Last Week:

The gig with Atlanta Soul at Manchester University last Friday is likely to live on in memory for a long time to come. It was what can only be described as a proper gig! The Martin Harris Centre is a purpose built music theatre with the sort of sound that doesn't need eq-ing on the desk. A proper theatre venue, with an easy load-in (walk through the door and you're there!), fully seated, soundman, crew, gear in place, dressing room, steward to give you the 5 minute call....I felt like a real musician...

All we needed then was an audience to match. At first things didn't look too good, with talk of low ticket sales which thankfully turned out not to be true. OK it wasn't full but there were more than enough people to make a go of it with. Then there remained the question of what the audience response would be. Even at the best of gigs a crowd can take a bit of working and warming up. There's very few where they're onto you straight away. The latter have usually been venues with a bar and a standing crowd...this was a theatre with bar outside. I feared they'd take some warming up.

Not true. Even from Song 1 there were some out of their seats dancing. This continued and by the middle of the first set I think just about everyone was on their feet. By the second set many had come down to the front to dance. This was a world away from what I'd expected and thus was a very pleasant surprise indeed!

With a 10:30 finish, and not much gear to load out, I was away and home before midnight. Now I could get used to that!!

The weekend was fairly quiet after this. We went to look at a nuclear bunker in Cheshire on Sunday. I guess we needed cheering up! It's a museum now, but still contains all the earie atmosphere you'd expect from something like that. Full of Cold War memorabilia and a fascinating insight into the era and it's potential deadly outcome. Amongst a handful of government posts who had a desk there was the Inland Revenue. You may survive the Bomb but the taxman will still get you in the end.

This Week:

A slightly quieter week for gigs with this weekend being given over to the Cardiff trip. The opening weekend of the Super League season which can't come soon enough. It has been and still is a long winter.

The BitterSweetShop has finally got a song online from the new album. You can click here to visit our myspace site (still very new) and take a listen to the song.


A-Z of Music:

I've gravitated from Jean-Michel to Yello now. Another of my favourite European Electronic groups, I'm going to have lots more fun getting even more nostalgic. I've also been listening to Billy Joel's 1989 album 'Storm Front', largely because of hearing one of it's tracks on the radio recently. It's a great album from an era I admire a great deal.