cry towards the end of the night but otherwise the differences are negligible.

But these women tonight were great - no trouble at all. It was more interesting to look at some of the men in the crowd. Basically everyone sits at tables and has a meal, then the singing starts. It's odd that whilst the women (not just the big group, but the women in general) had no qualms about singing and eventually dancing, the men are far more reserved, perhaps allowing their feet to tap, but not allowing too much enjoyment to spread over their faces for fear someone might think they're a bit soft. I'm not really being critical here because I too am the last person to just start dancing or belting out a song, but I like to think I allow myself to have a good time, most of the men in The Supper Club seemed to almost restrain themselves from having too good a time. Is this a British thing?

T-A made the good point that the men who were there were all accompanying women, and not one group was exclusively male. Therefore it's safe to assume that men must think their sexuality would be called into question if they chose to book a night out listening to Rat Pack songs. What folly! The Rat Pack were the archetypal hard-drinking, womanising, brawling LADS. They were the jewel in masculinities crown. To go out and listen to Rat Pack songs is as manly as head butting a bear. But people don't seem to have cracked onto that yet, more's the pity.

I wonder who would have won in a fight between Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Junior? Don't discount Sammy for starters, he might have been small but it's always the small ones you've got to watch out for. Dean was the biggest. Frank had the street smarts. I'd love for a computer to be invented that's so powerful it could process and show scenarios that have never happened. My money would be on Dean Martin, if he could see straight to punch. "Ain't that a kick in the head?"

Thanks for the recent comments and feedback by the way, I really enjoy getting comments, it's very exciting. Thanks to Suzie for explaining why drums take so long to sound check, and thanks also to 'Robot By The River' for explaining that he wears a full beard to hide facial vulgarities but also, and this is rather cunning, as a way of making himself suddenly look younger in the future by shaving it off. I'd not thought of that, it must give you a good five years of aging back. I think the only thing to do, Robot By The River, is to e-mail me a picture of your bearded face, I'll publish it here, and we can all vote on whether it suits you or not. If the answers are negative, you have to send me another photo of your now beardless face which will also be published here, and we'll vote again on whether we think it's an improvement, which is most certainly will we.

Please do this.

And if you think it's odd that I want bearded men to e-mail me pictures of themselves then let me assure you it isn't, it's perfectly normal. I'm not confused. It's the men listening to Mike sing Rat Pack songs into one of those old silver microphones who can't seem to allow themselves to smile that are confused, not the person wanting pictures of bearded men to publish on their personal Blog. Let's make that perfectly clear. Now think on.

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