All in All

Just before Christmas we met up with a friend who was over from Germany. He is a smoker and at that point the German smoking ban was not in operation. His big observation on British puns and bars post ban was that he was very conscious of how many people had bad breath. I still haven’t noticed this but I have become very aware of just how many people fart at gigs, safe in the knowledge of approximate anonymity. I’m rather pleased to say that I am not the only one – there was an article on the same thing in the online Guardian the other day (I won’t link to it, as it was a bit puerile and the comments after it turned into a series of playground level fart jokes). I guess it’s gassy beer and bad diet but some gigs, especially those in smaller venues, have been quite vile.

And talking of gigs, February was a pretty busy one for Mac and I. We saw Vampire Weekend again, even though the gig was temporarily abandoned due to a fire alarm going off about 2/3s of the way through (Damon Albarn was there but apparently he denied setting the alarm off). They are not having a lot of luck, are the Weekend, as after our partly abandoned show, they had to cancel two gigs through illness and then the drummer got run over.

Black Kids have been great – we have seen them twice this year and are back again next week. Not quite sure why though, considering they only have about 8 songs and we know the full set list by now. Sons and Daughters are at their greatest ever at the moment. Smashing Pumpkins probably shouldn’t have bothered reforming. Rachel Unthank were even better than last time (although I’d like to know why they have replaced the lesbian piano player). CSS were great but the audience made me feel old. Queens of the Stone Age rocked (Josh Homme, whilst not my normal type is very sexy). British Sea Power were better for not reading an interview with them beforehand. Andre Williams was a bad motherfreaker (and very burnt out)