At the weekend I was fortunate enough to see a cracking new band, The Smiths.

Indeed, they actually played a full set of the Meat is Murder album, and as if by coincidence, I was visited by three ducks this morning. But, more of that later.

So the  band, what a performance, what an atmosphere, as a combination of young scenesters – including a gent who looked like he cut his monk-style hair with a knife and fork and wore milk-bottle-bottom glasses akin to those sported by the secret lemonade drinker – and elder statesmen and women, one of whom was in pyjamas.

You had to be there.

Led by their charismatic frontman Morrissey, he with the outrageous quiff and affinity for flowers, who sashayed around the small stage as if his life depended upon it, the band played said album in its entirety before returning for another hour of their more famous tracks. Meat is Murder was especially haunting as the love I feel for steaks was called into question by The Smiths: indeed, the entrecote I’d devoured before hand sat a little uncomfortably as I danced the night away, whilst we were reminded of the confit de canard enjoyed by my better half only this morning when three ducks sat serenely on the wall outside our flat as we left for work, then flew off, briefly reminiscent of Hilda Ogden’s dining room wall, a particularly Morrisseyesque heroine.

The band’s encore was perhaps the highlight of the evening, classics all three, and the rousing finale proved beyond doubt that there is a light that never goes out.

This is a performance from  a couple of years back:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnLhEO9RbgU

Ok, so if not already, now you’ll realise that I haven’t been able to re-align the flux capacitor and go back twenty five years, and all it was was a tribute band here in Liverpool.

Lise had got us the tickets as a consolation for the debacle that was the Arena gig last November.

But, without even closing your eyes, this could have been the real thing. The youtube clip will highlight, to those familiar with Steven Patrick’s musings and movement on stage, that the impersonator of the frontman was an impressive performer.

It wasn’t just The Smiths Indeed though. The crowd, and atmosphere, was exactly how I would have expected some of the original concerts to have felt. Unfortunately, I was too young, and just like Everton’s halcyon days, I was born ten years too late to immerse myself fully into the experience of ‘being there’.

So, gigs like this are the next best thing, apart from DVDs and dodgy phone recordings on youtube, and this one in particular, really got me thinking.

The whole scenario of Friday night could be termed uncanny, postmodern, surreal, and that’s without the meat references or repeated ‘indeed’ jokes I made earlier. The idea of swinging gladioli around whilst watching someone who just so happens to sound and sing and look very like one of your idols is a strange, but hugely enjoyable, one.

It forced me to question not only my carnivorous nature but the idea of lookalikes and identity theft, to such an extent that Friday felt like it could easily have been part of my overall project, what with the suggestions of time travel, reliving events which could never have happened, the creation of an alter ego and the existence of shared experiences for those who have things in common but didn’t know it. Indeed, other artists and fans have had similar thoughts, such as Harry Hill (who also won Stars in their Eyes singing This Charming Man):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k37wZRwtD08

Bernard Manning and a Brookside extra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=224-7FzXZn0&feature=related

And the wonderful Smiths karaoke project by Phil Collins (not that one): http://www.michica.org/phil%20eng.html

Now, I try to sing like Morrissey on the karaoke, but the fact that my fiancee’s father does a better job of it than me, despite hating the bequiffed one, suggests I couldn’t develop that into an exhibition piece of synchronicitous proportions, but it’s food for thought at least.

But the notion of developing a crossover character, not just a lookalike but a different person who shows similar and opposite characteristics to the original version of themselves, as portrayed in the films Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Dead Ringers (which by chance is on this week – remember the fortune tellers talking about twins) is currently engrossing my thoughts, whilst my facebook double is gaining friends, despite a few probing questions.

Whilst you’re waiting for the next instalment, go and see The Smiths. Indeed.

It is now six months since the ladies told their tales.

With a delicious flashback, February started with our opening fortune cookies from New York. Mine said: If you do not have a plan for your life, someone else will and this month, once again, that seemed to be the case.

Despite a slow start, with only the father-in-law-to-be’s eerie trip to a psychic and a re-visiting of Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack in any way stimulating amidst the mundane flotsam and jetsam of modern life, February 12th really got me thinking.

This was the day that was. On it, one hundred and one years ago,  The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded. More of that to come. But this year, it was the day that was the anniversary of the passing of my grandma and my friend’s father; I heard on the radio a request for a taxi driver whose birthday it was, he was 48, it was also his elder brother’s birthday – who was 49 – and his eldest brother’s, who was 50; and a couple won the record Euro Millions Jackpot. That same day, the local paper heralded me as Crosby’s ninth most romantic person.

And then, belated proof that those ‘giant rabbits’ I’ve been talking about for so long, exist. They may even be re-incarnations.

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/813208-the-pet-rabbit-so-large-they-thought-he-was-possessed

Fast forward a couple of days and, despite all those pints of Guinness that led to an impressive rendition of Halfway to Paradise on the karaoke, I was warned by a doctor that I could lose no more weight – numbers, in particular my weight and BMI – were significant once again, even more so now.

The next day, I got up early, to watch a programme about van Gogh: “not a madman whose madness produced his art… an educated, highly intelligent, talented individual, who suffered severe mental breakdowns, and art was sometimes a way through that, or triggered it, we don’t know.” Either way, I then discovered he had painted a Zouave, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zouave ) a French Algerian soldier, and I wondered if this might have been a relative of mine?

So then what? I re-read Dave Gorman’s Are You Dave Gorman? and immediately created a Facebook for my alter ego, I’ve befriended 4 Greenbanks so far. I found a branch of my family tree I never knew existed, on ancestry.co.uk. I met Landon Donovan, a supposed lookalike. I also visited a restaurant owned by a chef I admire greatly WHO JUST SO HAPPENED TO BE SAT ON THE NEXT TABLE TO US (“it’s an honour to meet you” etc) which was next to a potential wedding venue which we loved (and were shown around by the lookalike of my arch nemesis, strangely) and then Darius Campbell / Danesh won Opera Idol before we watched a film in which the lead character is proposed to via fortune cookie.

And, just when I was beginning to think that nobody reads this blog, I was contacted by a complete stranger – an EVERTONIAN and LOCALLY BASED TEACHER – who had happened upon my site whilst trying to detect who had been sending her strange texts.

http://www.jonathangreenbank.com/archives/44

You couldn’t make this up. And then, I saw twenty magpies at school, which nobody seems to have any explanation for other than the opportunity for magpie pot pie… and the same night dreamt about breaking glass dishes, which is said to mean the end of employment pursuits, the night before the ‘dreaded phonecall’ that effectively signalled the end of normal life for a while.