Alabama 3, The Ritz, Manchester

Alabama 3 at the Ritz in Manchester tonight was an excellent gig. A little bit under-rehearsed in places perhaps, but the band were on strong form with a more country-rock oriented take on their back catalogue of sweet, pretty, acid house country music. Sadly bright_helpings couldn't make it, but I met up with a dear old friend from my Oxford days a quarter century ago.

First up as support, we had Sonny Eriksson performing his "cyberbilly" - a mixture of electronica and psychobilly. It sounded a bit like Lux Interior fronting KMDFM, with heavy use of samples. The specific use of samples for crowd interaction reminded me of Public Service Broadcasting too. Weirdest revelation of the night is that Sonny E. is a pseudonym of the artist also known as Adamski. Yes, that Adamski.

With the unfortunate passing of the Very Reverend D. Wayne Love in 2019, it's kind of weird to go to a gig which is a retrospective of their first two albums without one of the singers on stage (though his recorded voice did lead us during Hypo Full Of Love among other songs). What we got instead was a more stripped down version of the songs, with a country rock edge courtesy of female vocalist Devlin Love.

It didn't sound like the albums, and it didn't sound like the last time I saw them, shortly after D. Wayne's death, when they had adopted a more gospel-focused sound. But the power of the music shone through, particularly on "Peace in the Valley", a gloriously minimal "The Thrills Have Gone", and personal favourite "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlife". They bravely knocked out their most famous song, "Woke Up This Morning", early in the set to leave the audience wondering what would come next.

Larry Love's banter was on good form, asking us to petition Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham for an "acid house country" category in the Country Music Awards, and dedicating "The Old Purple Tin" to the Spice addicts of Manchester. Apparently the song is named for the purple cans of Tennent's Super lager. They ended that number with a musical segue into Prince's "Purple Rain" which was good fun.

I moved a lot during the gig, shouting through my FFP2 mask, singing along and waving my hands in the air. I left the venue feeling in some way refreshed and restored. In the words of "Ain't Goin' to Goa", my consciousness expanded by singing at the local tabernacle.

They're playing Bristol on 13th December and London on the 14th, catch them (and their support!) if you can.

Trans Day of Remembrance, and Ventilation

A few weeks ago was Trans Day of Remembrance. A consortium of trans organisations (Not A Phase, Sparkle and others) had organised the usual vigil in Sackville Park, but given the sub-zero temperatures and bright_helpings' ankle, we decided to go watch a live stream of the vigil from the relative warmth and comfort of the Proud Trust building down by MMU. There were about a dozen people there, including one of the baby queers that E and I had met on the way to Trans Pride Manchester. I'd brought the CO2 monitor and was wearing a mask, of course. Even with a small number of people in a big space, the CO2 levels were very high, building up from 1500ppm to 2500ppm over the course of the event (800ppm is considered a relatively low-risk level). This goes against Proud Places's own accessibility guide which states "Each of the event spaces at The Proud Place has a background ventilation system that automatically adjusts to occupancy levels."

So after the event, as well as passing on my thanks to volunteers, I raised this with both Proud Trust (who own the building) and Sparkle (who'd organised the live stream). I'd spoken with a friend who's a Sparkle volunteer, who said that the Sparkle volunteers at the Proud Place weren't briefed on ventilation, which is a predictable oversight. In my feedback, I said that I loved the fact this policy existed, and would like to volunteer to help ensure that it's followed. I offered help in various ways, from providing procedures and/or training to staff and volunteers; providing Corsi-Rosenthal boxes to improve air filtration; developing CO2 level monitoring solutions so people are alerted when the ventilation is insufficient.

Back in May I came up with the idea of an organisation providing ventilation and filtration advice, devices and support to LGBT+ venues and organisations. I never heard back from Feel Good Club about it either. I still think it's a good idea, but only if we can get people on board. I could fill my shed with home-made CR boxes and they'd be doing bugger-all use unless I can actually get them used in venues.

So far I haven't had any acknowledgement from Proud Trust or Sparkle, let alone response, which is disappointing. Having just one LGBT+ venue in Manchester which can be trusted to provide some level of protection would be a game changer for me personally and the LGBT+ community. We should be used to looking after ourselves while the Government ignores a fatal and debilitating pandemic, after all!