COVENTRY Music Museum curator Pete chambers BEM writes for the Observer.
From Pigeon to Primitives
So as the Coventry Music Museum’s current temporary exhibition nears its end, a new exhibition is on the horizon.
This year’s Lieutenant Pigeon exhibition has proved a great success, with loads of pigeon fanciers flocking to see what made this band tick.
If you haven’t made it yet then it remains until December 18, 2022, so you still have time to check it out.
You can also check out Lieutenant Pigeons new single ‘All The Rage’, the video and song is hilarious – just search for it on YouTube.
So what is coming for January 2023 you ask?
Well we welcome ‘Crash’ – an exhibition that will celebrate 35 years of a perfect pop song, recorded by Coventry’s own Primitives, the exhibition looks at the band and that top five single ‘Crash’ which made such a global impact in 1988.
We at the museum are delighted this exhibition is officially sanctioned by the band themselves, making it a true representation of this amazing Coventry group.
The icing on the cake is that the museum has secured a £2,500 grant provided by the UK Government through the Coventry City Council’s Creative Growth and Cultural Tourism Recovery Programme to help create this exhibition.
Massive thanks also go to Chris Hartley of Hartley Consulting and Events and Keely Hancox from Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce and Dave Hope from Coventry City Council, and Destination Coventry.
This really is the Coventry infrastructure working together to promote something very special to come out of the city.
So what can you expect from the new exhibition?
Well there will be a plethora of rare items on show dating back to the early days of the band, you can try your hand at singing ‘Crash’ in the stylised ‘Tracy Tracy Lounge’ and for that unique photo opportunity there will be something we like to call the ‘Crash-elator’. All will be revealed on a trip to the museum.
Above all we will tell the story of this iconic perfect pop band band and the seismic single, plus all of their superb body of work.
They are not our Enemy
So last week I was all primed to see the homecoming of Coventry’s The Enemy at HMV Coventry Empire, only to spend Saturday night at A&E (quiet the Mos Eisley Cantina experience).
Disappointment rained until some kind souls took pity and I had access to the show on November 5 (also at the Empire).
I would go to the ball, and there would be fireworks of sorts on the stage tonight as the powerhouse we know as the Enemy gave us just over an hour of what they do best. From the opening overture of The Who’s Baba O’Riley they kicked off into the full album of “We’ll Live and Die” and it was like they had never been away.
This was the last night of the tour so the energy was high – not just on stage but in the super-charged audience, who never let the band down when it comes to audience participation.
We even got a chorus from The Specials’ Ghost Town.
Is this the end of The Enemy? Who knows but Tom has a new solo album ‘The Other Side’ out next year.
If this is their last gig at least, I witnessed a bit of Coventry history and the curtain call of one our finest bands.
