You may have noticed over the years that I'm not one for going to large stadium gigs. The intimate, smaller venues are almost so much more engaging - and generally a lot cheaper - for most bands that I love. That said, I have been very lucky with the bands I have seen in smaller venues. Sometimes though, you just have to bite the bullet and Friday night was just such a time - to see Fleetwood Mac play Wembley Arena - and I'm very glad I did.

The band came on around 8.30pm and started off quite slowly, with a bit of chat and a few slow songs. Stevie Nicks seemed a bit faltering and the energy was a bit off, but then, suddenly, everything turned around as they belted out hit after hit with barely a pause in between. Lindsay Buckingham did most of the audience interaction for the night, and seemed to be on stage more than any other band member performing a number of solo acoustic versions of classic songs. Never Going Back Again was stunning and moving and Buckingham's guitarmanship is outstanding. Around an hour in the band was on top form, Nicks seemed to be more comfortable and started engaging more with the audience, and during World Turning we were treated to an extended guitar solo with shouted audience instructions from Mick Fleetwood, which culminated in a turntable/drumming head to head before the rest of the band came back on stage to finish the song.

I don't think any Fleetwood Mac fan was disappointed, other than by the absence of Christine McVie. They played songs from all stages of their career - even solo efforts from Nicks and Buckingham and, most wonderfully, the blues classic 'Oh Well' from their pre Nicks and Buckingham incarnation - with Lindsay carrying off Peter Green's singing and searing guitar with energy and impact. The only downside on the night was that we were so far back and the video screens were a bit crap, but the energy carried around the arena to keep us hooked. The full set, with no support, was about two and a half hours - three encores - impressive stuff and a wonderful night.

Labels: gigs, heroes, Music

Hmm.. seem to have been a bit too quiet on the ol' blog-o-sphere this month! This I attribute to not having anything witty or insightful to say. Apparently my Mercury is heavily retro-graded according to my ever helpful friend Paula. Possibly I'm just recovering from an epic August full of weddings and other fun stuff.

So, a brief update on the month so far: we've wandered around many areas in North London to try and work out where to live next. Hampstead was very nice but stupidly expensive, but the heath is lovely and you can swim in the lakes as long as you don't mind catching something! London Fields was lovely but stupidly expensive. Stoke Newington had a nice park, and was only ridiculously expensive - notice a trend here? Living in London may have its upsides, but cost of living certainly isn't one of them. We also went along to the London Twestival, which was great fun - most of which was had doing craft making small Twitter style birds. Ah, bless.

This last weekend we saw the ever wonderful Massive Attack at Brixton Academy last friday, where Martina Topley Bird did a stunning beatbox version of Black Steel. Then Saturday was a day full of family nephew related fun around London, followed by our first trip to Buttoned Down Disco which was highly enjoyable.

Sunday we braved the many thousands of other cyclists at the London Skyride. It's a wonderful chance to cycle round car free streets in central London, but I have to say it feels less safe cycling round with little kids either wobbling around left and right or zooming through small gaps than it does with cars! That and the somewhat OTT corporate sponsorship from Sky and the highly un-environmentally friendly rubbish, plastic bags, etc generated by the free giveaways. Bio-degradable bags, anyone?

Other than that I are mostly be running a lot. Or was at least until last night, when my knee gave out going past the Houses of Parliament. So another fitness regime has bitten the dust.. for now!

Labels: gigs, London

Some more exciting news - one of my pictures got picked up by RollingStone.com - and as of this second it's currently on the front page - woo! Fame and fortune at last.

For those of you interested, the set list for Pearl Jam's amazing gig at Shepherds Bush:

• Sometimes
• Interstellar Overdrive
• Corduroy
• The Fixer
• All Along The Watchtower
• Why Go
• Dissident
• Severed Hand
• Given To Fly
• Lowlight
• Light Years
• Evenflow
• Present Tense
• Save You
• Down
• Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town
• Brother
• Do The Evolution
• Got Some

Encore #1

• The End
• Inside Job
• Betterman
• Alive

Encore #2

• Soldier of Love
• State Of Love And Trust
• The Real Me
• Yellow Ledbetter

All this from here.

Labels: gigs, photos

In what is likely to be one of the 'must see' gigs this year for indie rockers, if not the rest of us, Pearl Jam have announced a special one-off gig at Shepherds Bush Empire on August 11th. It's time to beg, borrow or steal your way in there folks, as this promises to be something else.

Of course considering Pearl Jam sold out London's humongous O2 in 17 minutes I think we can all safely assume that those not in the industry will have a gnats piss chance in hell of getting in. Still, hope springs eternal, and for those of you who are hopeful (read: 'deluded') what you need to do is pre-order a copy of Pearl Jam's new album Backspacer from HMV.com. They will then send you a unique link that lets you fight it out during the pre-order period between 21st and 22nd July. For the rest of us tickets are on sale July 23rd but let's face it.. there won't be any beyond 0.1ms into the pre-sale assuming HMV's servers don't go into meltdown. Which they will.

Labels: Bands, gigs, London

The ever lovely Spoon River featuring the ever lovely Jason Kent played last night at Club Lambi. I'll post up a few more videos soon, but in the meantime here's the first.

Labels: Bands, friends, gigs, Montreal, videos

Super Furry Daft Punk : Super Furry Animals @ Montreal
Originally uploaded by ultrahi.

Another great gig last night - this time the Super Furry Animals at the Just for Laughs hall. After an interesting couple o' support bands - the monotonal stories of Jeffrey Lewis complete with hand drawn comics, and the wonderful pop punk intensity of Times New Viking - the Super Furries came on with Gruff wearing some kind of space helmet and singing through the eye plate with some great, dark dance beats. It seems they want to be Daft Punk.. but that only lasted for a song before it was helmet off and back to some smashing melodic indie rock. The Furries are on tour right now in the US - so go see them if you can.

Labels: Bands, Cool Stuff, gigs, photos

Just got back in from a splendid night down in the Old Port of Montreal, watching the ever splendid Daedelus. He played an hour set, half an hour less than scheduled for some reason, but what an hour. The beats ranged from mellow hip hop to near techno, with seamless mixing and live playing from a range of film samples and of his own creation. It even snowed a little which just made it seem all the more magical. Thanks again, Mr D.

As usual Daedelus was creating live tracks on his wonderful box of lights 'n buttons, which you can buy now should you so desire. Samples are started via the box on the fly and you can watch the lights moving across in time with them as they play. The samples can then be adjusted, repeated, replayed or played as if on a keyboard all from the same box. It's amazing to watch in action if you get the chance.. oh wait, here's a live clip from youTube so you can see (not Igloofest!)

Go see him if you get the chance - or check out one of his amazing albums. He'll be huge soon, and deservedly so.

Labels: Bands, Dancing, gigs, Montreal, Music

The ever wonderful Daedelus is coming to play Montreal on the 25th January, as part of this year's IglooFest. Plus he has this awesome video out to keep me going till then, splendid.

Maybe I'll try and give him a CD of all the photos from his gig at APT the other year. He seems to like one of them at least, since it's currently his mySpace profile pic. Bless {:).

Labels: gigs, Montreal, Music, Must See

As an addendum to that last post, here's the full set list from tonight's one off Led Zeppelin Reunion Concert:

1. Good Times, Bad Times
2. Ramble On
3. Black Dog
4. In My Time of Dying
5. Trampled Under Foot
6. Nobody's Fault But Mine
7. No Quarter
8. Since I've Been Loving You
9. Dazed and Confused
10. Stairway to Heaven
11. Misty Mountain Hop
12. Kashmir

Then a brief break, followed by an encore of:

1. Whole Lotta Love
2. Rock 'n Roll

A great mix indeed, but of course everyone will be sad that their own faves aren't in there. Fingers crossed they 'sell out' and do a tour...

Labels: Concerts, gigs, Music

Well Led Zeppelin have just finished their one-off gig at the O2 arena in London. From the Radio 6 broadcast I'm listening to the set list was full of classic Zeppelin tracks - Song Remains the Same, Kashmir and Stairway to Heaven all featured. Hopefully soon someone will put some bootleg tracks up and we can all have a jolly good listen to find out how the old rock fogeys have held up. Some of us can't afford £86,000 for a pair of touted tickets y'know.

In related news, the Vicar owner of Bron-Y-Aur, the small cottage in Wales near Machynlleth, has asked that Led Zeppelin fans refrain from doing the pilgrimage to his remote home. Back in my young student days in Birmingham I made that trip as part of an ill fated camping weekend. I hadn't planned on it being a special visit, but as soon as I saw that cottage named on the Ordnance Survey map I had to go. It was dusk when I got there, so I snapped a photo of the wonderfully atmospheric, tree covered driveway then went home - happy to see the place where Page & Plant had spent a weekend creating some amazing songs.

Labels: Brit Stuff, Genius, gigs, London, Music

Last night the Chemical Brothers played McCarren Pool, and since the torrential rain had stopped I wandered down to check them out. After a brief circuit outside I found a great place to watch from the kiddies playground, where the sound was amazing and I could see everything from standing atop a small wall. Splendid! They played all the classics, old and new, and had some great visuals going on behind them as always. Haven't seen them play since Glastonbury many years ago, so it was great to get a chance to dance to them outside again. Thanks brothers!

Oh, and not only did the Chemical Brothers come to play in the 'hood - but apparently the Vice President of Poland came to visit Greenpoint. The local church was cordoned off and surrounded by adoring throngs of local Poles which was highly surreal indeed.

Labels: Bands, Brit Stuff, gigs, williamsburg

Oh my frikkin' lord... I just found out that Eddie Izzard is playing Montreal's Just for Laughs festival this year!! Huzah! Go get tickets now!!

This was also as Arcade Fire suddenly released a few tickets to their New York gigs tonight & tomorrow, but having managed to get one held in TicketMaster's evil clutches I then decided that $15 in fees on a $35 ticket was excessive given I don't really want their children. Eddie on the other hand... well. I think most folks know how I feel about Eddie.

Labels: comedy, gigs, heroes, Montreal

Went out to see the Beta Band last night. They played at the Supper Club, which is generally a swing club with the most amazing ceiling (blue, with scalloped gold shells and lots of recessed lights). Me and the Andy had a laff whilst trying to avoid consuming too many of the weak, overpriced drinks that were on sale. Bless. The set tended to veer more towards the 3 EPs than the other two albums which was fine by me, backed up with bizarro home videos and the occasional live camera angle of them on-stage from the side (which was quite disorientating). Crowd was the usual mix of static New Yorkers in black and Brits who were moving about a lot more.

Meanwhile the subway, specifically the L line, seems to be moving towards an ever less regular service with consequent increase in chock a block full trains. What's up with that? Having said that I always love the days when they decide, normally at my stop, that this train will be an express to Union Square... sweet. And, having said that, it's always infinitely better than the London Tube - which, amongst its flaws, closes at midnight, costs around 3 times as much, is slower (no real express/local lines), more claustrophobic and has no air conditioning. Gotta love them patatas...

Labels: gigs, Music, williamsburg

Oh. Forgot to mention that I went to the Orbital gig at Roseland last night. Amazing concert, danced for the whole set and ended up a complete sweat-fest (for a change). I miss Brit-dance...

Labels: gigs, Music

Went to the most wonderful Bjork concert last night. It was at the Radio City Music hall, which I've never been to before, but is a huge, shell like space that is totally overwhelming. Thanks to the wonderful Paula and Ann I managed to get tickets very close to the front for myself and Alexa. Alexa had never seen Bjork live before so she was especially excited. I was a bit more 'whatever' having seen her a couple of times at festivals, but by the end of the show I was completely in awe. Bjork's voice has developed even further than before and soared against orchestral, electronic and harp backgrounds. Beautiful.

This marks the end of my first week back in New York for a while. I'm now not doing the AccuWx project anymore so won't be making my now regular trips to State College ever Monday and Friday. Part of me already misses the guys up there as they were always amusing and often challenging, which is fun, but another part of me is just glad to be back with everyone in NYC again. Now all I need to do is find out what the future holds... Simple really. First step is major pre-sales work which I'm looking forward to having not done any for a loooooooooong time. Fingers crossed.

Labels: gigs, Music