Saturday 24th October, 1998 Monday 13th September 1999

There exists a recording of a Manics gig where Bernard guested on guitar. At some point little James uttered the immortal phrase 'where's me man Bernard?'. The poor lad has been known as that ever since. Apart from when raging hormones get the better of us and he is simply known as 'Bernie!!!!!!!!!!!!'. Anyway. The lead in to the small Bernard Butler obsession going on here is because Sharon decided one day that it would be good to buy his first solo single 'Stay' without any prior knowledge of its content and drag Caroline in for a listen and customary dissection of the songs. Knowing full well that he was a guitar genius of the highest order, but not having a clue whether he could sing for toffee, by the end of the CD an unusual silence had fallen over the girls follwed by much raised eyebrow-ness and a general concensus that me man Bernard was indeed an absolute star.

Their first outing to see their new floppy-haired guitar hero was the mud-ridden T in the Park event, where little Bernard was so far away we could barely catch a glimpse. It was good, but it left us wanting more. So the girls found themselves on particularly rainy night (something about me man Bernard and rain), both with streaming colds and hacking coughs (Caroline ended up with pleurisy, she currently is not holding Bernard to blame) heading off to the Aberdeen Music Hall (fortunately a smoke-free zone), where we met up with Fiona and some of her friends who loitered a safe distance away from us while Fiona joined us at the front. Having suffered the ridiculously bad support band (Sunhouse. Don't. Ever.) we were rewarded by close up ickle Bernie and could witness the best hairstyle in pop in all it's glory.

Bernard is a wise man, and he obviously realised he wasn't going to get out alive without doing 'You Just Know' and 'Not Alone' and sensibly included them in his set. He did quite a few new songs that night which were all greeted with mad enthusiasm. During 'Autograph' Sharon started to think 'hang on a minute, is it just me or is he playing guitar in an overtly sexual way?' and looked at Caroline for clarification. Caroline was actually blushing. That pretty much answered the question. As an acoustic encore he got so many whistles and screams during 'People Move On' he actually laughed. In fact, he said 'I was told you'd be good, but I didn't realise quite what they meant'. Never underestimate the enthusiasm of a gig starved northern Scottish city in the rain is our motto (well, it's not, but maybe it should be).

Not wishing to miss out on seeing their hero at any opportunity, the girls once again found themselves heading off into a cold Aberdeen night, this time to their favourite venue, The Lemon Tree. And hurrah!! No barriers in front of the stage!!!! Cannot remember the support band name (that's really bad), but they were the ones who had a lead singer despite a large number of instrumental songs, he spent most of his time crouching on the stage and drinking beer, Ah well.... But Bernard remembers the good time Aberdeen showed him last and he's up for a good gig. The girls find themselves surrounded by guitar hero-worshipping lads, which is just as well later on, as Bernard proceeds to flirt outrageously with the people at the front and the guys are heard to comment 'hold up the girlies!! The girlies are going to faint!'. Either that or blush to death boys.

We were stood slightly to the left of the microphone. At some point, me man Bernard decided he 'felt sorry for us here' and proceeded to perform most of the guitar solos right in front of our noses. Now I mean this quite literally. Sharon's face was about 2 inches from the guitar and she had no idea where to look. Staring at guitar = staring at crotch. Looking up = staring at Bernie's grinning face through his fringe and feeling even more self conscious. Caroline literally had to duck out of the way as he spun round with guitar (Caroline always gets hit by musical instruments, she tries not to take it personally). At one point he is dancing backwards during a guitar solo and the girls face the moral dilemma of 'let him fall offstage or put hands up to stop him', this would involve pushing him back on by the backside and really, that probably goes well beyond the ability of two terminally starstruck girls.

The girls literally shade their eyes during Autograph, it's all too much, and during an acoustic Woman I Know (to die for) Sharon nearly ends up in a fight with some really annoying woman who has pushed herself to the front to talk very loudly to someone else. Even Bernard was getting agitated with her. Anyway, fortunately the friendly lads around us prevent Sharon (who is a complete wimp by the way) from getting punched, and all is well. Apart from that incident a splendid gig was had by all, hopefully me man Bernard too. He promises to be back. He'd better be! A short time after that the girls read that he 'loved going out on stage and scaring people'. We noticed Bernard, oh yes.

One more note on the positive power of gigs...at some point Fiona, who Sharon had lost touch with, found us at the front of the gig (accurately guessing we would be in attendance and at the front) and offered us accommodation in Dundee for the Travis gig. Sometimes reputations can be good for you.