Last Gig You Went To...

[Rare Bird]

Yesterday afternoon:
Birmingham Symphony Hall - Lee Mead with special guest Louise Dearman

The wife loves him, i was personally intrested in the drummer/musical director (Mason Neely) he had a superb sounding retro drum kit 2x floor tom tom's , the sound of a properly mic up drum kit is important to me & especially how old drum kits sound compared to newer ones.. The Symphony Hall is one spectacular looking place inside that's for sure.

[Tim]

Ian Anderson
Southampton Guildhall
Sunday 6th May 2012



This was a gig I wasn't sure about going to initially, as I thought Thick as a Brick was an OK album, but not something I play often. I bought the tickets prior to hearing TAAB2 and I went without any expectations.

The show was broken into two parts, the first half started bang on time at 7.30pm with some rather dull onstage antics by men in old fashioned brown work coats and flat caps, ala Ronnie Barker Open all Hours. This turned out to be the band. I'm not really into theatrics at a rock concert, so I could have done without this. Anyway, first half was TAAB parts 1 & 2 with some more ridiculous theatrics in between the two parts. I found my mind drifting towards the end of the first half and got a little bored TBH.

After a 20 minute break we had TAAB2 in its entirety which was very good and made the first half of the show seem rather dated. Ian has a very good band with a great lead guitar, who I saw with Ian a few years ago on acoustic guitar... Florian Ophale. Florian has been around for a few years now and has worked with Greg Lake amongst others. His flamenco guitar work is excellent, but we didn't have any of that tonight unfortunately. We did get a lot of excellent riffs on a Gibson Les Paul however and Florian's sound made the night for me. Ian's voice was quite muted in parts and difficult to understand, but that may have been my seat as I was right at the front and bang in the centre, so I didn't get a lot coming from the PA.

All in all a very enjoyable night, but I would have preferred a show of TAAB2 with some of Ian and Tull's work padding it out, instead of TAAB.

Florian Ophale (I doubt you will get anything like this, but I add it just for interest).

[northwest]

Thanks for that. I have been listening to TAAB2 myself lately and your review has convinced me not to go.
I am also extremely disappointed that this album was not released on Vinyl. Normally I am ambivialent about these things but Thick as a Brick holds terrific memories for me (her name was Janice) so I did actually want this album, the sequel, to be vinyl too. Sad, I know.

[Wakefield Turntables]

Blaze bayley at the snooty fox in Wakefield. £6 entry, the band played a solid 2 hours, I then bought his CD for £12, even after spending £18, the band still worked for less than minimum wage Very underated in the metal genre of music, had a great time. Check him out.

[Simon]

Teatro Miela, northeast corner of Italy bordering on Slovenia, May 10th.

Trieste, part little Vienna-on-sea, part sombre Balkans tribal metropolis, a fittingly incongruous setting for the passionate brew of melody and racket performed by the erstwhile Van Der Graaf Generator frontman.
Probably 3-400 or so in a tightly-packed provincial theatre, composed largely of the, ahem, temporally challenged. Pawn Hearts went no. 1 here in 1973...
A highly appreciative audience nonetheless, richly deserved by Hammill.
I personally prefer his grandeloquence and raw poetic expressionism when punked up a little in songs like Central Hotel and Amnesiac but a great evening's music all the same. We were also treated to a couple from the new album Consequences.
Show lasted an intense hour and a half, spot on, plus encore. At 20 euro, excellent value.

Cap duly doffed to one of prog's most interesting mavericks. Still going strong? Absolutely.

[dr.jones]

Went to the MEN to see Kasabian in Nov (I think) after an impulse buy of a "cheap" pair of tickets for me and the mrs.
Think we paid about £40 for 2 tickets and ended up in some cracking seats almost on the stage!! We don't get a babysitter often so we made a night of it and went round the xmas markets beforehand then to the gig and had a great night.

[Sonority]

Well this time last night Steve Wilson was on stage doing the final date in the Grace For Drowning tour.
What a group of talent was gathered on that stage.
Utterly fantastic night musically.

Nothing, but nothing like Storm Corrosion it has to be said :-)

We now also know precisely which way his new project is going.
Luminol showed us exactly what he has plans for there.
20 minutes of very progressive rock. Bit of polishing to be done, but for a first time live.. wow.

[Tim]

Well this time last night Steve Wilson was on stage doing the final date in the Grace For Drowning tour.
What a group of talent was gathered on that stage.
Utterly fantastic night musically.

What about Nick Beggs too on the Chapman Stick

[Welder]

http://www.bathabbey.org/music/organ-recitals

I've been to few of these recently and no, your stereo cant do it.

[MartinT]

Norah Jones, Festival Hall, Saturday 2nd June

Her smokey honey voice was in superb form, every bit as good live as on her recordings. She has a new band, all very competent, and played most of Little Broken Hearts plus some earlier material. She also turned her hand to acoustic and electric guitars as well as the more familiar keyboards. But the voice is to die for. I enjoyed this concert so much more than some other recent ones I've been to and really wanted more at the end. Simply fab.