Last night's gig was

Fred Again at Brixton Academy.

Ususl sound issues as is always the way at the Academy but still good fun. Do find his stuff verges on the cheesy side and there was a few points tonight where it came close to crossing that line ("everyone get your phone lights on’!) but the 1st album soundtracked a really hard period in my life last year so will always have a soft spot for him.

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CMAT - Limelight 1, Belfast

What a star. Saw her in the smaller Limelight 2 next door back in March but she came back to sell out the bigger room too. She puts on such a great show, it was actually nice to see her have a bigger stage to dance around on. Took a little while to come on as she played an entire Celine Dion song as her intro music. The two new songs were great, Rent sounds like another tearjerker and Mayday sounds like a proper banger.

Extremely up for it crowd and a fair few cowboy hats around (fun until it’s two tall guys right in front of you). Even spotted a couple of light up ones.

At the March gig she talked about her favourite TikToker being from Belfast and this time she got her out as a special guest in the encore. The crowd went wild and I didn’t really know what was going on. I’m so out of touch.

Support from Aislinn Logan. She’s from Belfast but based in London and has been on the whole European and UK tour up to this point. For whatever reason I’ve followed her on Instagram for ages even though I’ve not listened to very much of her music. Her style is a little poppy for me but she has a great voice and a lot of sad lyrics. She seemed absolutely buzzing to be playing a hometown show. Mostly just vocals and guitar but some electronic backing on a few tracks. Crowd were a little chatty at times but lots of enthusiastic cheering from friends and family in between. I’m a bit jealous that the excellent Junior Brother is taking over support duties for the rest of the Irish dates now but this was a nice set nonetheless - I noticed from following her that she’s had a bit of a rough year so nice to see her up there having a great time. Also came back on as a special guest for I Wanna Be A Cowboy Baby at the end of the night.

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(not last night, from the weekend past)

e6, limelight 2, belfast

my first proper gig in five years and the first time seeing the lads since 2015 i believe (apologies to my younger self for breaking what was an annual tradition) they usually play the main venue but for whatever reason it was in the smaller one, i’m guessing not enough tickets sold by a certain point to warrant the upgrade. nevertheless you could hardly move in here it was that packed! (quite a different experience from my previous venture here when the mae shi played to a handful of people many years ago) tait had just had a child and with no replacement on the synthesizer they styled themselves the electric five.

so yeah as usual it was a very crowd pleasing set with lots of moving directly into the hits, out of 20 songs 15 were from 2008 or earlier (seven from fire) and only two vrecent ones which i wasn’t familiar with so i was very happy with the offerings - this is a band whose first …eight albums are gold, jerry, gold so whatever they play from that era is fine by me. and of course there was the obligatory witty banter from dick. personal favourite moment was during future is in the future when someone sidled past me and we both roared I’M A MAN NOT A DISCO BALL! at each other #juste6things. nice to see that the fine tradition of playing a song in the middle of improper dancing is alive and well, this time it was who the hell just call my phone.

setlist ⬇️

having a nosy at the other gigs on this tour each night is almost the exact same set in the same order, dunno how i feel about that a bit of variety is nice

here is my best photograph sorry

bought a t shirt at the merch stand which you can see me modelling below. it cost more than the gig ticket! but as the ticket was only 19(!) of his majesty’s pounds incl bf i won’t begrudge them that. they had just played glasgow and the merch guy offloaded two scottish fivers when giving me my change. i like the novelty of billy connolly’s legal tender though, i will treasure those notes until my next trip across the irish sea.

support was from the kut but i didn’t see them as i’m now one of those people who arrive just before the main act (i missed the bus and it was another hour until the next one) in fact because of my lateness i was standing at the bar waiting for my first and only pint until at least nine songs in.

was a grand evening even though i was only there less than 90 minutes. would have liked to have seen them down in dublin instead but it was sold out by the time i bothered to buy a ticket. anyway i think i’ve rediscovered the joy of gig going so you might hear from me again soon

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Went last night in Birmingham and pretty much echo most of this.

Was great seeing Twilight Sad again, had missed the 2019 tour so was long overdue as last time was when they were supporting Mogwai here. We didn’t get Keep Yourself Warm which can understand a break is needed for such an emotional one to sing. Played Dark City instead I think as they said it was for their tour manager who was local.

The Cure were great, glad I’ve finally got to see them and I didn’t get out off by it being an arena gig. Agree on End Song and the first encore being great. Had to bail just before the end to make the last train home.

I’d picked up a cheap resale in the seats as nothing standing was coming up

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My brother went last night, said Smith lost his voice for the kast encore. Hope it’s nothing serious.

Yeah he mentioned it a few times during the set, said that he let himself go a bit in Glasgow as he was in the home run of shows and was struggling for it now. You could notice it in the brief moments he spoke but singing was fine for the main parts. Final encore being ones that the crowd join in on for the most probably helped reduce the impact. Hope it’s ok.

Oh also we got Three Imaginary Boys on the setlist last night, he joked it was a new one (for the tour).

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Yeah my brother was very pleased about 3IB!

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i wouldnt have enjoyed paying that money to see an arena show in another city by myself, but maaan … Cure-related jealousy is high rn

never been that massively into The Cure but felt weird about missing a Twilight Sad Belfast appearance. Grant was ill though and they had to do a stripped back set so I feel less bad about missing it now

Was at Birmingham too, lovely moment at the end when we were all singing Boys Don’t Cry to help out Bob. Got barrier despite only arriving at doors, the closest I’ve ever been for them. First time I have seen them do Charlotte Sometimes :purple_heart:

This was the last gig I had booked, and it was a belter.




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Didn’t notice it in Leeds on Tuesday but remember the encore getting cut short in Manchester in 2016 because his voice was audibly going. Must be a bit of an inevitability towards the end of such long tours with near-three hour sets every night.

Quasi at the Victoria Dalston

First off, this venue is trash, basically a corridor with an incredibly low stage. Can’t imagine anyone outside the first couple of rows can see what’s going on.

Third time’s the charm on managing to see Janet Weiss play live though. A really fun set, with a nice mix of stuff from their new album and the back catalogue. Endearingly ramshackle, thy started the encore by saying ‘We’ve played everything we’ve actually practiced’ and proved it by playing a very disjointed version of Seal the Deal. The subsequent Featuring Birds tracks were more polished, and the ending jam was great.

When I managed to a better spot where I could actually see both of them it looked like they were having a great time. Janet seems to have made a full recovery from her accident a couple of years ago, those drums were getting leathered!

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Oh just realised they’re definitely gonna do their Christmas duet aren’t they

God damn it

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https://twitter.com/cmatbaby/status/1600811295653044226?t=3QoxM1OjdvpdfMMSQVvW5g&s=19

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I’m very sorry to report they did this and it was wonderful

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Aye, shite venue

Haven’t been for a few years, but the sound was always pretty bad too IIRC

Steve Mason @ Ramsgate Music Hall

This was a great, if somewhat shambolic, show. Bloody job too, as it was bookended by 4 hours of driving my mates around because it was my turn to be designated driver and they live miles away from each other. Steve seemed to be having fun, backed up by one bloke on a synth and sequencer. He was a bit perplexed by the, surprising, lack of chatter between songs and an audience that just seemed to want to dance and listen to him. Brief interludes as the synths made an almighty squealing noise and needed to be turned off and turned back on again, and the realisation that he’d left his capo in the van, so had to send someone to try and find it.

Was a set of predominantly solo material, but we were treated to Inner Meet Me and Squares from the Beta Band back-catalog. Really enjoyed myself, but am knackered today having not home until around 1am.

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As much as I love this about Ramsgate Music Hall, it does unsettle some performers. I recall Bill Ryder-Jones finding it really uncomfortable a few years ago.

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Has he ditched the band now? I thought that was the big thing with the last lp, that they wrote the songs together

He’s certainly not touring with them, like I say, just the one guy on synths/sequencer. I don’t know much about his recording process though.

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