More Prefabs I'm afraid. This time in honour of the Blue Note club in Derby; the closest I've ever come to being in any sort of trendy scene. It was a splendid place in the early 80s. Mentioned in the The Face and iD enough that it felt cool but small enough that it was still mostly just people from school. First time I watched someone mix two records together was there. (I think the two records in question were Being Boiled and Homosapien by Pete Shelly.) And it was probably at the Blue Note that I worked out drinking wasn't really my thing.
I saw Prefab Sprout there just after Lions In My Own Garden and before Swoon. They didn't make a huge amount of sense live. You probably needed to get to know the songs first, but they were still fascinating. It was a tiny room and I spent most of the time watching Martin McAloon careering up and down his bass. And they wore those fantastic Kitchenware shirts made out of halves of other shirts. They were supported by The Daintees who were also brilliant, and I seem to remember Dave Ruffy played drums for them (and did some impromptu toasting between the sets).