University town challenged

I went to see Hot Leg play in Oxford on Tuesday evening - and very good they were too. You can read Stephen’s review here and you might, like me, appreciate the part where he compares lead singer Justin Hawkins to Russell Brand, ‘the nation’s favourite ironic-Byronic dandy’. I wouldn’t have been able to resist putting the word ‘iconic’ in there too, which is perhaps why I don’t write reviews for The Times but Stephen does. Anyway, I suggest you read his review, because he sums the actual experience of seeing the band up perfectly, leaving me to waffle about all the bits around the edges - namely, Oxford itself.

Lots of people go on about how swooningly pretty Oxford is. However - perhaps as a result of living in Bath? - I just don’t agree with any of them. For sure, the colleges are lovely and some of the riverside areas are very picturesque. But the part we visited (Cowley Road) was like a mini version of London’s Camden, all takeaway after takeaway (‘Rice & Peas’ being my favourite - I didn’t take anything away from it; I just like the idea) and student-friendly shops and bars, but without that properly grubby, grimy edge and the endless possibilities for minor-league star spotting that summarise Camden’s main USP. But then again, the students who congregate around Cowley Road are as clean and fresh-faced as the Nolan Sisters were before one of them discovered (and later tried to forget) Shane Richie and another (or perhaps it’s even the same one) turned into a Loose Woman and started Dancing on Ice. Most of them look like they’ve just come off the set for a Starbucks/Gap/Timotei shampoo advert, and the ones at the gig looked very out of place and uncomfortable, which they tried to disguise by trying to look as though they really ‘got’ Hot Leg, and were as knowing and ironic about pomp-rock pantomime as Luscious Justin himself clearly is. The girl immediately in front of me was a particularly annoying example of the genre. When she wasn’t texting (‘the band r gr8 but a bit loud’, etc) she persisted in holding up a really stinky (obviously leaking) Zippo lighter (even as a parody, such an act stopped being funny about 15 years ago). And then she started headbanging, which looked really odd given that she had that Timotei hair ad thing going on too, and as everybody knows you just can’t headbang if you have Very Clean Hair. Anyway, I’m sure she enjoyed herself - despite her, I most certainly did.

We drove back to Bath the way we came, avoiding Oxford city centre and taking straight to the A roads instead. Lovely as the journey was (it was a gert big new moon that evening, and the landscape looked lovely - particularly the bunnies who were at it like, erm, rabbits all along the roadside). But I would have liked to have driven past the Randolph Hotel in town, because I have really fond/strange/bittersweet memories connected to it and a great story which ends with how I once stayed in a Deluxe Suite there (I think it might have been called The Oscar Wilde Suite) for free. But that’s for another time, I guess. This time around, Oxford was all about dirty rockers who don’t look too dissimilar to the New York Dolls and Students With Very Clean Hair. 

Stephen gave the gig three stars out of five. I give the whole evening 11.