You must be ginger ....... David Devant and his spirit wife

In another life maybe ............... We'll all be ginger and free !

Those immortal lines will stay with me until the day i die!. Also the 1st David Devant gig that i went to will stick in my memory for one of the most bizarre gig's that i have ever been to.

To start with it was a blazing hot summer in 1996 and the Glastonbury festival had been cancelled and we ended up with buying a 4 day ticked to the now defunct Phoenix festival.  Which was a great idea because it was a fantastic festival and i managed to see most of the best of the Britpop collective at the time.  So we was waiting to see the band Marion to come on stage and we had a wander around to see who was playing.  We came across a tent that was rammed to the brim with sweaty people, that we thought were trying to escape from the sun.  We was wrong, they had all come to see "David Devant and his spirit wife" and they were just about to come on stage.  The first few songs were played with the band playing with their backs to the audience whilst facing a mirror because they wanted to see the gig from a different perspective and see what the audience was seeing!.  After playing through a couple of numbers they started to play the single that they are famous for "Ginger", this was of course done whilst someone grated raw carrot over the drummers head!!.  From that i was in love with the band and everything they released, and no matter what the NME (Sic!) wrote about them they stood for everything Britpop meant to ME!.

In the mid 2000's i remember catching a documentary on late night Channel 4, filmed in the mid to late 90's it focused on the band touring behind their 2nd album "Work, Lovelife, Miscellaneous. For me Britpop never had an ending and left so many things unanswered and when i watched this documentary i remember shedding a tear at the close of the program.  It finished with the lead singer burning his synonymous wig which was one of the striking characteristics of all the Indie bands that i loved and even though it was very sad i also thought of it as a final goodbye to the scene. You must understand that i saw this many years after Britpop had faded away and lost contact with most of the friends that i knew back then.

All this from a band who named them selves after a Victorian magician i hear you ask.  Well yes actually, they released one of the all time greatest Britpop albums "Work, Lovelife, Miscellaneous" with 4 of the best singles ever to be taken of an album!.


And to end this little rant of mine there is only 1 way i can think of to remember the band and its ..........



It was Miss Scarlet
In the ballroom
And she was using
(what was she using?)
She was using


The La la la la la
La la la la
Lead piping
It was the
la la la la la la
La la la la la
Lead piping