A view from the southwest correspondent…

Armitage and Smith have told how they had to wait till, well, middle youth, to realise the dreams of their pomp and form a band. In a not dissimilar way, I’ve waited 20 years to become a slavish band follower, adoring fan and vicarious pop-thrill-seeker…

Thursday 8 May 2008, the Gramaphone Club, Shoreditch, London. Been in a state of giddy anticipation for some time. A rare visit to the steaming capital to see our old mate and his new band — the Scaremongers. We walk out of sweltering evening streets, city swallows dipping round the lampposts, and into the dimly lit, crypt-like rooms — an updated image of the Cavern for sure, the walls sopping with the sweat of a hundred upstart bands. Immediately, there’s Smith, calm, authoritative, his smile as broad as the portico of Huddersfield station. He welcomes us and thanks us for coming in his ever-charming manner. He’s sticking to a solitary pint. Like Keith Richards someone says. My wife notices Armitage in the corner but she is uncharacteristically shy and gets into drink-ordering at the bar. I’ve already had a couple of pints; Smith introduces me to his chief bandmate, who’s understandably a touch nervous pre-gig and feeling laryngeally challenged; luckily he won’t have any registered any of the nonsense I spout at him. A fine fellow, worthy of Smith.

In turn we meet other members of the Scaremongers in toto, all top guys and wait for the support act to wheel through its numbers.

9.45 pm: the seven Scaremongers are ranged across the stage, averting their collective headlight gaze from the expectant eyes of their new hardcore fans in the front rows, and the angling BBC camera. The first number, Cardigan Girl, an instant classic, and all is well. Smith has them marshalled and adept, quashing nerves, soothing qualms, fixing errant amps. Armitage proves himself a king in yet another arena, his north country timbre finding a perfect counterpart in Sue’s skylarking support. Seven or eight songs breezed through, and then the great finale, You Can Do Nothing Wrong in My Eyes. The music and lyrics, it’s the whole thing, the synchronization — it’s self-evident, an everyday miracle maybe, but how they do such things, so well, are beyond my envious grasp. Gaping Gill. I remember someone told me you could fit the whole of York Minster inside it. York Minster would be small-time for this band I reckon, but then I’m smitten.

It’s over, cheers ring out and another band has the unenviable task of following. We all drink more beer and talk of the night we’ve been a part of as if it’s already a grand memory.

In the 1980s, the sounds of the Smiths and others with their enchanting disenchantment rarely reached my bedroom door deep in rural Lincolnshire; Peel was only half-heard in stifled snatches. The musical tribal divisions in the small town where I went to school were archetypal, arrayed on the bus every morning: desperate grebos, balding-but-bequiffed rockers, disaffected remnant punks, a smattering of sullen goths (are there any other kind?), the odd mod, a phalanx of menacing soulboys with their aggressive suits and perfect hair. School rucksacks with band names inked inexpertly across the canvas. One lad even had a Mötorhead logoed jumper his mum had knitted him. At the time I liked to think I’d taken the road less travelled, back into past, to eras through which my folks had lived but from the sound of it hadn’t really been there at all. When I finally escaped to university, I found many such like minds and lost souls, refugees from the 80s demonic chart sounds of SAW and their ilk…

Spring 2007 and I’m listening to Mark Radcliffe’s late night radio show. With him is his oft-times guest Simon Armitage, poet, author, unhurried wit, a man I unwittingly spooked after a reading in Devon in the 90s by running up to him in the dark street as he left — I can still see his don’t-mug-me expression. Now he’s ruminating on the possibility of achieving a long-cherished dream — his own band. He mentions his old mate Craig …

I first knew Smith on the playing fields of Eton. Well, the five-a-side court in the crumbling concrete Fusion Centre in Elephant & Castle, southeast London, to be sure. A doughty opponent, solid in defence, incisive in attack, possessor of an old-fashioned shot seemingly learnt at the feet of Peter Lorimer. After pretending to be other such 70s heroes for an hour (most of the famed Forest team of that time in my case), many times we’d retire ruby-faced to the Hampton pub, sink a few ales and talk about the football and music, what else. Some years pass. I’ve left London but start to hear faint rumours about the nascent Scaremongers and their first tentative gurgles in the world. Of course, these rumours are from Smith himself. That first wonderful double A-side appears, another appearance on Radio Radcliffe, an article in the Weekend Guardian. All they needed now was a first gig. They’ve done it now, and they should be proud.

Neil S.