We very rarely go out on a school night. In fact it’s almost unheard of. For this though, we made an exception.

A month ago I got an email from an old buddy – Clive Gregson. He had attached his tour itinerary for dates in the UK (although he’s a Manc, he’d been living in the USA for 25 years). Every time he plays here I scan the list to see if there is a date nearby and blow me down but there it was – a date not just nearby but virtually on our doorstep. Our round trip to see him play was a massive three miles. I have had a shorter trip to see him play, when he played in my back garden on my 40th birthday in front of 70 friends back in the year 2000.

Today dawned and I had a bit of a case of cold feet. It’s a school night. It’s at a venue that we’ve always considered a bit scary looking. I’m too old for this kind of malarkey etc etc. BUT it’s only a mile and a half from home. It ends at 10.30pm so not that late. It’ll probably be really good fun. (I’ll bet Clive will laugh at that as he’s legendary for saying that his music is all depressing!) David asked me what to expect. I said I had no idea.

Anyhow, we ended up ensconced in the club, pint of Doom Bar in hand. A support act was playing and Clive barrelled through the door, spotted me and sat down for a chat. At that point, we’d clocked a stylish and relatively young woman sitting on the next table and thought she looked out of place among the very old and very un-stylish audience. She turned out to be Liz Simcock, the other half of Gregson and Simcock!

Clive is a superb, if sometimes bordering on the morose, songwriter, singer and guitarist. It turns out that Liz is an equally superb singer. In fact, the combination was beautiful. I’d found it hard to imagine he could have a partnership with a singer to match Christine Collister but Liz is every bit her equal. The evening was fantastic. The sound system did justice to their talent and we went home happy bunnies after a good old chat with Clive and our ears full of tunes. Hell, it’d be true to say some of them were rocking and not gloomy at all!!!

It just goes to show – sometimes you may not want to go out but take the risk, you could just experience a little bit of magic. That’s what happened to us tonight.