This Week: Family hiking record buying gig missing

Two years to the day since Mum passed, the family decided to mark the anniversary with a pilgrimage up Moel Famau. Why Moel Famau? No one really knows. We're not entirely sure if she ever went up there. But she did have a serious case of hiraeth for the Clwydian Range, and in Welsh emotional logic that’s more than enough justification to drag nine adults up a hill.

The day began, as all meaningful spiritual journeys do, with an all-you-can-eat breakfast at Table Table in Rhuddlan (so good, apparently, they named it twice). If you’re going to climb a mountain, you need to carbo-load like you’re preparing for the apocalypse. Jane, Steve, Emma, Mark, Rhys, Charlotte, Erin, Tom and myself assembled for what was essentially four couples and one spare part (me), bravely consuming our bodyweight in hash browns before squeezing into two cars and heading off.

We rolled through the quiet of Cilcain and reached the trail car park under suspiciously good weather. Had it been yesterday we would have been doing this in horizontal glass rain. But today we were blessed or someone had successfully subscribed to the Premium Weather App. We thanked the heavens and set off.

The hike itself was a leisurely 3.5 hours — the perfect amount of time for what I can only describe as conversational speed-dating. Pair off, chat about life, rotate partners, repeat. By the summit we’d all been fully updated on careers, kids, aches, pains and existential dread. We’re basically conversational swingers.

The final push took us to the remains of Jubilee Tower, which sits proudly on the summit. The tower was originally built in 1810–1811 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Mad King George III. Designed by architect Thomas Harrison, it was meant to be a grand obelisk-style monument visible for miles. Unfortunately, the Welsh weather had other plans, and a storm in the mid-1800s badly damaged the structure, leaving it a romantic ruin for more than a century. It wasn’t until the late 20th century that restoration work made it safe and accessible again — so we could all wheeze our way up it and admire the view.

And what a view. On a clear day you can see as far as Cadair Idris to the south-west, along with sprawling Welsh / English countryside and distant cities in the opposite direction. It was peaceful, tranquil, and almost perfectly serene… apart from a Scouse drone buzzing around our heads like an electronic wasp.

Still, it was a genuinely lovely day and a rare chance to properly catch up as a family without screens, deadlines or the usual hullaballoo of real life.

In a plot twist nobody saw coming (except anyone who knows me), the very next evening I sat down on the couch “just for five minutes” and woke up over an hour later. This accidental coma meant I completely missed The Orb and System 7 playing up the road in Bethesda — a gig I was supposed to review for Louder Than War.

Only the day before I’d been telling people how much more energy I have these days. The universe clearly felt I needed humbling.

To soothe my wounded reviewer’s ego, I did what any responsible adult would do: bought records in a sale.

Boss Tuneage Records were offering free postage over £20, which is basically a legally binding invitation to spend £20. So I picked up four albums for about a fiver each:

• Four Letter Word – Zero Visibility
  Already a known quantity from radio play on my show and reliably excellent.
• Prey U Pray – Figure The 8
  Proper punk/metal and refreshingly long. Hardcore albums these days often clock in at the length of a kettle boil, so this felt positively prog.
• Pandemix – Love Is Obliteration
  You simply cannot go wrong with Pandemix.
• DL Burdon – Accidental Aesop
  Bought entirely because I liked the sleeve. A nostalgic throwback to teenage me getting the bus from Denbigh to Rhyl and gambling paper-round money on records judged purely by cover art. The jury is still out on this one. It’s… not really my bag. But the sleeve is cool, so at least my shelves look cultured.

Saturday was supposed to be a heroic double-header of live music.

Plan A: an early show at Rockpoint Records in New Brighton, featuring Italian entertainment maestros CUT whose tour poster accurately cites them as 'John Lee Hooker in a postpunk straitjacket,' alongside semi-Aussie dirtbags The Dry Retch.

Plan B: a heroic dash across the Mersey to the Baltic Triangle to see Fucked Up tearing it up at District at the start of their UK tour.

To all intents and purposes, none of this happened. Because I made the fatal mistake of thinking I could do it on public transport. My reasoning was that fuel is still rocketing skyward and I spend way too much time driving the car along the A55, so why not take a break and (possibly) save a little money too?

I made it as far as Chester station. Progress! From there I shimmied across the road to The Town Crier for a pint of Neck Oil to “work out the logistics.” This is the first sign things are about to go wrong in any story.

It turns out getting to New Brighton would take an hour and fifteen minutes by train. Longer by bus (it's only about 22 miles! - or 17mph!!). My Uber app kindly offered a faster option for the bargain price of £30. I like the bands, but I don’t like them that much! And anyway, who the fuck puts a gig on in New Brighton!? Ha ha!

So, in the company of friends and associates, I had another pint. Then another. Then another. You know the montage.

At some point, reality tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me that Arriva Cymru (or whoever runs the railways this week) has the last train back to North Wales leaving at 10:45pm on a Saturday. Every other night it’s 1:40am — making Liverpool gigs perfectly viable. But not tonight.

In fairness, if you’ve ever been part of the drunken debauchery on the last train home from Chester to North Wales after a Friday night, you can probably understand why the operator decided once per weekend was enough.

So instead of trashing my ears with live music on Merseyside, I trashed my insides with a Naga curry. The following morning I woke feeling like I’d gone ten rounds with a chilli and lost every single one. A curryover of the most vindictive and unforgiving kind.

Rock and roll is fucked up (see below)