Let It Bee - Voice of the Beehive

As well as general indie music, the late 80s were a great time if you were a fan of female fronted guitar groups. Band after band appeared and almost every single one played upbeat guitar pop music. Voice of the Beehive had the same agenda but their was set apart from their peers by having two female vocalists. That's just showing off! The band wrote some of the best pop tunes of the late 80s including the hits 'I Walk The Earth' and 'I Say Nothing', sisters Tracey and Melissa providing fantastic harmonies; reminiscent of west coast US surf music.

This was one of those albums that I ended up buying twice - first on cassette and then again on CD. Damn those technological advances! The CD format though was perfect for this type of music - the clarity really enhancing the summeresque harmonies.

Unfortunately I never saw the band the first time round but I did manage to catch them when they supported The Wonder Stuff in Wolverhampton in 2001. But very nearly didn't.....

The Wonder Stuff were playing one of, what was becoming, traditional Christmas shows and Sarah, NR and myself had managed to get tickets. We'd been looking forward to the concert for months as they usually signalled the start of the festive period celebrations. Christmas was coming. So we headed off down the M1 from our house in Leeds. Spirits were high; music was playing on the stereo and we were chatting excitedly about seeing the Wonder Stuff and the support bands Voice of the Beehive and Jesus Jones. It was going to be like a mini-80s festival. It was going to be great.

"At least we have the tickets- it wouldn't be funny if we got all the way to Wolverhampton and didn't have them.", Sarah noted.

"S**t!!!", I exclaimed and threw the car from lane 3 into lane 1 of the motorway, "I've left them on the kitchen table!" 

Thankfully we had only travelled a couple of junctions down the motorway. My travelling companions were less than impressed, but relieved that a disastrous mistake had been avoided. It really would not have been funny if we'd got to the Midlands without tickets. No for me anyway!

So we retraced our steps, I picked up the tickets and set of again down the M1 with a distinct feeling of deja-vu. Needless to say I had to endure nearly three hours of endless ribbing and pee taking about almost ruining the weekend. A bit harsh! 

But it was worth it - it was a great concert with all three bands providing top entertainment. It was especially good to catch Voice of the Beehive and their brand of sunny pop music, making us forget momentarily that it we were in the depths of a British winter. It's just a shame that my travelling companions on that day haven't let me forget that I forgot the tickets - the story is wheeled out at every opportunity.