Wavering
Posted: Tue 22 October, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Gigs, Introspective, London, Music, Self-Doubt, Stupidity, Travel Leave a comment »This afternoon/evening, I’m supposed to be going to see Peter Gabriel at the O2. I’ve booked the afternoon off work, I’ve paid for the parking at the O2. As an aside, I always feel that parking cost is an iniquitous extra, but such is life – while it might be feasible for me to get there by public transport, it’s completely unfeasible for the return journey.
I will go
But right now, my brain’s wavering and havering, thinking “Yeah, but…” on a number of reasons, a range of logical excuses to not go. Tired, distance, time, return time, work – it’s all in there, all making me doubt.
I will go. I want to go.
I just wish my brain would be more certain, and shut up a bit.
Peter Gabriel, Next October
Posted: Fri 23 November, 2012 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Gigs, Music Leave a comment »Following on from getting tickets to Cowboy Junkies next January, I found out via Twitter that Peter Gabriel is touring next October, two nights at the O2 in London, one in Manchester at the MEN, and one in Glasgow at the Hydro.
So, following more than a year of no concerts, 2013 now already has two excellent gigs that I’m really looking forward to.
Getting Back
Posted: Mon 12 November, 2012 Filed under: 2012/13, 41 - 42, Domestic, Gigs, Music Leave a comment »In conversations (and D4D posts) last week, I realised it’s now more than a year since I’ve been to a concert. I’ve eased off on them over the last few years, partly through getting a bit pickier following some that were pretty bad, and partly just through a lack of available time and finances along with venues not being as easy to get to.
Manchester was fantastic for getting to/from gigs, and had plenty of good venues as well. Bracknell was less good, and Norfolk/Suffolk were a pain in the bits. From the new place, it’s likely still London (although there’s also other smaller locations which aren’t too bad) and what with one thing and another it’s not been great for booking tickets.
Anyway, I’d thought I’d make some changes, and this weekend has meant that’s started – my first gig in 14 months will be in Janurary, seeing the Cowboy Junkies (yet again) , this time at the Barbican in London.
And I can’t wait.
Muse, Wembley, 11/9/10
Posted: Sun 12 September, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Music, Reviews(ish) 3 Comments »Last night, we saw Muse at Wembley Stadium.
I’ve got to be honest, I’m not a fan of Wembley Stadium – for me it’s just too big for gigs, and you end up watching the band on big video screens rather than seeing them in action. Sure, if you can get standing tickets you might have a better chance – but I haven’t managed that with Wembley yet.
The shows are huge – they have to be – but (in my opinion) I find them quite soulless, that they really are a big marketing exercise.
In the case of Muse, this was the third time I’ve seen them – the last time was back in December 2003 and the shows have grown immensely since then. The set itself last night was stunning – and even more so when it came to life for the gig itself – with huge forced perspective buildings that turned out to be enormouse videoscreens, along with weird balloons around the back of the stage, and a lightshow that probably could’ve powered a small to mid-sized town. Oh, and the now-essential moving sections of stage. Of course.
On that technical / effects side, the entire gig was stunning – well, except for the smaller videoscreens having a lag of about two seconds, so that the sound was coming through before the video – decidedly weird, and not what you expect at a gig that size. But the lighting rig was awesome, the sound set up was spot-on, and technically it was great.
Muse were good too – but in my opinion they’re too small for Wembley. Yes, they music fills the place and is stunning, but performance wise, you just can’t see three people on a stage that size. Any theatrics that were done (including Matt Bellamy’s Glowing LED suit) were just too damn small. Even the moving sector of stage, moving, lifting and rotating was well, just too small. In the O2 it would’ve been excellent. In Wembley it was all just dwarved by the size of the Stadium.
So all told, a tad underwhelmed. Muse blasted the stage and sound system, but I just came out feeling that Wembley was too big – they could’ve done the same gig at the O2 and it would’ve been stunning, but with less people and a smaller scale to fill.
Yello – Touch
Posted: Thu 9 September, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Music, Reviews(ish) Leave a comment »I’ve been a fan of Yello since the mid eighties, when someone introduced me to the Stella album. From there I got the previous albums, and I’ve bought every one since. There’s a couple missing now (The Race, and Essential), but all the same, they’re a collection of CDs that I love.
The last Yello album I bought was The Eye, back in 2003, and I hadn’t heard anything more from them since then.
For whatever reason, I’ve been listening to the Pocket Universe album in the car over the last couple of weeks, and (as always) really enjoyed listening to it – and it occurred to me that I hadn’t checked in a while to see whether there was anything new.
And lo, it turned out that there was – Touch, released in October last year. Happy, happy day.
I received it yesterday, and it’s been on in the car today.
And it’s really good – as usual. Much more accessible than most of their stuff, and much less mad – rather than heavy electronica it’s got a really bluesy feel to a lot of it, which I really like.
I hope it’ll be a lot less than seven years before the next album comes out.
Peter Gabriel at the O2
Posted: Sun 28 March, 2010 Filed under: Music, Reviews(ish) Leave a comment »As has been mentioned before on here, I’m a bit of a fan of Peter Gabriel – not hardcore “all the way back to the 70s”, but I like far more of his stuff than I dislike, and I’ll usually go and see him live. Mind you, I’m gobsmacked that it’s now six years since I’d seen him live – although I did end up missing (OK, not going to) the concert a couple of years back at Blickling Hall in Norfolk.
Anyway, when I saw about tickets coming available for a concert at the O2, I was there. It was in promotion of the “Scratch My Back” album which hadn’t even been released at the time, but *shrug* I don’t worry about things like that.
The gig itself was always going to be slightly strange. Gabriel’s done away with the general band stuff, and instead gone with a total orchestra, stripping down the songs and then orchestrating them. It had been billed as being no support, an hour of the new album, an interval, then another session with older stuff. It didn’t work out quite like that – everything started late, there was then a short (three song) intro by Anna Lünd – who’s also doing a lot of the backing vocals in the rest of the show. At that point the lights went back up, an interval of about ten-fifteen minutes, and then into the Scratch My Back section of the show. A fifteen minute interval that stretched to nearly thirty, then back to the final “older stuff” section.
All that aside though, it was a really good gig. The visuals were really impressive, doing stuff I hadn’t seen before with multi-layered screens, and almost holographic at some points. The sound was fantastic, and the orchestra were stunning. Some of the songs were just fantastic – particularly his versions of Arcade Fire’s “My Body Is A Cage” and Magnetic Fields “Book of Love”. The entire album was done live, which is quite an achievement in itself.
The second section was more of the same, but orchestrated versions of older tracks, including the crowd favourites. There were a couple I wish he’d done as well, but I think that’s always the way when it’s a gig covering nearly forty years of music. But he played (among others) “Digging in the Dirt”, “Signal to Noise”, “Mercy Street”, “Darkness”. “In Your Eyes” and (of course) “Solsbury Hill”, which still managed to be as whimsical as ever.
I’d have loved to see Sledgehammer done in this gig, or Growing Up, but I guess they’d be hard to do in an orchestrated version.
All told, it was a pretty great gig – allbeit a very different one to most of the ones I see, and very different to the previous Peter Gabriel concerts. But still, fantastic to see.