What was your last concert you went to ?

...... I'm surprised you didn't have a Foppish shirt open to the waist with a hairy rug chest and medallion combo

Just jealous really

Northumbrian cuisine just doesn't suit my delicate stomach (Lamb dinner)?

Pleased you had a good night bud

Diccus

Porcupine Tree
Colston Hall, Bristol
Sat 10th October.
Great band live.
Played the whole of the Incident plus many from FOABP, In absentia and Deadwing

You are just jealous that I got to cuddle Kate and you did not

quote:

Originally posted by Diccus62:
...... I'm surprised you didn't have a Foppish shirt open to the waist with a hairy rug chest and medallion combo

Just jealous really

Northumbrian cuisine just doesn't suit my delicate stomach (Lamb dinner)?

Pleased you had a good night bud

Diccus

Absolutely and i heard she was disappointed too

Zero 7 at our wee gem of a Queen's Hall last night. 40 mins from the new album and then another hour of classics. Excellent show with some interesting variants of the old favourites.

Tord Gustavsen at the same venue on Friday still to come.

Ian

Richard Hawley at the Sage. One of those artists who is even better live than on record. Miss him at your peril.

Regards

Nic

Show of Hands, Festival Theatre, Chichester - last night.

Porcupine Tree, HMV Apollo (Hammersmith Odeon) last Friday.

A fairly diverse week.

John

UISCEDWR – at the Ram Folk Club Thames Ditton. An amazing folk trio, fronted by the energetic Anna Esslemont on violin. Celtic folk tunes mixed with world music sounds. If you like the CD's,try to get to see them live. The stage performance is so compelling.

Don

Sarah Blasko - Brisbane Tivoli - As Day follows Night tour

Fabulous stuff. Check out the outfit
http://www.thevine.com.au/musi...-melbourne-2009.aspx

The stage show was spot on, just enough theatre to add to the music rather than overwhelm it. I had a great time and recommend both the album and the live gig which exceeded my expectations.

I agree with this review, except I also enjoyed the back catalogue (she did a costume change to reflect the different sound of her earlier stuff).

Now, I saw The Hamsters/Wishbone Ash double bill on Sunday evening in York.

The Hamsters, were, as always, cracking live but I reckon it was a different band masquerading as WA that turned up.

The band Mrs Plane & I suffered were pedestrian to the point of dullness and frankly uninspiring. Actually, it wasn't a band at all but The Andy Powell Show. We walked out well before the end and, we weren't alone in doing so either.

Someone once said that the Flying V guitar was only for posers. I now know what they meant.

steve

You must be hard to please, we thought they were great. Agreed it was an Andy Powell show ,as the last man standiing I guess no surprise there.
Maybe he is tiring?

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:
You must be hard to please, we thought they were great. Agreed it was an Andy Powell show ,as the last man standiing I guess no surprise there.
Maybe he is tiring?

Hmmm...I wouldn't say I was. I've been gigging since 1972 and this is only the fourth one I've walked out on.

Maybe they are tired, it's a long tour, but there was no spark and certainly the audience reaction was pretty muted generally. They were much better at Reading Festival in 1975...

steve

We had a pretty good vibe from them and the audience at Crawley, YMV as they say.

Now recovered from this 5-nighter...........

9th October - Porcupine Tree, Hammersmith Apollo
10th October - Julie Fowlis, Irish Cultural Centre, London
11th October - The Bad Plus, Turner Sims Theatre, Southampton University
12th October - Martin Dahanukar, Sunset Jazz Club, Paris
13th October - Porcupine Tree, Olympia Hall, Paris

The best show for me was Julie Fowlis. There were quite a few tracks from her new (not yet released) album "Uam" which I heard for the first time and were very good, along with tracks from the first two albums. She is so talented (hence the awards she has already received) and despite me not being fluent in Scottish Gallic it takes nothing away from the emotion in her wonderful voice and pure enjoyment I get listening to her. She always has some good interaction with the audience and then to have a chat (again ) with her after the show capped off a lovely evening.

The Bad Plus put on a very good show, especially the quite incredible drumming. Here was a case of listening to a band live which then made more sense of the studio albums to me. Great interaction between the band members who are all very different characters but gel so well.

Martin Dahanukar was launching his new album "Garuda" in the intimate setting of the Sunset club in Paris. It's a pity there were not more people there to enjoy an excellent show. The sound quality was also very good and you could see that some effort had been put into the acoustics with various foam dampers scattered around the walls, ceiling and in particular the corners of the room around the stage.

Porcupine Tree - not bad although I enjoyed them more when they played the Indigo2 last year. The Paris show was the better one in terms of sound quality, atmosphere and the excellent seats we ended up in overlooking the stage for the second half of the show. I quite like The Incident but feel the setlist for the songs taken from earlier albums (same in London & Paris) could have been better. This is all a matter of personal choice of course but with such a large back catalogue a few of the songs were not from what would be regarded as their stronger efforts. Sounds like they will be adding more dates to the tour for next year but I won't be rushing for a ticket if it is more of the same.

Mark

This concert at the Sage last night (see blurb below). Not what I was expecting it to be, I was expecting the Gypsy Kings! Must learn to read the detail properly. Even so it was a belter of a concert, that even had the elderly audience up on their feet dancing. I should explain I was about half the average age.

Regards

Nic

"The Legendary Gypsy Queens and Kings
A concert spectacular featuring Esma Redzepova (Macedonia), Jony Iliev (Bulgaria), Kaloome (France), Florentina Sandu (Romania) Mahala Rai Banda (Romania)

The legendary Gypsy Queens and Kings featuring the Romanian brass demons of Fanfare Ciocarlia has enjoyed exceptional success around the world over the past three years, including a sold out concert at the Barbican in 2007. The Gypsy Queens and Kings 2009 still features Macedonian Gypsy Queen Esma Redzepova, Bulgarian Mahala rocker Jony Iliev, young Romanian singer and Taraf de Haïdouks' Nicolae Neacsus's granddaughter Florentina Sandu, as well as acclaimed French rumba Gitano group Kaloome.

New to Gypsy Queens and Kings 2009 is Romanian brass band, Mahala Rai Banda, who will be performing new material especially created for this new show. Members of Fanfare Ciocarlia will host the Gypsy Queens and Kings concert, joining the circus to perform their most popular tunes: expect an extraordinary and unique experience.

'…just one verse was enough to make this the concert of the year.' The Independent"

Just in from Reverend & The Makers at UEA, Norwich.

Excellent, both performance and sound quality - in fact I have to say that I have never known a band pay so much attention to tweaking the levels to get them just right by a series of discrete signs from Jon McClure (Rev) himself. It was well worth it, as the sound was superb, could hear every instrument and voice clearly and with nuance (and it wasn't quiet...).

A full set of both albums, with a novel approach to encore - after the completion of the main set, McClure went outside with his guitar to do an alfresco busking acoustic set.

All the kids loved it, though granny and I had to go home for our Horlicks.

The support band from Australia, Yves Klein Blue, was really good too, one of the best support bands I've heard in many years of gig-going.

James

Last Saturday Florence and the Machine played the last night of their European tour here in Zurich. They played a nightclub that has a small intimate atmosphere which is one of the nice things about living here. I hadn't bought the album before I got the tickets because I wasn't too impressed with the videos of the singles playing on TV. And when I saw a harp on stage I thought that it was going to go too Kate Bush for my liking. But I couldn't have been more wrong. They played as a rock band being very drum and guitar heavy. Much more what I like live.

Nigel

PS. I took a camera.Florence

good pictures, but why did you only concentrate on one member of the band? :-)

Saw Morrissey collapse last night in Swindon

Green Day at the London O2 Arena last night - amazing show, 2 hours 40 minutes of old, new and lots of in between stuff!

Imogen Cooper, Reading Concert Hall Fri 23rd.
An all Schubert set, the impromptus, some German dances, the A minor and B flat major sonatas.
Brendel like and just a little bit awkward but not unenjoyable.

quote:

Originally posted by nicnaim:
This concert at the Sage last night (see blurb below). Not what I was expecting it to be, I was expecting the Gypsy Kings!

Nic

They're great aren't they - did they wander through the audience at the end? Last time I saw them this added a good 20 mins to the show.

Tinariwen KOKO, London,25/10/09.

A really good concert, good sound lousy view.They play with such panache, enthused the crowd.
Support by an Ethiopian group, drummer(big bongoes) and a lyre? type instrument and 4 dancers 2 mae 2 ladies,. Also very good.

KOKO is OK but as a standing venue, so if as we did opt for some of the few benches, your view is restricted by people leaning on the balconies.Why only a 1/4 of the top floor was open, who knows? Also £1.90 for a small coke(syrup madeup) WTF?

Unfortunately they did not wander through the crowd, they might have struggled to get through the mosh pit of silver surfers.

Regards

Nic

quote:

Originally posted by Huwge:

quote:

Originally posted by nicnaim:
This concert at the Sage last night (see blurb below). Not what I was expecting it to be, I was expecting the Gypsy Kings!

Nic

They're great aren't they - did they wander through the audience at the end? Last time I saw them this added a good 20 mins to the show.

Just in from seeing Julie Fowlis @ Queen's Hall tonight. Really excellent show - what a nice lassie with a lovely voice.

Catch her live if you can.

Ian