All in All

patti This year's Meltdown Arts and music festival at London's South Bank Centre was, if you are unaware, curated by Patti Smith and having attended the last four Meltdowns I have to say that his was without a doubt the best I have ever been to. One of the reasons I think this was such a triumph was that Patti totally immersed herself in the festival, unlike, say David Bowie who didn't even arrive in the country until the morning of the final night when he was performing.

Anyway, we watched Yoko Ono, Patti reading her poetry tribute to Robert Maplethorpe (The Coral Sea), Anthony and the Johnsons, a free performance by Yat Kah, and Patti performing Horses. All of these were fantastic and left me wishing I had attended more of the shows. Obviously it was not fautless - many of the themed tribute nights appear to have gone on for what I would consider longer than necessary, but the range of contributors was astounding.

Plenty of celebrity spots. I've previously mentioned the ones from Yoko Ono. At Anthony and the Johnsons Roger Taylor from Queen and Fran Healy from Travis were spotted (David Baddiel was also there but I despise the man and don't feel that he deserves the term "celebrity"), and Bobby Gillespe from Primal Scream and Ben and Tracy from Everything But The Girl were spotted at Horses.