Ginger's 40th Birthday

Ginger’s 40th Birthday Gig at The Marquee
Leicester Square, London. 17th December 2004.

Panee, Iain and Myself arrived in London early afternoon. We got ourselves down to the London Underground station and stood around, lost amongst the many people, who all seemed to know where they were going and what they were doing. We stood looking at the ticket machines trying to work out what ticket we need. We were like Aliens from another planet looking at around and gazing at the ticket machines like we had never seen them before. We headed to the Thai Embassy to go and pick up our daughter, Siam’s, passport. We then headed back to the tube station with a stop off at Starbuck’s for a coffee. Was quite amazed by several people sitting in there, surfing the net on their laptop computers.
Piccadilly Circus was our next stop off. Took a few photo’s and headed off round the shops to do some window-shopping. Although Panee bought some perfume to take to Thailand with her. We took a stroll round Soho and took in the sights there. While in the shops on Oxford Street, Iain and me then got interviewed by a film crew asking the Question “Were we ready for Xmas yet?” My reply to this was ”Yes, we are off to Thailand to get away from it all!”
We then headed down to China town for some dinner. The restaurant we went to had a selection of Chinese dishes on a buffet, for £4.95. We had two plate fulls of food each. After the meal we took a walk around Leicester Square and got our bearings as to where The Marquee Club was before heading back into Soho. We headed for a pub called the Intrepid Fox. Located on Wardour Street, it was packed at 7o’clock. The pub played loud rock music, and was full of various people with tattoos and piercing’s of all different natures. The walls were covered with posters of rock bands. We stood around for 15 /20 minutes before finding a seat at the bar. A few drinks and then we headed down to The Marquee to see Ginger and his band play.
It was getting quite cold by this time and didn’t expect the cue that we encountered upon arriving outside The Marquee. We waited about 10 minutes before getting in. After climbing several flights of stairs we finally entered the venue. Already pretty packed we headed for the toilets, only to discover several more flights of stairs. This place was becoming more and more like Dr Who’s Tardis, small on the outside but never ending in size inside.
Shock of the night was a small bottle of beer costing £3.60 each! Wow!

The band took to the stage not long after 8pm, comprising Jon Poole on Guitar, Willie Dowling on Bass, Ritch Battersby on Drums and of course Ginger the Birthday boy on Guitar and Vocals. This line-up swapped around throughout the night with Willie playing Keyboards and Guitar and doing some Vocal duties. The songs played were a mixture of Ginger and rarely played Wildhearts songs included B-sides Beautiful Me Beautiful You and Bad Time To Be Having a Bad Time and Nitra Nitro. For the 1st set we got right down the front and had the opportunity for some good photos. Towards At the end of the 1st set a birthday cake and a guitar were presented to Ginger amongst streamers going off. A chorus of Happy Birthday Ginger followed with one last song before heading off stage for a break and a quick clothes change. We had time to get in a couple more drinks in preparation for the 2nd set. It was at this time Panee got talking to a Thai man who was married to an English woman. As it turned out I had already been in contact with her via the Thai forum that I go on. Small world or what?
Anyway back to the gig. For the 1st half of this set I stood behind the band to the side of the stage, stood on one of the flight cases.
The highlight of the gig for me though, was hearing and seeing, Ginger and Willie together, playing an old song called Animals. The song was from Willie’s old band, Honeycrack. Phenomenal! Even Ginger introduced as a “Classic song”.
Another great moment was hearing Loveshit running into Brown Sugar. No pun intended! Brilliant stuff. Disappointment of the night was getting no encore! I guess hearing The Kids are United by Sham 69 over the PA was a consolation. The crowd joined in singing along to it.
We hung around for a while before I headed for the toilet. On the way back I went to the dressing room to see if I could see Willie and the band. I was in Luck. Willie came out to see me and we had a chat about old times. He was surprised that I no longer sang with a band. I went back to get Panee and Iain and got some photo’s taken with the band.






All photo images strictly ©copyright Andy Rothwell 2004. All Rights Reserved Andy Rothwell Copyright © 2004

Ginger's 40th Birthday gig at The Marquee in London 17th December 2004.