Kindred spirit is music to my ears

GROWING old disgracefully and keeping my radgie gadgie gannin.’ Letting my inner loon oot and giving him free rein.

It’s a path I’m hoping to embrace as I age – and I was aided in this ambition by a recent gig I attended.

I saw my future – a role model I wished I had found decades ago.

A man who clearly had the same issues, insecurities and foibles as me and had dealt with his like I had – by unpacking them manically on stage in front of a room full of strangers!

Ages ago, my good lady had bought tickets to go and see one of her adolescent heroes – an artist named John Otway .

I had never heard of him but wor lass was introduced to him by her elder brother Mick.

They grew up in Leighton Buzzard, across the park from a fab little pub which was like an incubator for seventies rock and punk talent.

She remembers hearing the strains of early Jam numbers echoing from over the way and feeling jealous she was just a bit too young to be there with her big brother.

She did the next best thing by listening to his records – and John Otway was one of them ! The venue was a hint at how radge the evening was to be.

It was a laundrette in a residential suburb of Durham.

I thought the satnav was taking the **** when we pulled up outside.

“Givowwer – this is more mental than when we went to find that B&B in Rhyl” (a few weeks earlier I had booked a B&B in Rhyl which looked like a mini Downtown Abbey on the website but the satnav took us to a scrapyard which resembled the ones in early Sweeney episodes from which villains in sheepskins ran their armed robbery firms).

I peered through the window and saw what looked like an old hippie and a manic retired geography teacher setting up mics and instruments in front of a row of industrial washing machines. Little did I realise this was my first glimpse of John Otway and his musical wingman ‘Wild Wille Barrett.’

Otway – who is pushing 70 – began a deliciously manic, rambling and anarchic jumble of music and patter.

He had a light of joy in his eyes as if he was still 25 and this was his first madcap and crazily unpredictable gig .

When he pulled his shirt off and stuffed electric drum pad sensors down his pants and began manically slapping himself my good lady looked at me and smiled sympathetically “that’s just like watching you – he is one of your lot.”

I was touched. She was right. There indeed, in front of my eyes, was a kindred spirit. He had spent his time fidgeting, being distracted and daydreaming through school classrooms.

Feeling like the smartest and thickest kid in the room at the same time until the freedom of the stage made a virtue of our previously radgie vices.

That’s why I loved John . He wasn’t a particularly great singer but his lyrics were buzzing with a childish integrity and essentially British feel.

It uncovered stuff we have all experienced – one minute he is singing about being dumped by a girl called Cheryl on a rainy night on a dark estate, the next he is riffing about being head-butted by a nutter.

Like you say in your one chart hit, you are really free John.