This one was a bit of a punt – I’d never (knowingly) heard any of their music, but a good friend of mine rates them so when I saw that they were doing a small handful of shows in the UK, but including Bristol, I thought I’d give it a go.This hasn’t always worked out well – Gaslight Anthem being the worst (the nearest I’ve ever come to leaving a gig early).But it has worked Continue Reading
live
Gigs That Didn’t Happen
Given that we’re all on lockdown, we’ve already had 3 concerts cancelled or postponed. We were due to see Darius Brubeck (son of Dave, of “Take 5” fame) at St George’s in mid-March (no idea whether that’s going to be re-arranged or not) The Devon Philharmonic Orchestra concert at Exeter Cathedral on the 28th April has been cancelled – a friend of ours plays viola in the orchestra, and is therefore partly responsible for the Continue Reading
More Springsteen Downloads
I wrote a while back about my Springsteen download problem, and that problem hasn’t gone away – although there have actually been a small handful of shows he’s released that I haven’t bought. There’s usually a show released on the first Friday of each month, but this month I saw that it had been delayed for “a seasonal release”, and one thing sprang immediately to mind – are they going to release the 1978 San Continue Reading
Live Review: Richard Hawley. O2 Academy, Bristol – 2nd October 2019
This was the third time I’ve seen Richard Hawley – the previous ones were in 2013 and 2015, both at Colston Hall (see below). The first time we went, I knew next to nothing about him – SWMBO had heard him on BBC 6Music, saw that he was playing in Bristol and recommended we went. I was actually blown away by how good he was – great songs, a good voice and a fantastic guitar Continue Reading
Live Review: New Order, Bristol Harbourside – 18th July 2019
OK, so this one is a bit late – nearly 3 months after the show, sorry about that. I didn’t bother with any of the Bristol Summer Series shows this year as nothing really grabbed me. I quite like the venue, and have seen Sigur Ros and the Manic Street Preachers there in 2016 and 2017.Elbow were tempting, having seen them before (on the Seldom Seen Kid tour) – they were fantastic then but I’ve Continue Reading
Live Review: Muse. Ashton Gate Stadium, Bristol – 5th June 2019
After the football stadium at Ashton Gate had been redeveloped, they decided to start hosting big concerts again – they’ve done it in the past with such cutting-edge acts as Meat Loaf, Elton John and The Who, but this year they upped their game somewhat by hosting 4 concerts in consecutive weeks.First up was Rod Stewart (a safe retro act), then Take That and finishing with The Spice Girls – Rod The Mod is OK Continue Reading
Live Review: Status Quo, many times…
When I decided to start this blog, one thing I wanted to do was go back and write about concerts I’ve been to in the past, and I realised that I have an ideal opportunity to start this.This post is very deliberately timed, exactly 35 years to the day, to the hour, from when I was at what I consider to be gig #1 – the first gig I went to on my own, Status Continue Reading
Live Review: Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul. O2 Academy, Bristol 22 May 2019
“Little who?” I hear you ask…Little Steven, aka Miami Steve, aka Steve Van Zandt – old friend of Bruce Springsteen, member of the E Street Band, sometime writer and producer for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, and for some of you Silvio Dante from The Sopranos – or maybe Frank from Lilyhammer. And the man who wrote Sun City. His solo career has been a bit hit and miss/stop-start – his first album came Continue Reading
My Download Problem
My name is Simon and I have a download problem.More specifically, I have a Bruce Springsteen download problem. One of the joys of being a Springsteen fan is that no two shows of his are ever the same – he really does change the setlist every night, and even then rarely keeps exactly to what he wrote down before the show. When he does multi-night stands in one place, it changes even more.So there’s always Continue Reading
Live Review: The Unthanks. St George’s, Bristol 1 May 2019
Gigs on consecutive nights! I think I’ve only done that once before, when I saw The Strypes at the Thekla on the night before a classical concert at St George’s – not the greatest of scheduling given how loud The Strypes were! The contrast between Tuesday’s Tubular Bells for Two and Wednesday’s Unthanks show couldn’t be greater – something like 20 instruments on stage for TB, no instruments for The Unthanks. I think they had Continue Reading