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
rock
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: Tubular Bells for Two. St George’s, Bristol 30 April 2019
When I saw something called “Tubular Bells For Two” in the listings for St George’s, I thought it had to be worth investigating. Mike Oldfield’s album is one of my absolute favourites and will always feature in my all-time top 10 albums – I usually have it on my phone and do listen to it fairly frequently. It turns out that TB For Two is a performance by two Australian multi-instrumentalists (Aiden Roberts and Tom Continue Reading
Buying Vinyl – Toyah
The car boot sale this morning had thin pickings, apart from one stall with masses of pretty good looking vinyl – as long as you like 50s rock n roll. Which doesn’t really do it for me. The only thing of real interest I found was a 10″ Django Reinhardt record, with Stephane Grapelli – it’s actually a Hot Club de France record, and they are very listenable. The best buy of recent days came Continue Reading
Reading List
As this blog is supposed to about more than just records and gigs, I thought I would start its new iteration with a reading list – some of the music books that I’ve read and some I plan to read. Joe Boyd “White Bicycles” – I read this on the back of his work with Fairport Convention – someone who seemed to be there at every key event in the 60s Glyn Johns “Sound Man” Continue Reading
An Evening’s Listening
And we’re back – I’ve been digging through my dad’s vinyl today and cataloguing, so we’re listening to some of it to see if we want to keep it. First up this evening, Peter Paul and Mary. Yeah, not great. Anything with a song called “I dig rock and roll music” is trying too hard to be down with the trendy hepcats. We’re hanging on for Puff the Magic Dragon… Not a keeper. Average of Continue Reading
Focus
A charity shop purchase from today. Hocus Pocus is just genius! We recognised House of the King and found it was the theme to a 70s children’s TV programme “Don’t Ask Me”. I don’t remember the programme but I remember the theme.