Last night was a great night!

The Mams have made the long and winding journey from Llanelli up to Chester on a few occasions, now. It's starting to become an annual highlight. Not quite Christmas, but certainly the equal of a birthday or Easter. This is the best I have ever seen them. We'll get to that, eventually.

I don't go out much anymore. My wife works away quite a bit, which is why I end up missing things like theABSURD's night at Y Delyn in Mold on Thursday night [and I was desperate keen to go]. But last night had been planned for a while. Nothing short of a gangrenous foot was going to keep me in. The Mams were coming to town and some drinking and having fun had to be done.

The Mams are easy people to be around. Jon and Matt are great conversationalists. They're interested and interesting. The conversation covers John Peel, trade unions, Carl Bevan [were your ears burning, mate?], what's good about internet culture / what's bad about internet culture... I mention this fully aware that it's the kind of conversation we all have with our mates. It's the spindle that joins those that we care about and want to be with together... joins us to life in general, maybe.

Somehow, while Jon is checking the gear on stage, I end up telling Matt about Neville Wilding. I haven't thought about Nev for a long, long time.

When I met Nev in 1992-ish he was looking for a backing band to do justice to his drop-dead amazing songs [I've *never* heard better unreleased material]. He had the most amazing voice and a peerless ability to write great, moving songs. But he was, and I suspect still is, someone who can't function without the Life dial being turned up to 12 at all times. He's the most manically creative and self-destructive [wrong description -- he was self-constructive... so long as the construction involved ingesting enough booze and drugs to kill the likes of me] person I have ever met.

But I haven't thought about him for a long, long time.

He scared me, you see.

He made me feel completely lacking in talent and charisma. My ego couldn't take it / him.

I don't know how the conversation turned to Neville -- it just did. Maybe, Peel -> the Fall -> Nev [Nev has been one of Mark E. Smith's many guitarists].

Throughout this part of the conversation, Jon was elsewhere. He didn't hear a word of it.

He came back after we'd finished talking about Neville.

We went outside for a cigarette and I asked him about their song, 'On a Bridge' [it's one of the session songs we broadcast last week. It's up there on the Jukebox on my website - http://adamwalton.co.uk ].

I asked Jon what it was about.

"Well, I was in Betws Y Coed..."

"Oh, yeah... what were you doing there?" [I'm thinking it's quite a way from Llanelli, you see]

"I was there with the band I was in."

"Which band?"

"A band with this guy called Nev Wilding..."

It's the most massive coincidence. It totally floored me. Jon had been in a band [Hanger Straight] with Nev for a short while back around the time that I first met Nev. That his name had cropped up earlier, out of nowhere, is amazing. I had no idea that Jon had any connection with him.

When they say it's a small world, it's [sometimes] an understatement.

If anyone has any of Nev's solo recordings to hand, I'd love to hear them again.

Jon told me some stories that I couldn't repeat here. Nev leaves a wake of those kind of stories wherever he goes. Whatever he's doing now, there's a book in it, for sure.



So, the drink flows and the night grows luminous with bonhomie and great music [Soundhog is DJ'ing and doing a phenomenal job].

My friends, Will and Chris, are out, too. It's Chris's birthday and Will's in between lung collapses.

Eventually The Mams make it to the stage and I feel a tiny bit of unease. I'm hoping that the apathy that sometimes greets bands who play on a Friday or Saturday night isn't apparent tonight. I don't want The Mams to be disappointed. I want them to have the crowd that they deserve.

They start with a song I've never heard before called 'Better Opening' [I think -- a fellow Twitter-er called Bryn tweeted the playlist while the band were on otherwise I wouldn't have a clue! Thank you, Bryn!]. And it's wonderful. There is something so familiar about the Mams but it's very hard to reduce them to reference points or influences. They sound familiar because they make [generally] upbeat and melodic pop songs. It's familiar because it's an unbreakable formula that cannot be improved upon. 1 + 1 always equals 2. The Mams playing their tuneful songs will always equal joy [for me, at least].

Their familiarity is also down to their consummate musicianship. That's not a punk rock notion [and Jon and Matt were totally inspired to form bands by punk]. It's something that has evolved as they've progressed and got on with the business of living their lives.

That's what makes these songs so resonant.

They've grown out of life. There is something incredibly organic about the process. Every iota of my being chimes with the truth in their songs.

It helps that they are also very good with the audience, which swells as the set progresses.

There are those that might sniff at all this talk of musicality and showmanship. Those people might damn The Mans by calling them a 'cabaret band'. I don't think Jon or Matt would, necessarily, take that as too much of an insult. But this is all about communication, and songs, and sharing the human experience.

They put it more succinctly.

"Our songs are about love and alcohol."

They are definitely preaching to the converted.

By the end of the set, the dancefloor is much more full than empty and an encore is demanded. They've run out of their new set of songs, but that just gives us another opportunity to hear one of the gems from earlier in the set.

Life-affirming is what that was. I'm still smiling, now, although through a pretty spectacular hangover.



The rest of the night is a rush of more alcohol, more great music [I'm sure I saw Ben break into a smile. I wish I'd caught that on camera!]

The punters leave and we talk the rest of the night away until it becomes clear that it's time to go home.

Jon and Matt disappear into the Chester night looking for pizza [it's 4am -- good luck with that!] and a hotel that's on the other side of the city. They're happy to walk there, probably get a bit lost, maybe bump into some new people to share smiles with.

I watch them go and I'm a little bit jealous.

They might have done the punk thing on me, you see.

All of a sudden, much more than I want to spend my spare hours typing twattery into this keyboard, I want to be in a band again. Because to make and share this kind of joy is a wonderful thing indeed.






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