You’re With Stupid Now
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjwfNAYdBVQ]
Aimee Mann was in superb form at Sheffield’s Leadmill on Thursday night. A mesmerising set. For the encore, she played the first four songs that the audience called out for. My shouted request was for the title track of her second solo album, a song that she wrote out of her friendship with the Labour MP Tony Banks. It’s about, broadly speaking, what it was like to be a member of the shadow cabinet in the mid-90’s – not exactly your usual fare for a pop song. Banks was a Mann fan. At a gig fifteen years ago, she told the Sheffield audience (I think it was the Leadmill again) that she’d been invited to tea at the House of Commons. Should she go? ‘Yes!’ we shouted back. Three days later, at Nottingham’s Rock City, she excitedly told the crowd that she was going to tea at the House of Commons. And a few days after that, I spotted Aimee standing next to Tony Banks on the set of BBC2’s ‘Later’. Next time she played Sheffield (thirteen years ago), she introduced the then new song as being about how Tony Banks described the parliamentary experience. I met him once – lovely bloke, who died far too young. Anyway, it seemed like the right song to call out for the other night, but she doesn’t do it often these days so I was very chuffed when she played it. This film from Youtube leaves out the long introduction, where Aimee talked about her friendship with Banks, but at the end you can hear her say ‘Tony Banks, rest in peace’. Seconded.
