Gigs

I have this weird kind of luck when it comes to seeing some bands. I don't actually go to gigs hardly at all any more, not because I don't like music, but because they are so often so incredibly, prohibitively expensive; so these days when some band comes through and I see them, it's because I get a ticket as a birthday present or - as was the case last night - someone can't make it and gives me their ticket. Andy was apparently called down south to play with Vashti Bunyan in Manchester, so he gave me his ticket to see Rush.



I'm somewhat tickled by the idea that these days you can go and see a band, come home, and less than twenty-four hours later watch them again, after phonecam footage has been posted on YouTube. There were two guys directly in front of me - I was about halfway back - holding up, respectively, a phone and a camera with video capacity. I suspect the footage above came from one of them.

The gig was fun ... especially the, eh, the early good stuff, as it were (and with apologies to Woody Allen). I'm afraid Rush haven't been quite the creative force they once were - in my entirely personal and humble opinion - since perhaps the late Eighties, and the last album I bought, on shiny vinyl, was Power Windows, waaaay back. On the other hand ... I like the track Subdivisions (above) a lot. Maybe if last night had been the first time I heard it, I wouldn't have been so enamoured of it. Who knows? But I am increasingly of the opinion that I'd rather see someone newer, for a lot less money.

Which reminds me ... I meant to write something about Led Zeppelin, since I was a huge fan, and the reunion gig and all ... but, you know, I've seen Page and Plant a couple of times and that is Led Zeppelin, minus John Paul Jones. So despite the fact I'd have happily trampled over grannies to get to a Zep gig a few years back, now I'm, like, eh.

Ps - new book out tomorrow! Remember!