A-Ha (6th December 2005)
M.E.N. Arena, Manchester
Booked for me by my sister!  It'll be a party like it's 1985!  (Or whatever...)

Arcade Fire (30th August 2005)
Carling Academy, Liverpool
What a night!  Myself and a couple of friends hopped onto the train from Crewe to Liverpool straight after work in anticipation of a night to remember.  It was a boiling hot day, and little did we know just how hot it was going to be inside the venue too.  For the two friends I went with, this was their second Arcade Fire gig, but my first.  However, this was their first gig inside the Liverpool Academy (but my second!), and they were astounded to find out just how small the venue actually was.  And this was a good thing.  It meant intimacy with the band, and being up quite close.

However, what we hadn't bargained for was the heat in the venue... Oh My God it was just so damn hot in there.  But the night was of the type that sacrifices had to be made, and if it ended with me collapsing due to dehydration and heat exhausting, then so be it!

At the time I didn't own their album (called Funeral), but I'd heard it loads of times at work, so I did know what I was letting myself in for.  And I did know some of their songs!!!  (Although, I didn't know the titles...)

But the Arcade Fire were electrifying.  Their music is like a wall of sound.  It's so hypnotic and engrossing.  They have 7 band members (yes, count them), who play a staggering array of instruments.  They also had a habit of swapping instruments for different songs too.  But the mixtures of violins and accordions were such a compliment to the rest of the band sound.  It's really quite hard to describe what the Arcade Fire sound like I suppose.  I guess they have been influenced by the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Stereolab and The Jesus And Mary Chain, but that's doing them a great disservice, because they are also their own sound.

This really wasn't a night for taking many pictures with my little camera phone, but for my memories, here are the two best that I did take!

I would recommend that anyone go and see this band because they have such a demanding stage presence that deserves to be experienced.  The night was a night to remember for sure, and (after I'd rehydrated myself at the end!) I felt really such on a high.

Belinda Carlisle (19th June 2004)

Belinda was just stunning.  Looking and sounding as amazing as I could imagine, she performed her songs with such a raw energy and passion that it looked and sounded as though Belinda was performing these songs for the first time.  Unless there's a damn good reason I can't, I will see her perform at some time in the future too.
 

Catatonia (11th March 1999)

Catatonia were just so superb.  Cerys Matthews was so vibrant and full of energy, and she had this smile on her face that looked as though it had been surgically implanted.  Waltzing around with bottle of white wine, she gave the most amazing performance, whilst she sung to her heart's fullest.  The venue was packed to the rafters.  I still remember waiting an aeon to get served at the bar for a dodgy pint of beer in a plastic glass!  In short, this was a most treasured event.
 

Creamfields Festival (23th August 2003)

Bands and DJs I saw and really enjoyed were Paul Oakenfold, Massive Attack and Unkle, who performed on the open air stage.  Inside the many DJ tents I saw bits of sets from Tom Middleton, Steve Lawler, Sasha and Rob da Bank.  I went there with a large group of friends, and although we didn't last the whole night (we left at about 3 in the morning), this was still a cool experience.
 

The Donnas were just, well, amazing really..  Poor Brett had been ill for their previous gig (which they had to cancel a few nights previously), but tonight she was really on fire.  Each song they played was not only played with energy matching that of nuclear power station, but also with such an outward enthusiasm that the whole crowd could pick up upon themselves.  I danced.  I screamed (like a girl sometimes - sorry!).  I partied.  And I even sung my heart out too.  This was a gig worthy to experience by any great rock and roll lover.  Playing songs from their Gold Medal and Spend The Night albums meant that a lot of the crowd knew what The Donnas were all about.  But it was a nice gift to hear the odd classic from their other albums, especially when they played when they played You Make Me Hot (from their American Teenage Rock 'N' Roll Machine album).

Maya looked a little distant at times (sadly), but if she was feeling a little poorly, then that's ok by me my dear.  Her bass playing was still totally sublime - and for that I thank you!  Brett, Allison and Torry were really hyperactive though.  Brett's voice sounded like it had just been tuned by a mechanic, Allison played the guitar like she had been born along side it as her twin, and Torry was really giving it some on the drums.  The end of the concert was really sad of course.  We hung around the backstage doors after the gig to see if we could catch the band, but we sadly had to leave to catch the last train back from Manchester... pity, their tour bus looked very inviting!

This was the first concert I've been to where I could take some pictures too.  With my camera phone, I got these images.  They're not great I know, but for such a small phone I was well impressed!  Click on any of the images to download a larger picture.  We were quite near the stage, which is why the field of view is actually pretty good.  I could have easily taken more pictures (and movies), but I didn't want to spoil my enjoyment of which turned out to be one of the best concerts I've been to in recent years.

I also took some movie images as well.  They are of much lower resolution and quality (and yes, I've weeded some of the really really bad quality clips!), but here are a some movie clips to download.  The format is of the phone movie type, which is .3gp, which can be played by  Real Player  and  Quicktime.  As with my pictures, I took these when the crowd was jumping the least (try taking a picture when everyone is jumping,  arms in the air - and that's including me).

The Donnas - Its So Hard.3gp  (242 Kb)
The Donnas - You Make Me Hot.3gp  (249 Kb)
The Donnas - Out Of My Hands.3gp  (271 Kb)
The Donnas - Brett.3gp  (55 Kb)
The Donnas - Torry.3gp  (83 Kb)
The Donnas - Goodbye!.3gp  (79 Kb)

And thank goodness I took a scan of my ticket - it was kept when we went into the venue!  In short - I was bowled over by this concert.  Completely.  I also spent the most I ever have done on merchandise in one go too.  3 t-shirts!  (And one of those was a bootleg one being sold outside - but it looked bloody ace!)  It took quite some time to settle back to earth  from the clouds after the night.
 

The Field Mice (18th October 1991)

They were supported by fellow label-mates Brighter, and also by another band who I've never heard of since, called The Playthings.  The Field Mice played so sublimely.  I remember the great atmosphere that they commanded.  This wasn't a concert to dance to, but to stand up at the front of the stage and both shoe-gaze and listen intently.  It wasn't long after this concert when my music tastes changed from being reasonably mainstream to full-on indie at its finest.  This might be a reason as to why I remember this concert with such distinct memories.
 

Neil Finn (11th May 2001)

This, being a great Manchester venue, we were treated to some great music guests.  The piece-de-resistance was the appearance the guitar God, Johnny Marr (The Smiths).  He added a great width to Neil's sounds, and also gave them a shameless reason to play The Smiths classic song There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.  Also in appearance was the sublime female vocalist Lisa Germano.
 

Avril Lavigne (22nd May 2005)
NEC, Birmingham
This was one hell of a beautiful night of pure unadulterated guilty pleasures. I loved this concert loads, and despite the hugeness of the venue I made sure that I immersed myself in the great atmosphere that the place held.

I travelled to Birmingham with one of my best friends (she's the same person I went with when we went to see The Donnas in March of 2005).  We knew in advance that this was going to be a big deal so we had already booked a cheap Bed & Breakfast to dump all our belongings in, and to have somewhere safe and warm to sleep over the night.  Despite ridiculous train changes and lack of seats, we made it there fine, and with plenty of time to spare.  As we had standing tickets, we went straight in and onto the stage area to get as close to the stage as possible.  We saw all of the supporting band, who were The Glitterati, and they were ok, but only ok.  I'd heard their album a few times at work, and to be honest, I thought they sounded better on their album as opposed to their live sound!  But they had charisma and a kind of strange charm about them.  I guess they could make it big.  In a Darkness kind of way maybe.

At last Avril came on... and all I can say is that she looked and sounded bloody amazing!  She never really said much to us (I don't know if she usually does or not mind), but her voice was just so prominently perfect all throughout the night.  As with my Donnas gig I went to, I tried to sing my heart out.  I say tried, because I'd been shouting quite a lot at the end of the songs, and I couldn't reach the high notes on some songs, which probably sounded bloody horrible to everyone else around!  But I loved every minute of it!  She played everything I wanted.  Well, nearly.  It would have been nice if she'd played My World, but hey, I think I can forgive Avril for that :-)

She performed Together, Take Me Away, I'm With You and Naked, which are truly my all time favorite Avril songs... and they made me very happy.  There was a rather nice version of Nobody's Home too, which really moved me, if I'm to be honest here.  She also did two great cover songs too.  Green Day's 'American Idiot' sounded particularly cool and apt... and was a song that I think the majority of the crowd knew to some extent.  Avril then took to the drums to cover Blur's 'Song 2', which I recognised as soon as the drum beat started... but couldn't believe at the time that it was going to be a Blur cover!  I smiled like a goon when it started, and then sung my heart out very loudly to that!

As with my Donnas concert, I took my mobile phone camera.  Due to me being further away from the stage, the images and movie clips are nowhere near as clear or good, but I did take lots of them though.  The best pictures and a pick of the movie clips are here to view right below here!  As usual, just click on the link you want to download.  The pictures are all taken in chronological order, but I can't remember what songs were playing at the time or anything like that!!!  Notice that the background images have changed too.

The selected movie clips below are all in the .3gp format, which can definitely be played by using either Quicktime or Real Player.  Beware of Avril's Nobody's Home, as it's the song in its entirety, and it's a large file (even for a crappy mobile phone movie).  There's a lot of singing along from the crowd in these, and you can hear myself and my friend in a few parts of these clips.  I'm not saying which ones though!!!  Enjoy!

Avril Lavigne - Mobile.3gp  (794 Kb)
Avril Lavigne - Things I'll Never Say.3gp  (444 Kb)
Avril Lavigne - American Idiot.3gp  (275 Kb)
Avril Lavigne - Nobody's Home.3gp  (1.39 Mb)

The overall sound dynamics just seemed to be spot on here.  How else could two people pull off a dance concert event like this?  The rhythmic guitar work was particularly worthy of mention, as it did expand the aural feel of the gig beyond comprehension.  An appreciative crowd and a great student venue meant that this was really was a night to remember.  And buy their albums - they're all subtlety different from each other, but all well worth investigating.

Below are a few images of the great gig.  However, these were not taken by me, but on my friends camera phone.

Monsters Of Rock Festival (17th August 1991)

Obviously, this festival meant a lot to me, as this was my first, but this was still an amazing experience.  I don't remember too much about this now, other than that Metallica were just mind blowingly brilliant.
 

The Prodigy (6th December 2004)

But I left the concert feeling pretty unfulfilled really.  Keith Flint (the group's manic vocalist) appeared to spend a lot of the concert in his own world, without actually appearing to enjoy what he was performing, although he did appear to flicker back to life when playing some of the older songs from the group's past.  Also, the great song Firestarter had been changed musically almost beyond recognition - meaning that anyone wanting to sing and dance along to it were feeling more than annoyed.  Sure, the lyrics were the same, but the memorable chorus and rasping vocals were gone.  All in all, the dynamics and the quality of the music were great, and some of their (especially older) songs were amazing, but at other times (Keith especially) just seemed to be going 'through the motions', and didn't appear to be putting any passion in his performance.
 

R.E.M. (26th July 1995)

R,E,M. were really on top form.  Although they were playing in a huge stadium, the concert was strangely intimate at the same time.  They played so many classics, including many from their earlier albums.  This night was just perfect one.  I guess this was a kind of turning point for me with R.E.M. as my love of them very slowly began to wane with the release of their next studio album, New Adventures In Hi-Fi.
 

The Subways (2nd November 2005)
Academy 2, Manchester
Yum!  Myself and the same friend who I went with for Avril and The Donnas are looking forward to the delights of this band loads... and... um... Mary-Charlotte Cooper... the bass player ;-)  I think already that you'll find us to the right of the stage... near the front of course :-p

KT Tunstall (26th May 2005)
Academy 2, Liverpool
Yet another great concert!  In a completely different change of pace from witnessing Avril Lavigne only four days before, KT Tunstall proved to be such an amazing experience... and in a relatively intimate venue too.

Travelling to Liverpool for this gig proved to be... erm, interesting to say the least!  Liverpool Football Club had only won the Champions League to day previously, and the cup itself was being paraded around Liverpool city centre this very evening.  At least 750,000 people had made their way into the very area where myself and three friends needed to both park the car, and fight our way through the celebrating crowds to the concert venue!  Nightmare?  Oh, I think so!!!

I'd never been to the venue before.  Despite it being stifling hot in the bar area (my pint of beer disappeared into my stomach in minutes), the actual concert area itself was actually ok.  It was incredibly busy inside, but we managed to secure a really good spot close to the stage, off on the left hand side.

KT was just so overwhelmingly gorgeous!  She was very friendly, and spoke with her very warm Scottish accent, and made comments about Liverpool's victory... about half the crowd cheered... the other half not being quite so friendly!!!  Jumping right into her Other Side Of The World, she proved straight away just how similar her live voice and sound is to her debut album, Eye To The Telescope.  She played the majority of the songs from this album, and all of them sounded so pristine and perfect.  When KT played Suddenly I See, I was in my element (this is still my favourite song of hers from the album), and her live version of it was particularly memorable.

I think KT was quite taken aback by the enjoyment she was giving the crowd.  Of course, everyone is familiar with the tradition of encores, but unless it was quite well planned, she did seem genuinely shocked to be coming back on for a second encore.  That moment was quite nice.

I took a number of pictures of KT Tunstall and some movie clips... but due to space, I'm only putting on a few here.  Including a picture of the number of people who were in Liverpool city centre as we were trying to find our venue!!!

The movie clip is from KT Tunstall's great song Suddenly I See, and this is virtually the entire song (over 5 minutes long).  I apologise for the shaking in this... but I couldn't help dancing along... sorry!

KT Tunstall - Suddenly I See.mov  (3.19 Mb)

Suzanne Vega (30th June 2004)

Suzanne was so amazing.  She's a very softly spoken lady, but her voice was always captivating.  Suzanne Vega was very talkative, engaging the audience like everybody was her best friend, whist she played all of her beautiful songs.