What was your last concert you went to ?

Haim,

I would have also preferred just sticking to one or two composers but I would have loved to hear his encore pieces.

Join us at Russian Tea Time when we go see Marinsky Theatre with all Stravinsky program.

I love their Beef Stroganoff!

I saw Mark Knopfler and his band playing at the Royal Albert Hall last night.  Excellent concert and MK on good form - but no need for a hairband these days.  Support act was the delightful Ruth Moody who also sings on his latest album Privateering.  Well worth checking out her music. Overall a much better concert than I anticipated and a very enjoyable evening.

MUSE gig last Sunday. Thank God I had ear defenders on! Excellent show.

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

Last tuesday, Rush at Sheffield. Pity you have to go to these massive arenas to see them. Not sold out which I think reduced the overall atmosphere. Band were great,first 60minutes of their 80`s music with a 15 minute break. Back with music from Clockwork Angels and a few classics to finish with. Nearly 3 hours. They do IMO have fun onstage.....last song to first roundabout outside arena 10minutes,,,awesome

Neil Young Crazy Horse – Newcastle – Last Night 10^th June.

Neil and Crazy Horse were on fantastic and full on Crazy Horse from, and I mean full on!, from the first song with only a couple of acoustics songs for a breather mid-way.

Played a fair amount of Psychedelic Pill and the good old classics!

As I said the sound was really fully on with a solid wall of drum, bass and rhythm guitar which only Crazy Horse can do. Neil sang and played lead and floated on top of this or got down dirty with The Horse. They played many extended tracks, as you would expect, with those classic extended feedback endings.….I love it!

The sound quality was great and improved in what was a very echoey venue, the support act, Los Lobos, on the other hand never got the sound right but Neils’ sound desk crew nailed it!

On a Hi-Fi point the full on concert sound reminded me of why I love Naim amps and my Superline compared to many others I have heard as they approach and can present music in that live full one engaging fashion. If you go to live rock concerts you will know what I mean.

Now I am searching for a ticket for Liverpool!

Richard

Looking forward to Birmingham tonight. I hear he has dropped 'like a Hurricane' from the set?

Enjoy Birmingam tonight...I am sure you will.

No he didn't play Like A Hurricane last night but Rockin' In The Free World was awsome!

One of his acoustic songs (of which there were three) was Dylan's Blowin' In The Wind which was nice.

Richard

God I'm looking forward to Monday in London now. We should all compare setlists...

Looking forward to Monday too. 

Neil & Crazy Horse - worth every penny. No "Rockin ITFW" but we did get Powderfinger, Cinnamon and Cortez which more than made up.

I don't think I have seen a more laid back and economical bass player and what a tight band they were -  but after so many years so they should be.

Los Lobos were well worth seeing too.

Neils last tour?   I think not

Ron

Urban voodoo machine 10th anniversary concert at the Leicester square theatre. fantastic gig. Thoroughly enjoyed the whole set including comedian and Miss Miranda as support. If you get the opportunity to see these guys then take it as you will not be dissapointed.

Neil Young Birmingham last night - fantastic. Such energy and the youngest is 64!

10 minutes of distorted guitar feedback at the end of 'Walk Like a Giant' - Heart of Gold was a welcome relief after that!

Lez Zeppelin, an all-female Led Zep tribute band, at the Garage last night.

Good fun. although the vocals were a bit iffy, and Bonzo's drum sound just can't be replicated.

The problem with Lez is that the testosterone is missing.  No balls but as you say pleasant enough.

My occasional taxi driver is Robert Plant (seriously) with 'The Levee Breakers' who have a bit more 'spunk' (as they used to say in the 1940's).  Youtube them and you will get the idea. 'Ramble On' and 'Kashmir' are not half bad. G

Not bad at all G.

One of the better LZ tribute outfits are Zeperella, whose guitarist is not only a hottie, but very good. But the vocalist is hopeless. And again, no-one plays drums like Bonzo - impossible to get that sound he had, or the swing of his playing.

.....she is indeed both these things Kevin but the vocals are just not there. G

Last three:

The Fall at Clapham Grand.  They always produce a few blinders but, despite MES having his best line up for a while, they mainly missed the mark.  Is there such a thing as an average Fall gig - this may well have been it.  MES antics included his customary fiddling with the bands' equipment (turned the bass off for a while!) and retreating to the back of stage to rummage through sheets of A4.  Catching up on the filing maybe?  Sound was OK but not loud enough.

The Melvins at Brixton Electric.  Night two of their residency, playing Bullhead and Stoner Witch back to back.   Boy oh boy - these guys were fantastic.  Stoner Witch is one of my favourite albums and seeing it live was truly colossal.  The strike force of Coady Willis and Dale Crover on drums, plus a fantastic and very loud PA, pummelled the audience from the first note.  Have never yet seen a duff Melvins gig, but this was up there with the very best.  My chum who saw them the previous night playing Houdini and Lysol said that Stoner Witch was the highlight of the two nights.  Truly magnificent - and a tremendous venue (which I think I remember from my clubbing exploits as The Fridge?).

The Stone Roses - Finsbury Park (Friday).  I think I'm going to make a self imposed rule not to go to comeback tours.  I thought they were terrible - and for a band who were so damned good first time around this really taints my perception of them.  OK - we're not expecting Ian Brown's vocal efforts to amount to much - but he was distractingly awful on Friday.  Despite the best efforts of the rest of the band, and heroic commitment of the audience to drown our Mr Brown, they barely hinted at what they achieved 20+ years ago.  We positioned ourselves in the firing line of the left speaker stack but the sound was bad, way too quiet and too mushy.  

Oddly most reviews I've read have been positive - but the majority of punters comments have been poor.

And £4.50 for a plastic tray to carry your beer in - c'mon guys.....  

Todd Rundgren last night at the Shepherd's Bush Empire. A bit bonkers, although I like it precisely for that reason.

I know many others - including Denis from this forum - thought differently

Well Kevin you are correct, cos at this moment 'In Todd' I distrust. The 'Touch Screen' concept of delivering a live gig, instead of playing real instruments and real live vocals didn't work for me.

This was a case for Digital vs Analogue, where like Dig = 1 OR hate Dig = 0

I was Dig = 0

Anyway, one bad gig in three years is a pretty good track record and this won't deter my gig going in the future. The thrill of feeling & seeing Dave Gregory's band Tin Spirits perform 'Red' the other week will live long in the memory.

I'll be Driftin' Back with you Howard & Adrian tomorrow night, where the music delivery will be a bit more old school

The Who - Quadrophenia and More at the O2, Sat 15th June 2013

Discovered a great little pub no more than 5 minutes walk from the venue where we had a decent pub meal and few pints of proper beer at no more than I would pay for in my local. Well done them for not ripping us off. Wandered in to the venue and bought a T-shirt at a reasonable (for this day and age) £25. Then started the route march to the other side of the venue where entrance H was. Then we met our porters and sherpas for the final summit push. Actually I'm exaggerating there because we only made it to row Q where our seats were and there still 4 more rows to go before the summit could be claimed. So seats reached I turn around carefully (you don't want to fall off at this elevation) remove my oxygen mask and sit down to see the view for the first time … hmm girders and lighting rigs don't look too interesting but wait a minute, it sounds like there is a band down there somewhere. If only you were allowed to bring long lenses I could have seen who was on stage but with my 20/20 (with contacts) they could have been anybody. Turns out they were a pretty decent soul/gospel/blues band called Vintage Trouble. Nothing new but great performance from what we could see on the TVs … err big screens.

Then, after a brief wait, on come Rog and Pete with backing group and proceed to rattle off the whole of Quadrophenia. It's not one of my favourite albums but I've been listening to it a lot recently and they really did it justice. For me I felt it only really got going when 5:15 kicked in but I'm prepared to concede that had we been on the floor I might have been more engaged. After that I was expecting a little break but this being 2013 and with a H&S/noise protection society geezer with his mits on the fuses they had to keep going to get the mini-set of half a dozen or so Who classics in at the end. This was all achieved with minimal fuss and my only surprise was when Pete introduced the band to discover that it wasn't Zac on drums but someone who's name escaped me - maybe had we been on the floor this would have been a bit more obvious but from the death zone of Mt O2 it could have been one of my mates on drums and I'd have been none the wiser.

So to sum up a good concert only spoiled for me by being so far above it that at times I felt I was watching the event rather than taking part in it. this was my second trip to the O2 but unless Mr Plant agrees to a few weeks there with Mr Page,  Mr Jones and Master Bonham or I move to Greenwich I can't see me going back. It's just too much of an effort to get there and then to discover you can't even recognise the band having parted with approx £150 for the two of us is just a bit much. Maybe Pete should write a new album about being separated from the audience … hang on that's the other Rog and I'm going to see that in September at Wembley. Eek.

Scott

Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band Wembley last night.

EPIC is the only word I can think of to describe last night's Wembley show, Like many I have seen Bruce countless times since my first Bruce gig in 1985 but for me last nights performance takes it straight into the top 3 Bruce shows I have ever seen, along with Milan in '93 and July 5th last year in Paris.

I really believe that Bruce and the E-Street band have never been better, I had got 2 songs left on 'my want to hear list' Lost in a Flood and Thundercrack, at one point it looked as if Bruce was walking towards a banner for Thundercrack but he collected a Hungry Heart banner instead, I was gutted, only to be taken to cloud 9 a few minutes later when he played Lost in a Flood, it was all a little emotional

Light Of Day was another highlight that I haven't heard in a long time, if only he had played Part Man, Part Monkey it would have been the 80's all over again. I was convinced that we would be treated to Born in the USA in its entirety, considering how monumental that tour was at Wembley in 1985 but never expected Darkness in its entirety, I couldn't have been happier, there are some great guitar solo's on that album and it has been awhile since I have seen Bruce take centre stage so much and perform such amazing solo's, brilliant to watch, and although I have heard most of the songs live many times from Darkness they just seemed more enjoyable hearing them as part of the album, strange to explain but I enjoyed them last night more than I have ever before, I enjoyed Candy's Room maybe a little too much to be honest with my air guitar taking a right hammering but it was Racing In The Street that stole the show for me, the instrumental section at the end was mesmerising, great to see Roy doing his thing.

I'm convinced that Wembley 2013 will go down in the history books as one of Bruce's best and will be talked about for years to come by everyone who was lucky enough to be there, I had a feeling it would be a special night but had no idea it was going to be that great, it felt like a real treat for all the fans that have been following Bruce for all the years gone by.

I've got another 6 gigs left on this tour but I really can't see any of them touching last night, but that is the great thing about a Bruce gig, you never know what to expect, Leeds could be a corker and maybe Kilkenny will be up there, but I don't think that Wembley night will ever be repeated, I'm just grateful that I was there to experience it for myself.

Coventry next on Thursday, can't wait to see what Bruce has in store for us then

Great review Scott

Those seats do put you in a precarious position in continual fear of your safety & a bit detached from the "real world"! 

Thankfully I can usually get access to slightly more favourable seats & have enjoyed many gigs there (despite some other members dislike of the venue).

With regards to the actual performance I 100% agree that it only sprung into action with 5:15, and being "closer to the action" did not (for me) make it any more engaging 

Anyway, another one to tick off the list!

Neil Young last night at the O2.

We were incredibly lucky and had seats in front of the stage at the top of the first lot of seating. Not at all sure how we got those as we are usually up with Scott! Still quite a way away tho'

It was an astonishing concert! He played his 'wall of noise' concert but what a wall of noise! Mrs Lutyens was not overly impressed and wished he had played 'more tunes'! But you take Mr Young as he comes and this concert, and this tour it would appear, is him and Crazy Horse just blasting out the 'hits'! As someone pointed out the youngest of the four of them is 64! Neil bobbed and bounced his way through the set with ridiculous energy. Lots of stuff from Pshyco Pill but also Like a Hurricane, Everyone Knows This is Nowhere, Cinnamon Girl, Roll Another Number, Hey Hey, and in that acoustic bit, Comes A Time.

As the last number arrived he very graciously commented that he understood people had to leave to get trains, at first I thought he was being sarcastic but no, and he went on to hope all the children we had left at home would wake up without a worry in the world in the morning. He also pointed out that some of what they had done this evening had sucked but that is what happens when they do what they do.

Did it suck? Well F##k Up was pretty pointless even if the groove was great, (and it was on the record too frankly), and his return to Arc Weld for 10 minutes was probably a wall too far for many, but as I say you have to take Mr Young as he comes and he was storming last night. Wouldn't have missed it at all.

And I regret I was dissappointed by Los Lobos again. I think they are, for me at least, a much smaller venue band. And I so want them just to play their perfect perfect songs rather then to try to make them all into stadium rockers. They remain one of my favourite bands............... but just not live....not yet anyway.

Mr Cohen on friday will be a much more civilised affair!

james