Wolverhampton Civic Hall - it's intimacy on a grand scale

Look into my eyes, deep into my eyes,

. You are feeling sleepy, very sleepy! That's it, have a nap. When you wake up you will forget for a few minutes that my day job is talking up the Civic Hall. . .

Tickets for Kasabian's festival warm-up gig on Tuesday night sold out in minutes. Why? Well, because Kasabian are much, much too big a band to be playing a 3,000-capacity venue.

People in the queue and on t'internet were pinching themselves just to be sure they would really be getting to see such a huge name at our (relatively) intimate venue.

They really shouldn't have been so surprised, because the very same thing occurred two years ago. Yes, I guess that's reason enough to hope that Kasabian would return to the Civic for another warm-up gig, but there is more than just habit at work here. Gigs akin to these Kasabian warm-up gigs are not isolated incidents in the Civic's history – far from it!

Last week we announced two shows coming to the Civic in July. These two shows involve two artists about whom you can legitimately use the words 'living legend'.

I don't need to tell you surely, why we are so pleased with ourselves to have Lou Reed and Roger Daltrey gracing the Civic stage within the space of three days next month?

You might ask 'Why would they want to play here?'. It's ok, that's not to be rude to the fair city of Wolverhampton, nor to the Civic Hall itself – you'd simply wonder why these icons of rock would choose to play in such a small venue in such a small city, wouldn't you?

And you'd wonder why they're not alone: Arctic Monkeys, McFly, Blur, Radiohead, Robert Plant and many others have chosen the Civic for low-key warm-up shows.

Let me try to throw some light using my other head – the one that clings on to past glories (remember you're still under my spell).

The Civic is simply an absolute delight to play. Really it is. For starters, when you stand on the Civic Hall stage and look out at 3,000 people (point of detail – I looked out at 2,400 – the capacity back in the early 90s, when headlining with my band Ned's Atomic Dustbin), you can literally see the white of every single eye in the house. That's a lot of eyes crammed (cozily) into a pretty small space – intimacy on a grand scale (if such a thing is possible and it is at the Civic!).

Secondly, the atmosphere at a Civic show is unique. Why? Let's just say that the people who make up a Wolverhampton audience are peculiar in the fact that they are extremely grateful when a big name has come here (as opposed to Birmingham maybe?).

Also a good chunk of a Wolves crowd will have walked or bused into town and have been lucky enough to have consumed a sip or two of anti-inhibiting juice on their way to the gig.

In short, we like to make the most of our night out – not overly keen on standing at the back scratching our chins. So there it is. Something for Wolverhampton to be proud of, no not for a change, for good. You can wake up now.