Thank You For The Music @ Hyde Park, 13th September 2009

Thanks indeed!

OK, I own up. I was there. I wasn't supposed to be, I didn't intend to be, but when I realised I was driving in the direction of London on that Sunday afternoon it seemed almost peverse to drive around it when I knew that this concert was taking place. So I took a chance (took a chance, took a took a chance chance) (sorry) and battled my way into central London armed with only a UK Road Atlas and a vague idea that there's-a-car-park-at-Queensway-and-surely-it's-not-that-far-to-Hyde-Park-from-there.

Well, I guess luck was with me (of not the traffic) and I managed to park, speedwalk to the right part of the park and buy a ticket on the door by about ten to six. Thanks to the fact that this was a Radio 2 event and fairly civilised, I managed to get about 3 rows back from the barrier to the right of the stage and find some of my friendswith no trouble at all.

Anyway, to the concert and the music that we were there to give thanks for (so to speak). Chris Evans was presenting dressed in one of the most ridiculous outfits I've seen in a while -look! --> It's like rubbish Austin Powers is paying a special visit! But to be fair, he did a pretty good job; I saw him present the Brits a couple of years back as his first gig back after the Radio 1 malarky and his break from the media and he couldn't get a line right., so I was pleasantly surprised. OK, so there was an autocue but he did really well at engaging the audience and I felt like he was probably reliving a Radio 1 Roadshow in Minehead from days gone by.

The first act he introduced was Lulu, who looked pretty damn fine considering she is surely pushing OAP status. In fact, with her hair in a ponytail and sunglasses taking up most of her face she looked about 12. Good on you Lulu, I want some of what you're having.

Next up (to my upmost delight of course) were The Feeling, the only band on the running order. I should mention that all the acts were accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra and the original ABBA band (minus Benny and Bjorn but including a really cool guy with a ponytail who originally played keyboard in the band) - they were great throughtout.

Anyhoo, TF played Knowing Me, Knowing You, which isn’t one of my favourite Abba tracks and I wasn’t sure what the band would be able to do with it. Well, I shouldn’t have worried – Dan Gillespie Sells is in his element in front of a big crowd and the band rose to the challenge. Dan was all over the stage and really performed the song. Someone I was with thought they could have done more with the harmonies and the second verse and on reflection he was probably right but it was still amazing. Ciaran got to play the sparkly piano, which is usually only Dan’s preserve, and I have to say that I was a bit gutted when they finished and the crew took the drum kit off.

Next on was Nerina Pallot, who seemed very sweet and sang The Name of the Game but obviously didn’t know what to do with the stage. She returned a bit later to sing SOS instead of Sharleen Spiteri, who had to pull out at the last minute as the guitarist from Texas was apparently very ill, so well done to her for that.

I can’t mention everyone in detail otherwise this blog will go on forever. I will spare a few words for Jason Donovan (mostly as I took a good picture of him and I would like to show it mow) – I was a really hoping for a Kylie and Jason duet-slash-megamix (showing my age here) but no such luck. There were obviously some paid up members of the JD fanclub there though – there was a lady how really should have know better who pushed right in front of the kid we had in our party so she could get a better view. Good job that he wasn’t too interested in that particular act really!!

Elaine Paige and someone who wasn’t Barbara Dixon got a huge reception (gotta love the Radio2 audience) for a frankly excellent version of I Know Him So Well.

I have to say that the middle section of the concert fell a bit flat for my money – the first half of the show mainly covered some of their slightly lesser known tracks, but the middle we got songs from Chess, which while great weren’t the sing along classics people had come to hear. Marti Pellow was woefully underused with a slightly odd version of One Night in Bangkok. This was swiftly followed up by some Swedish Folk music (yes it was Benny but he was still playing the accordion accompanied by a group of old me playing the fiddle and wearing leather aprons) and then some mostly orchestral music from B&B’s new musical, You could tell that the crowd was flagging a bit and it was definitely a relief when The Feeling came back on.

Their second number was a barn-storming version of Does Your Mother Know. This was much more up their street that the first song as it’s much more up tempo and more suited to their style. It was really interesting to hear them performing with female backing singers, which is something that they never do usually – normally the rest of the band do amazing vocal harmonies. Dan really encouraged the crowd into a mass singalong and finished it off with a fantastic leap from the sparkly piano – which I thought was pretty darn brave as that piano looks like it’s on its last legs after all the touring and is generally a bit kronky and liable to collapse. But it was very Dan and rounded off the pitifully short set beautifully. I few words about the other boys for the TF fans out there. I couldn’t see Paul because of the lay out of the stage but he had the look of the Dawnbreakers about him. Ciaran was growing a beard again (bad times), Rich is (still) rocking last winter’s coat, and Kev looks just the same bless him. Dan’s rather jaunty cream suit and striped T shirt combo looked very natty and slightly nautical. Boys – we’ve missed you.

After they had finished I was actually ready to go to the side and get some food but they had really saved the good songs to the end with the cast of Mama Mia doing a bit of a megamix. Kylie did 2 songs and was obviously what a large proportion of the crowd were waiting for. I’m not a massive Kylie fan (despite having her debut album on cassette) but her voice suited the music much better than Chaka Khan, who obviously didn’t know the words or the tune to The Winner Takes It All when she sang it. Although to be fair she might have been hampered by the slightly disturbing corset she was wearing.

B&B took to the stage at the end, and from and audience perspective one of the best bits was the singalong to the orchestra at the end with the words up on the big screen (like we needed them…). Some of the best songs IMHO were only touched on there, which was a shame but I guess there are just too many to perform them all.

Anyway, I’m really pleased that I took a chance and went – it was great to see some of my friends again and an unexpected gig often turns out to be brilliant.

I understand that Abba have a greatest hits album out called Abba Gold that's available now ;-)

Blur @ Hyde Park, 3rd July 2009

They've still got it

I was so excited when I managed to get tickets to see Blur at the first reunion gig that they announced (excitement was tempered slightly when they added more performances before this one, but it was pretty darn exciting none the less) - Parklife was one of the tapes I used to play in my walkman and The Great Escape was the first actual CD I ever bought. But reunions are tricky things with examples of great successes (Take That - but more of that later) and great failures (naming no names lest I offend anyone ;-), so there's always a risk that they might not be as good as you remember.

Anyway, before the main event there were 4 (yes, count them - 4!) support acts, of which I only caught 3 because it was a Friday and some of us actually have to go to work in the afternoon.

Florence and The Machine were first on and I was quite interested to have a listen as there's been a lot of buzz about her this year. She's got a great and surprisingly powerful voice for such a little slip of a thing but although I really like A Kiss From A Fist but Flo is more of a Kate Bush type i.e. a bit too sophisticated for my cheesy pop sensibilities. But she does have very red hair. Next on was an African band which I'm sorry to say I can't remember the name of but who were very very good.

Just before Blur came on we were treated to Vampire Weekend who I love - their music is so summery so a sunny afternoon in the park was a perfect venue (it was pretty hot so I'm not sure why the lead singer decided to keep his body warmer on - I can only presume it's some kind of New York fashion statement). We were treated to a couple of new tracks as well as all the big hits from their debt album, which were really good to hear. My enjoyment was only impared slightly by the group of people I was stood next to who were accusing VW of being a Gracelands rip off in every single song. I shan't argue that there isn't a similar sound going on but I would argue that they are both just using the same African influences and it's hardly a sound that is getting overly exposed at the minute. Anyway, rant over, I'd love to see them play in a small venue and I'm sure their new album will be fab.

Finally, Blur made it on stage and the crowd went wild. By this time I was actually really close to the front - not quite sure how that happened - which meant for a great view but also meant that I was caught just on the edge of the mosh pit - not fun trying to keep on your feet. Actually, that was the only bad thing about this gig...maybe I was closer to the front than I normally am but it was all a bit rough and bad tempered and I got completely covered in beer.

However, the concert made that all worthwhile. Blur have such a great back catalogue of hits that they didn't even get round to playing some of their biggest hits like Country House. But they did play an amazing mix of tracks absolutely fantastically. They look just the same as ever - Damon leaping up and down on the stage like a mad man, Dave looking like the labour party candidate that he is (VOTE DAVE!), Graham being quietly brillant, and Alex sauntering about smoking (boo) and looking just as hot as ever (yay). Stand out tracks were probably Girl and Boys, Parklife (at high speed) and The Universal as the final encore - blissful!

I really hope they are going to make some new music together now. What this concert has proved to me is that their songs are still relevant and haven't dated at all. I can't wait to get hold of the live CD of the concert so I can relive it without the plastic bottles raining down on me...

The live recording from both of Blur's dates at Hyde Park is available now.