Crowded House / Peter Gabriel (Hyde Park Calling) 23/06/07

Crowded House

Setlist:
Locked Out
Weather With You (Neil singing about the sun sunshine in Hyde Park and it rainig in Glastonbury - I bet he regretted that later)
Pineapple Head
Transit Lounge
Don't Stop Now
Fall At Your Feet
Distant Sun
Silent House
Private Universe
Pour Le Monde
Four Seasons In One Day
Those Were The Days
Mean To Me
Better Be Home Soon

We had sun for the first half of the gig, but then Neil made some jokes about it raining at Glastonbury all week... and then the sky opened up! Boy, it's just like Four Seasons In One Day!

Peter Gabriel

Setlist:
The Rhythm Of The Heart
On The Air
Intruder
D.I.Y.
Blood Of Eden
I Don't Remember
No Self-Control
Lovetown
Family Snapshot
Steam
Mother Of Violence
Lay Your Hands On Me
Solsbury Hill
Sledgehammer
In Your Eyes

PS: Anna spotted Don McKinnon (actually, he was standing right next to us...)

Anniversary

Anna and I had our anniversary on Friday, and I laid on a few surprises for her. First of all, I beat her out of bed in the morning (after a nice sleep in) to make pancakes. I even bought some chocolate sauce especially, and fresh lemons. Mmm.

Couldn't eat too much though, because I also booked us a table for lunch at Royal Hospital Road, Gordon Ramsay's 3 Michelin star flagship restaurant. We were a bit nervous at first - I was wearing a suit for the first time in months! But aside from a small faux pas (whereby we tried to order our drinks from the wrong waiter), we ended up quite relaxed, and having a wonderful time.

The staff were really nice, not at all condescending, and they even took us back to see the kitchen and have a chat with the Head Chef (Simone Zanoni)! It was very impressive, well laid out and with some 17 chefs zipping around. The place was running like clockwork - not at all the noisy scene you might see on Hell's Kitchen or The F Word. Impressive.

The food was just incredible. Really detailed, and super tasty. I admit to having some fish (naughty me), but it was worth it. The best scallops I've ever had! Plus - on top of random free dishes they kept giving us - they brought us a special dessert (strawberry icecream in
white chocolate, on a bed of dry ice), because the Maitre d' (the amazing Jean-Claude Breton) had seen me giving Anna an anniversary card.

It was a humongous bill (I had a whiskey which was £12 alone, but it was a delicious 12 year old Knappogue Castle), but absolutely worth it.

I had planned to take Anna to Battersea Park or London Zoo in the afternoon, but the weather was miserable. So we went home and watched movies, before I took her to the Dirty Dancing stage play at the Aldwych Theatre in the evening. That was a lot of fun too - some brilliant
choreography, and a lovely (if somewhat estrogen-heavy) atmosphere.

Anyway, I got a couple of books and a t-shirt from Anna, and I gave Anna an admittedly random scented candle signed by Heather Nova.

Dave Dobbyn (Koko, Camden) 21/06/07

Haven't found a setlist yet, but here's a video clip from Slice of Heaven.

PS: Anna spotted Renee Brennan from Tadpole.

Grinderman (Kentish Town Forum) 20/06/07

Went and saw Nick Cave's new garage band (a four piece formed from memebers of The Bad Seeds) with James. We had dinner first, hoping to miss most of the opening act, the horrendous Suicide. Here's a quote from Playlouder:

To the right, a man bumps his head on the front of the balcony, before sinking onto his bench as he holds it in his hands. Behind me a girl sits, a pained expression on her face. It's clear that a lot of persons here present aren't exactly enjoying Suicide.

Unfortunately, these goons were still on stage when we arrived, pumping out a pointless and utterly discordant bunch of soundwaves. Eventually, and to the relief of the crowd, they left. Finally, after a glacial wait, Grinderman finally appeared. They played the whole of their self-titled album, but no Bad Seeds tracks. I found the set to be a bit one-tone, but I did like the new "handlebar moustache and beard" look. It's as though they had walked off the set of The Proposition.

At the end of the gig, Cave taunted us by bringing Suicide back on stage, and performing a couple of tracks with them, before finally wandering off with an apparently disinterested expression on his face. Weird.

Setlist:
Grinderman
Get It On
Honey Bee (Let's Fly To Mars)
Go Tell The Women
(I Don’t Want You To) Set Me Free
When My Love Comes Down
Electric Alice
Depth Charge Ethel
Man In The Moon
No Pussy Blues

Encore with Suicide:
Harlem
Mr Ray

Big weekend

So busy, we barely had time for any housework.

On Saturday we went for a walk around the shops in Kentish Town and Camden. I dropped some old VHS tapes off at the "Pets in Need of Vets" charity shop, we had a hearty brekkie at a Turkish cafe, and we each bought sandals for the summery weather (due any day now!).

Spent the evening in Angel, having a few drinks to say goodbye to Ben, who's back home to NZ. Also welcomed James Gunson to the big smoke.

Sunday, did a roadtrip to St Albans with Andy and Megs. This is the 15th Century clock tower:

A squirrel ornament:

St Alban's cathedral:

St Alban's school (whose alumni includes Sasha Baron Cohen and Stephen Hawking):

The oldest pub in England!

There is a large park beside St Albans that was the site of a Roman city called Verulamium. There was a great museum with finds from the excavations, plus some wonderfully preserved mosaic floors:

St Michael's, where Francis Bacon attended church:

We also visited the remains of a small Roman theatre, which is very well preserved:

Afterwards, we drove out to Childwickbury Manor, where Stanley Kubrick lived from 1978 until his death. He is interred on the rgounds, but they are still private:

The manor is surrounded by beautiful fields that are absolutely alive with rabbits. This photo does no justice!

Dolores O'Riordan (Koko, Camden) 15/06/07

Went and saw Dolores O'Riordan of The Cranberries, who has now gone solo. She played a lot of material from her new album, plus some classic tracks. It was lovely having Anna at a concert with me for a change!

Setlist:
Zombie
Angel Fire
Animal Instinct
Apple Of My Eye
Ordinary Day
Ode To My Family
Human Spirit
Stay With Me
Black Widow
Pretty
When You're Gone
Can't Be With You
Loser
Salvation
When We Where Young

Encore:
Accept Things
Just My Imagination
Linger
October
Dreams

Anna in Berlin

A saucy wurst:

Checkpoint Charlie:

Not sure when Anna is going to get around to writing me a nice Berlin blurb, so I've pinched this from an email to her Mum :)

Berlin was fun. Very hot - 30 odd degrees - and very sunny. All the photos show me with my umbrella (parasol) trying to keep the sun off me. Berlin is very different from the other European cities we've visited. It's very modern - has some amazing buildings - and is wide open. All the main streets seem to be wide boulevards. Didn't see any squirrels.

Don't worry about me, I watched a bunch of films Anna wasn't interested in and drank a whiskey with James.

Southbank festival

Went to a little festival at Southbank with Jan and her brother John. Had fun playing in the moving fountain, and the other displays.

Notting Hill markets

Caught up with Hugh and Caroline (ex Minters) who are now living in London. Had a lovely sunny Saturday, so we went to the Notting Hill markets to look at all the crap. Hugh and I ended up buying a couple of lithographs each.

Clan Roberts. Och aye!

George Orwell's house

Went to Putney to have a BBQ and celebrate Megan's birthday. Saw Andy's new (old) car.

May Bank Holiday - Monday

From our lodge in Rudge, we had a view of the Westbury Horse. There has been a white horse on the site for at least three hundred years or so - originally cut into the chalk hillside, it was filled in with concrete in the 1950s and painted white!

Wells is a small cathedral city and civil parish in Somerset, named after the three wells dedicated to Saint Andrew (one in the market place and two within the grounds of the Bishop's Palace and cathedral).

The Bishop's Palace:

Wells Cathedral is known for its fine fan vaulted ceilings, the Chapter House at the top of a flight of stone stairs, and the scissor arch of the west facade - parts of which date back to the 10th century. The front of the cathedral is said to be the finest collection of statuary in Europe, containing 356 individual figures carved from the cathedral's warm, yellow Doulting stone.

The Medieval Clock, still working, originally marked out the many services conducted during the day at the cathedral. The majority of the clock is inside, but there is an exterior facade as well.

After Wells, we drove through the beautiful Cheddar Gorge to the Wookey Hole Caves, which had made such an impression on me 20 years ago. The caves (pronounced Woo-kee, not as in Chewbacca, though I've had a giggle about that a few times) were formed by the River Axe, which passes underground through the limestone. The majority of the caves are underwater, but have otherwise been visited by people for around 50,000 years. The constant temperature is now used to mature locally produced Cheddar cheese.

The cave is noted for the Witch of Wookey Hole - a roughly human shaped rock outcrop, reputedly turned to stone by a monk from Glastonbury.

And that's me beside her petrified dog (a later addition to the legend).

The caves are as impressive as some of ours from back home, except they've used coloured lights throughout. I quite liked these, but Anna wasn't impressed. It's certainly not very conservationally-minded.

The whole experience is rather directed at children, and outside the cave is a park of fibreglass dinosaurs, a working paper mill, and an amusement house with a penny arcade (which no longer holds quite the same mystique for me as it once did).

On our way back to Weston-super-mare:

Farewell Weston!