couple of Outs this week … firstly, Show of Hands on Tuesday at St Georges in Bristol. SoH are probably my favourite live band, even though they are folk 🙂 Moyra (WINOLJ) came up from Berks to accompany us, before wending her way northwestwards for a funeral.
she was introduced to Show of Hands by me – I gave her a CD of theirs. The band are more than happy for people to spread their music around like this, and say so at every concert; if only more musicians were able to do this, but the record companies wouldn’t like it, would they?
Phil and Steve were accompanied during the second half by Miranda Sykes, a singer / double bass player from Lincoln with a voice that we knew could do folk, but didn’t know could do jazz. Well, she can!
as always, a most enjoyable night.
last night, we went to see Jools Holland at Colsonall. We see him every year during his autumn tour, and sometimes during the summer too, and it’s normally a great gig. However, not last night …
firstly, the sound mix was dire. Absolutely appalling. The brass section were mixed up too high, and you couldn’t hear any of the vocals properly. Such a shame, because Sam Browne and Ruby Turner are both fabulous singers.
and then there was the elephant chap in the seat next to me. He was *gargantuan*. He can’t have been much more than 20 years old, and while I’m hopeless at judging weight in avoirdupois, he must have been at least 25 stone (that’s 350lbs for my transatlantic readers). He bulged over the edge of the shiny new seat, so that I had to sit twisted and hunched. Then he proceeded to eat. And eat. Two packets of chocolate, a bag of crisps, a bottle of coke, a banana (a banana?! in a concert?! oh yes – the smell was nauseating). At least, that was what I noticed, in about an hour and a half, and then we went to have a dance, and find somewhere else to sit. He’s probably there still, unless they managed to get a crane into the hall.
oh, and the support act was Chris Difford, who used to be in Squeeze. His voice is gone, and he just rehashed old Squeeze numbers, but Glenn Tilbrook he ain’t. Not enjoyable – avoid.
high spot of the evening was the guest star with Mr Holland, one Marc Almond – I must say that a rhythm and blues version of Tainted Love worked remarkably well, although I kept expecting it to segue into the 12″ version :… )