Friday, November 30, 2007

Crowded House, MEN Arena

A quick lunchtime blog about the gig I went to last night. It's a while since I went to a proper-size concert, and it was good to go out with the missus.

Support act was Duke Special, from Belfast. He's done few bits on TV, and you can see clips from Later and TOTP2 on his website. Great voice, interesting songs, and the most laid-back (but excellent) drummer I've seen for a while. Especially liked No Cover Up. I gather the band is a bit fluid, but the guys he had last night were very good. At one point, it all got a bit Sgt Pepper at the end of one song (two guys had the right style outfits for it), which memorably included setting a wind-up gramophone going for the final cacophony.

I felt a slightly disappointed by Crowded House themselves. Always their best when singing their better-known tunes, and much better when the acoustic guitar came out. (Do an 'unplugged' next time, guys!) The songs where they try to be rockers just didn't work as well, and the sedate audience didn't exactly come to life. However, once '4 seasons in one day' got going, the audience got up, and the most gentle "pile down to the front" occurred around then - a slow walk by some of the folks at the front. Mind you, the average age was pretty high!

So, an excellent support band, the main band were really good on the well-known stuff, and OK on the other tracks even if they weren't as exciting as they were trying to make them. Don't think my comments are going to worry them too much!

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