Beyoncé and Seafruit
I've always been something of a music obsessive, delighting in finding the smallest, most obscure bands going and raving on about them to anyone who'll listen. Barely any of them have ever amounted to much, or, if I'm quite honest, even been that good. Still, it did lead me to a chance encounter with the eponymous heroine of this post...

To set the scene, it's the mid-to-late 90s and Britpop is staggering towards a messy, sputtering death. Undeterred, I became a massive fan of the band Seafruit (not to be confused with Seafood - Oh! The derision if you did that! God I was a prick...) and noticed that somehow they'd managed to blag their way onto the Radio 1 roadshow tour.

Getting my friends together, we got the train from crappy small town Fareham to the bustling metropolis of Portsmouth, headed for the common and the throbbing beacon of excitement that was the Radio 1 Roadshow. Fuck! We might even get to see Simon Mayo!!

Had a quick look at who was playing onstage and spotted inexplicably popular Welsh rock-lite songsmiths Feeder miming away to their latest impersonation of a Cheerios advert. FUCK. We'd missed Seafruit. "Nevermind," chirps my mate, "they might be signing stuff backstage."

Round we go to the hallowed 'backstage' though if I'm completely honest the 'stage' was nothing more than a lorry with a fold down podium in it... nevertheless there's a gated off area with people signing stuff so off we trot. Can't even see who's signing stuff, but we join the back of a massive queue and wait patiently, eventually arriving at the front to see some load of Afro-American "soul" wailers who clearly think they're the dog's bollocks because they've got sunglasses on in the middle of a cloudy British summer. Thus goes the following interaction:

"Oh hey, have you got our latest single to sign?"
"Errr... no.... I was wondering if Seafruit were around anywhere, have you seen them?"

Turns out that Beyoncé doesn't really like being treated like a flourescent waistcoated helper. She scowled ferociously at me, informed me that they'd gone and in the same sentence moved onto the next person, showering them with praise for buying the latest single.

For anyone who's concerned about the ill effects that not getting to meet Seafruit may have had on me, don't worry, I met them later in the year at the Reading Festival and we talked about analogue synthesizers. Much more interesting than that bloody Beyoncé woman...
( Sonic James Doom forgetting the date since... umm..., Sat 10 Oct 2009, 11:24, 1 reply)

I like Seafood.
David Line (lead vocalist) used to serve in my local. We used to chat a bit, and he got the band to sign me up a poster. That was nice of him.
( Bats, Mon 12 Oct 2009, 10:06, closed)