Face Of Cheam

The best single of the year (if only on download and vinyl)

Wow time flies. At last I have managed an update. Apologies it is a combination of being too busy and laziness. Much as I like my new job (although two years now is not that new), it can be tiring with liasing with colleagues in the USA can mean staying late every so often. Still it can be flexible and I managed to leave early yesterday to see Saints' 19th straight home win, the best by any side for forty years. Just six more off the British record. I doubt we can keep playing like we have been but I feel that if we were in the Premiership playing as we currently are we would be challenging for a top six place if not Champions League.
Other news is that I have booked a holiday to coincide with a friends wedding in Capetown in February next year. Don't really know much about the town and until he announced his plans I had no desire to go there. Still looking it up on the map for the first time today, I see how south it is and started to get a nit excited.
Remarkably the stag do has already taken place by having a weekend in Lisbon. I was quite taken with the city, with its cobbled streets and odd tram system. The downside was I had to fly to the states for work cutting short the Monday which whacked me out not only for that week, but the week after when I was back in the UK.
Finally I tried to use a time machine to visit Jimmy Saville now that he has died. Alas it didn't work as it kept going back and forth or rather now then now then now then.

The Pierces are a pair of very pretty sisters, sing guitar folk, reminiscent of Stevie Nicks or Mamas And Papas. Only knew a couple of songs but all very pleasant all the same. The encore included a cover of Simon & Garfunkel's Kathy's Song. The only moan I had was the audience. A bit like other folky artists, they are scared to bop around in the high tempo songs and you could see clusters of the standing crowd getting frustrated with the cinema viewer stares of their counterparts. For once I was happy being upstairs rather than either moaning at the lack of atmosphere or being moaned at for enjoying myself too much!

Set - Kissing You Goodbye / Love You More / It Will Not Be Forgotton / Piece Of You / Drag You Down / Sticks And Stones / The Good Samaritan / Close My Eyes / City On Fire / We Are Stars / You'll Be Mine / Glorious ///// Kathy's Song / I Put Your Records On / Boring

Freshers week in Kingston and £4 to see Wheatus. The nightclub is absolutely packed, with the cheap bottles of Stella unfortanately not staying in the fridge long enough to be cold. Besides the young nubile ladies in the audience (& young annoying blokes) Wheatus entertained for just under an hour. They played their cover of Erasure's Little Respect and ended with a long version of Teenage Dirtbag. Leaving at just before half midnight to get the last X26 we manage to say hello and thanks to the band who were packing up into the tour bus. Good value gig!

This was delayed by 45 minutes. An announcement said it was due to a car failure, though Avril later revealed on her twitter account it was security breach that made her fear for her life. Back to being a band gig rather than a Britney style show, Avril is supporting her rather fine Goodbye Lullaby album. The single What The Hell is played early on as was early hit Skaterboi. Wish You Were Here was another highlight. In the middle she covers Coldplays Fix You, which was ok, though not my favourite song. No costume changes but she took a leave from the stage every so often leaving her band playing instrumental versions of some album tracks such as Unw. In the encore she also look disinterested, espeically during Complicated though again via Twitter, it was because she lost her voice. A good night that could be better was my verdict. Hopefully she'll keep the band part of the show and be on stage for all of it next time, voice in tact.

Set - Black Star / What The Hell / Smile / Skaterboi / He Wasn't / Airplanes - My Happy Ending / I Always Get What I Want / Alice / When You're Gone / Fix You / Wish You Were Here / Unwanted (Instrumental) / Girlfriend / Don't Tell Me / I'm With You //// Complicated

"Croydon Hates Me" are Bob Geldof's first words at the poorly attended show at the Ashcroft. I reckon there were less than 100 people there with my friend being able to get five tickets in the fourth row two days before the show. Not over expensive (£25) but perhaps he's either lost his flair or it wasn't well advertised. He started and ended with The Great Song Of Indifference, the most irish like he gets. The set included loads of Boomtown Rats songs, ending with I Don't Like Mondays. Someone's Looking At You and Rat Trap prior to the encore. A great storyteller between songs, Bob introduced Scream In Vain being about a street in Addis Addaba where you would get stabbed, before adding just like Croydon a couple of weeks ago. In the enocore Bob rescinded slighly saying despite his misgivings at the start it's been a lot of fun. Here both Bob & myself agree.