In five years time...

Tonight I went to see a band, Noah and the Whale, at a venue called the Cockpit that I haven't been to for about eight years. But it was a place where I spent a lot of time in the past. In the mid 1990s I used to go to a club night there most weekends where I dressed up in little 60s dresses and lots of black eyeliner and danced to indie and brilliant 60s stuff like the Small Faces and the Yardbirds. I used to leave about 3:20 in the morning to catch the train back to York and would snigger loudly at Shed Seven (almost always on the same train) going on about their negotiations with Sony.

Some of my best 'ooh, I've met them' moments happened at the Cockpit. One night a friend and I went to see Super Furry Animals there and on the way along the street to get chips afterwards a tour bus screeched to a halt and the support band, The Diggers, invited us along to a party at the Marriott hotel. The details of the party are a bit sketchy now but I do remember running away from the police after the barman unwisely shut the bar without turning the pumps off...

The last time (before tonight) I was there was to see Pete Wylie, the Mighty Wah. It was round about the beginning of November 2000 and my ex and I had just come back from honeymoon. Pete signed the cd 'To _____ (me), not _____' (my ex) and thoroughly chatted me up. I lied and told Pete the song 'Sinful' had cured me from my Duran Duran fixation in the 80s. This is obviously untrue. At the time my ex was quite proud that Pete Wylie fancied his wife.

But, as this blog shows I didn't go out much after my marriage and I've not been to the Cockpit for a very long time. So it was great to go out on a school night, have a drink and see a band. A lot of the gig I spent thinking about times past until Noah and the Whale's Big Song 'Five years time' came on. And that made me think about my future. If you'd asked me this time last year what I'd be doing in five years time I would have said more of the same: working, sleeping, staying in and arguing with my ex. But now? Now, I'm interested to know, because whatever I am doing in five years time it will be very different.