You can go to plenty of gigs and come away thinking you’ve had a good night, enjoyed the band and that’s it.

But every so often you see something that you know is out of the ordinary; that raises the hairs on the back of your neck and gives you the feeling that you really were in the presence of something special.

Watching Guns n’ Roses at the Olympic Park I felt exactly that. But I also felt a massive pang of regret.

The show was epic, of course, and anyone with half an ear for music cannot fail to be moved by the opening bars of some of their classic tunes.

But the regret came from seeing them now. And not in 1988.

This is the closest approximation to the classic line-up I guess anyone will see nowadays, but to have seen them at the time of Appetite for Destruction must have been truly extraordinary.

When they were still untouched by the baggage that comes with being the world’s biggest rock band and they had one of the greatest hard rock albums ever recorded in their back pocket.

Not being able to compare the two I can’t really say that this show was diminished in any way. It was a two-and-three-quarter hour demonstration of what a stellar rock band can do.

There were no phoney showbiz moments, no lengthy call and response passages to fill time, just massive anthems, perfectly chosen covers – including The Damned’s New Rose which they included on their Spaghetti Incident album and Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun as a tribute to the recently departed Chris Cornell – and a boatload of energy.

Sure Axl disappeared occasionally to change into another big hat and possibly get a slug of oxygen and there wasn’t huge amount of interaction between the three principals to suggest they are now getting on like a house on fire but it didn’t look or sound like a cynical money-making exercise.

And when they kicked in to Welcome to the Jungle and Axl did his trademark side-to-side shuffle for the first time it was worth every penny.

And, just as an in joke, now literally everybody in the Western world knows the intro to Sweet Child O’ Mine.

It’s always entertaining looking back through old magazines and seeing bands who had that buzz around them. That for six months or a year the music press were desperate to convince you that these were the real deal.

Some genuinely were but most disappeared, leaving you to wonder fondly `I wonder what happened to…?’

That question could be asked about either of the bands on this ticket, although only one is named and they weren’t who I had gone to see.

The special guests in question where Black Kids who for a while were just about the hottest thing going and who I got to see twice in a matter of months and then never again.

Club Academy was packed and, to be fair, there was also quite a bit of fuss being made about Sons & Daughters so it wasn’t as though they were being usurped by their support.

Black Kids had a boatload of catchy tunes, a single with an insanely memorable chorus and looked like they were having a whale of a time. A couple of months later in Liverpool they were equally as good in another tiny venue after which I literally ran into singer Reggie Youngblood as we both tried to go through the same door at the same time.

Graciously I deferred to his soon to be massive status and stepped aside. History shows I was within my rights to go first.

Sons & Daughters were a bit `meh’. It all seemed a bit obvious and by-the-numbers with songs that lacked the bite and wit of Franz Ferdinand with whom they shared a label.

 

 

 

 

 

I know I’ve probably mentioned it once or twice already, but there’s nothing quite like that fresh blast of energy from a song you just know is going to change your world.

I’m not going to run through other examples here because there would be too many – and this is only about one performer.

I’d already got a seven-inch single by his band when the follow up came out, but on first hearing it was clearly the best straight up and down pop music of my young life so far.

I was so enthused by Wham! and Young Guns (Go For It!) that I took the newly-purchased 12-inch single to the pub to enthuse about it even more to people who were probably tired of my enthusing by this time.

But I knew this was different – and better than most of the other stuff I’d previously been championing loudly (sorry Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears et al).

.And so it was that George Michael earned a place at the Seeyoudownthefront top table.

Unfortunately I wasn’t to see Wham! at the time being much more likely to be wearing a long overcoat than a pair of Fila shorts

But years and years later I did get to see George play a remarkable show at the MEN Arena as part of his 25th anniversary tour when he demonstrated what a consummate showman he was by dominating a huge stage single-handed.

His band were almost hidden on platforms behind him so the focus was solely on George and he didn’t disappoint. It was very much an exhibition of this songwriting talent, his stage craft, his voice and his star quality.

We came away absolutely thrilled by the show and wholly convinced we had seen one of British pop music’s genuine all-time greats.

And what the coverage of his untimely death has proved is that he was great for other reasons besides his music career.

After also losing Bowie and Prince amongst others, losing George at Christmas made a bad year just that much worse.

Now it might seem like I have a great time going to gigs. Fun-filled frolics with friends for all you alliteration lovers out there.

But that’s not always the case.

There have been a few truly horrendous nights/days/weekends and they have nearly always involved a large estate in Stafford.

When the V festival began, it started out in Victoria Park in Warrington, and Hylands Park in Chelmsford with bands like Pulp, Elastica Supergrass and many more. Fantastic.

Then it decamped to Leeds for a bit with the Chelmsford leg remaining a constant, before the northern section settled on Weston Park in Staffordshire.

And for a while everything was cool, It always had an indie leaning mixed in with a bit of pop, but year by year the indie acts began to get shaved and the mainstream chart stuff began to take over.

Nothing wrong with that. There was always some quality chart pop to watch – and who doesn’t love quality chart pop?

But the biggest change was the audience (music snob klaxon alert). With each passing year it seemed to become less and less about the music with a huge majority of the thousands in attendance seemingly oblivious to what or who might be on stage. Lairy gangs on stag and hen weekends, post exam result revellers having a break they would never remember and those who had swallowed a magazine guide on `how to do a festival’.

In the end I got fed up and declared I’d never go back even to see a re-formed Smiths. (That was an idle threat because if they did re-form I’d go anywhere to see them).

So I left it for a couple of fallow years until the line-up was announced for 2014 and there, headlining the Saturday, were The Killers – a favourite of both me and Mrs C.

`How bad could it be?’ I asked myself.

`Very’ I answered before I even got through the gates.

Even the car park was worse than any other. Gangs of lads roaming round obviously looking for vehicles to break into and not really hiding what they were doing.

The queue for the the wristband exchange wasn’t the usual banter-filled 10 minutes or so, but a pushing, seething scrum as if failing to get in right this minute would be the worst thing on earth.

So by the time me, Mrs C and regular Tony had reached the main arena we were already less than thrilled.

And it got worse from then on.

Handily some of the acts alleviated the general unpleasantness, particularly Rizzle Kicks and Lily Allen whose rhyming of Tesco and al fresco makes me laugh every time I hear it.

But by the time The Killers came on after a particularly dull Paolo Nutini set we were more than ready to see them and then get off.

And amongst the crowd members we could see in the dark, we looked like we were the only ones ready to watch and enjoy the band. We were completely surrounded by groups chatting, selfie-taking, updating social media accounts, and generally doing anything except looking at the stage where Brandon and co were working their way through the kind of Best Of… set that usually constitutes a headline performance.

Even the usually undemonstrative Mrs C was forced to throw her hands up in despair and ask `why did you bother to come?’ out loud to anyone who might hear.

So in the unlikely event of some Smithsian hatchet-burying and them deciding that V would be the perfect forum for their return I think I can safely say my days at Weston Park are definitely over.

I doubt they’ll miss me.

 

 

 

My cousin sent me a message yesterday. It had been 32 years to the day since we saw Melle Mel and the Furious Five at Liverpool’s Royal Court.

About that time we saw quite a few bands together – including Melle Mel on two occasions – at this venerable Liverpool venue.

I particularly remember us drinking bottles of Newcastle Brown while watching PIL who were in their weirdest phase of all at the time. Not weird in terms of playing atonal, off-kilter, bass heavy new wave. But weird in terms of having what looked like `rock’ musicians from central casting in the band.

And why as teenagers we were drinking Newcastle Brown I’ll never know.

The Royal Court was virtually a second home for about five years.I’ll be surprised if I didn’t go almost once a  week to see someone – anyone!

Not that MMATFF were just anyone. We were huge fans of the nascent hip-hop and rap movement and more than 30 years on, Melle Mel’s rapping on The Message and White Lines remains as familiar now as it was then.

 

So far, the featured artists in this blog have been people I don’t know.

People I do know get a mention in the course of the post, but none of them have been on stage.

Until now.

This week I was at a show given by someone I’ve been watching for almost 30 years and who I’ve been lucky enough to get to know for about 28 of those.

Our local theatre, The Brindley, staged An Audience with Greg Oldfield – Greg being a local singer/songwriter who has been a fixture on our `scene’ (or whatever has passed for a scene) for three decades.

Unfortunately I only saw the second half being unable to get there until the interval, but even the final hour was worth the admission.

The audience was filled with familiar faces from 30 years of watching local bands and some good-natured banter from the bleachers punctuated the between-songs chat.

Greg treated us to some of the lesser-performed songs from his repertoire, each with a story attached – often self-deprecating, usually funny and occasionally extremely poignant.

He even dusted off two songs from the never-released album by the band he was in at the back end of the 80s – Great & Lady Soul – who signed to Virgin, released two singles and then…(see comments section for full story).

But Bad Weather and My Dictionary were a pleasure to hear again, as was the bluesy cover of Are `Friends’ Electric? which often featured as a G&LS encore back in the day. That band also featured other Tony who you may remember from this year’s Sound City post where he got to meet Sleaford Mods.

All in all, an enjoyable occasion that would bear repeating.

So for the second year running I finished the summer with back to back weekends of Creamfields and End of the Road.

And the contrast could hardly be greater between the two events.

Where the former is a massive communal celebration of getting lost in (dance) music, the latter is a much more cerebral – although at times no less joyous – gathering of music fans.

This year Gill agreed to go and spend the entire weekend on site – a festival first. OK, it was in the boutique camping area, but who’s keeping score!

She did, however, remain slightly disappointed not to have seen one of the fabled peacocks that roam the festival’s Larmer Tree Gardens venue. Maybe the rain which poured down on Saturday kept them sensibly sheltering.

We arrived on Friday just in time for the wonderful Field Music who, despite having had problems getting their gear to the site, still fashioned a set worthy of their reputation and sounded like what might have happened had Prince stumbled into Talking Heads’ rehearsal room and asked to sit in on a couple of tracks.

The nature of EOTR is that for every beard-stroking Louisiana porch merchant on one stage there will be something heading in a radically different direction somewhere else.

Hence we found ourselves watching Shura and Cat’s Eyes in the Big Top neither of whom could conceivably be placed within much of the festival’s roots and Americana agenda.

Shura had impressed at Sound City earlier in the year and here made a compelling case to be a very big deal indeed with a clutch of great synth-washed tunes. Cat’s Eyes were more playful than I expected and their four-piece backing choral singers took many of their songs to great heights.

While not eating, drinking gin-based cocktails or watching engaging Irish comedies at the festival’s cinema – Sing Street if you’re interested – then we also had a good time watching Broken Social Scene, The Big Moon, the bit of Cat Power we saw, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Bill Ryder-Jones.

But, for us, the highlight was certainly Sunday night – again in the Big Top – where both Scritti Politti and Teenage Fanclub were playing.

I can barely state how excited I was to see Scritti Politti having only seen them once before in their entire getting-on-for-40-year history and that was only a short support set.

As with Echo and the Bunnymen, I’ve always found Scritti’s lack of ongoing mainstream recognition somewhat baffling.

I’d take their debut Songs to Remember to a desert island with me if I was only allowed 10 long players and, thinking about it, I’d slip Cupid & Psyche 85 into the same sleeve just to get two to listen to on the beach.

Effectively Green Gartside and accompanying musicians they plucked gems from their four decades including the big 80s hits such as Wood Beez and Absolute, the indie beginnings such as The Sweetest Girl and Jacques Derrida and later work like The Boom Boom Bap.

He told a story about seeing Tito Puente in New York with Kraftwerk and introduced Asylums in Jerusalem by saying `as you’ll recall from Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity…’ I don’t think most of us did but it wasn’t important.

It was an hour of utterly brilliant polished pop that I’d go a long way to see again and again.

After Scritti had finished there was then a hiatus in the Big Top while Joanna Newsom did her thing on the main stage, but once she’d finished, Teenage Fanclub strode onstage in the tent to a heroes’ welcome and drove through a greatest hits set plus a couple of new songs from their forthcoming album.

Stylistically they plough a similar furrow throughout, but they do it with charm and songs like Star Sign and Sparky’s Dream are genuinely great.

 

I remain staggered that an event like Creamfields happens in Daresbury, 10 minutes drive time from my front door.

I did my usual again this year with a ticket for Sunday only as I’m fully aware that I couldn’t last for a Saturday stint and the  come back the next day, when all I’m really interested in are some good tunes, a bit of a laugh and a few beers.

With the regular duo of me and Matt having our numbers supplemented – first by Jon and now also by Paul M – it’s a great middle of the Bank Holiday weekend day and night out.

Hadn’t planned to watch Tiesto again, but once we’d stood and listened to Hardwell we didn’t fancy moving away from that particular stage.

We love the outdoor atmosphere – especially on a warm night – and the headliner didn’t disappoint.

Just to add a little more excitement three of us walked much of the way home along the canal which, after a drink or two and in the pitch black, was interesting to say the least!

I never grin more at a gig than I do at Creamfields. I’ve maybe got one or two left in me and it would be nice to make it to double figures. Can I plead for Daft Punk next year and then call it quits?

Way back when, well 1992, I got a free CD on a magazine – probably Q which I read avidly at the time – and listening to it in the car on he way home from work only one track made a lasting impression.

It was I Feel Lucky by Mary Chapin-Carpenter and I played it over and over. I also laughed when Danny Baker played it on what I’m guessing would still have been his morning Radio 5 show and commented on the growl she emits close to the end.

If Danny likes it, I thought, there must be something in it.

So when the parent album it came off was favourably reviewed I took the plunge, even though at that time fairly folky, semi-country female singer songwriters weren’t my thing.

But they are now, and the reason they are is almost entirely down to the impact Mary and her Come On Come On album had.

Within a couple of years and with the help of CMT on cable TV you couldn’t move for the likes of Mary, Trisha Yearwood, Kathy Mattea, Suzy Bogguss and the then sparkly newcomer Shania Twain.

But over the years their visibility has gradually faded from the mainstream which is a huge shame.

However, every couple of years she comes back to do a few UK shows one of which this time round was at Liverpool Philharmonic.

Last time out Gill and I had seen her backed by Manchester Camerata which was a magical evening, but at the Phil it was a more traditional arrangement of pianist and guitar/mandolin player supporting her in a show that was quietly understated and reflective in common with much of her material.

Her voice continues to carry stories of small town hopes, dreams and disappointments in a way that makes you believe every word and when it drops to barely a whisper it’s like it’s just for you.

The standing ovation at the end was richly deserved after she had worked her way through an outstanding back catalogue plus a few songs from her new album, The Things That We Are Made Of.

 

 

Michael Eavis knows mud when he sees it.

He’s a farmer and he runs a festival that is notorious for having had some truly atrocious conditions underfoot over the years.

So when he says the 2016 Glastonbury was `the muddiest ever’ you know it must have been bad.

Now I can’t vouch for all the previous waterlogged years, but I can definitely confirm that this year’s was a shocker.

Not music wise   Heard some terrific stuff, and you have to be the worst kind of curmudgeon to look at Glastonbury’s 2,000 acts and claim it’s all rubbish.

But getting around the site was akin to one of those fundraising Tough Mudder events. At time I thought someone was actually holding me by the ankles!

However, I don’t want this to be all about the mud.

If you’ve never been you should try to go at least once. It’s sheer scale and breadth are staggering.

Other festivals might be doing individual bits better, but none are the whole package on this level.

Our – by which I mean me Gill, Tony and Helen- 2016 Glastonbury didn’t get off to the most promising start when James were nearly an hour late opening the Other Stage while tractors poured sawdust and woodchip onto the worst of the mud at the front of the stage before the audience could be allowed in.

But whatever else is going on, once a band kicks in everything else takes a back seat and James didn’t play it safe including several newer tracks along with a handful from their glorious past.

And watching a band who were at their biggest more than 20 years ago pretty much set the tone for a lot of what we did over the weekend. Our vintage can be gauged by the fact that we also enjoyed Madness, Paul Carrack, Art Garfunkel, ZZ Top and, particularly, ELO.

Jeff Lynne’s astonishing back catalogue with the latter was a wonder to behold as he chucked out hit after hit backed by what looked like a chamber orchestra and made a miserable, drizzly afternoon a multi-coloured pop delight.

Madness included a nicely judged tribute to David Bowie with a cover of Kooks and if Art’s voice isn’t quite the pristine instrument of old, it’s still good enough to send shivers down the spine when  you hear him start `When you’re weary, feeling small…’

There was also a rambunctious set in the Fields of Avalon from the Ben Miller Band who brought some backwoods country-blues to a corner of Somerset.

Honourable mentions, too, for Explosions in the Sky, Ward Thomas and Wolf Alice at various points over the weekend.

You always go with plans to see much more and then don’t see half. But getting distracted is genuinely the other half of the fun.

Still, not long now until tickets for next year go on sale. I’ll have forgotten the mud by then!