Benefits - Stockton

Originally broadcast on Steve Lamacq's BBC6music show on Thursday 2nd February 2023 as part of their Independent Venue Week coverage. We were asked to do a simple audio tour guide for the town of Stockton-on-Tees - where Lamacq was broadcasting from that night. Stockton is where Kingsley was born and raised so we decided to make it vaguely poetic and have Robbie and Hugh add a soundtrack.

It’s stopped raining, the sun is out, the birds are tweeting, there’s an orange glow on the horizon, it’s a beautiful day! My name is Kingsley and I sing in a band called Benefits, this is my hometown. This is Stockton on Tees.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, chippy northerner, chippy northern town. Heard it all before. Identikit retail units covering up some tatty 70s concrete, a big chain pub in a converted bank, an area dedicated to inoffensive public sculpture, all broken up by the occasional authentic Italian restaurant run by a family of fantastic old school Neapolitans. You know this town. You’ve been to this town. You probably live in this town. The only difference being that we say bun not bap or barmcake. And that’s alright, it’s fine, it’s geography.

You probably don’t know or care where Stockton is. It’s not quite as far up as Newcastle like yer nar, but no where near as far down as leeds like duck. In every respect, its in the middle. It’s been on Question Time a couple of times. We invented the match. Yeah, the match.

I’ve heard features like this before, at this point I should be telling you about how friendly everyone is, where to get a decent pint, the community spirit, and the much-fabled fantastic local music scene. But I could be talking about anywhere, it’s all a bit nondescript, plus it’s not what me and my band do. You’ve probably not heard of us, but we’re known as agitators I suppose. We shout at the top of our lungs about injustice and liars in our quest for decency. We’re intense, loud, and angry. You probably think we sound like The Fall from all that, but we don’t. Plus, I don’t really know much about pubs these days since I quit drinking.

I definitely could tell you that the High Street is littered with music venues. The Georgian Theatre, The Green Room, Kubar, NE Volume, The Globe, the Vault, The Social Room, The Link. All within about 400 metres of each other. There’s gigs all the time, a music festival every few months, in its own way it’s the Nashville of the North, albeit with slightly less cowboy hats and horses. Slightly. Pretty much every local grandparent knows where they were the night JFK got shot as they were all watching the Beatles in the Globe. Stockton is, and always has been, a music town, the Shadows even wrote a song about it in 1962. The now demolished Mall nightclub on the High Street was national discotheque of the year for three years running in the 1980s. Paul Smith from Maximo Park is from just up the road in Billingham. It’s a hotspot.

I have memories of some of the most amazing gigs I’ve ever seen from this town. 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster at the Georgian just after their amazing debut album came out; Friendly Fires in Kubar to an audience of about six; Nick Cave electrifying the Globe; and to a lesser extent Geri Halliwell doing My Chico Latino at an open air festival on the riverside around the time of the millennium.

So welcome one and all to Stockton on Tees, wipe your feet on the way in.