PrettyInScarlett

Another trip to Barfly on 15th April. Not quite a complete random gig; we chose The Crookes as the band members are/were all students in Sheffield (my old university haunt) & the band is named after the city suburb. Something of an oblique reminiscence, then. They've also been on 6 Music recently. Thankfully, it was one of those period nights where the support bands were at least as good as (possibly better than) the headline act. Toy Horses and Zenyth completed Thursdays lineup. Toy Horses were fun and quite infective. Very enjoyable and maybe even the highlight of the night. Zenyth were more in the South Wales rock mode, in my ears quite obviously influenced by Stereophonics etc (the list of influences on their myspace is also quite telling) but not disturbingly so. They weren't as exciting as Toy Horses but still an enjoyable set. The Crookes, for all the 'great new band' hype, were again ok but not an awful lot better. Someone needs to teach them onstage bante...

Now for something quite different. Tuesday 13th we went to see Piano circus at Cardiff University School of Music . I was going to say 'new' but turns out the group (ensemble doesn't quite seem to fit) formed in 1989. Piano circus , who according to their website are named after the Latin for circle, perform works for 6 keyboards/pianos and have developed a varied repertoire (which is also listed in full online). One of the reasons for going (apart from pure curiosity) was to try out contemporary compositions. The set list comprised: Erkki-Sven Tüür-Transmission (2006), Conlon Nancarrow- Study No. 5 and Study No. 26, Colin Riley- Recast, Steve Reich Six Pianos, David Lang- Face So Pale (1992) and Lynne Plowman- Hall of Mirrors (2007). Lynne Plowman was in the audience & briefly introduced Hall of Mirrors as sampling parts of lots of other classical piano works (anything from 1 bar to a more recognisable theme) & threading them together. In terms of the works them...

A special solo trip to the Norwegian Church arts centre on 9 th March to see Icelandic band hjaltalín together with support from Dry The River. I heard about the show via email lists from the people behind Swn (join the list/ Facebook group if you haven't already). Partly from lack of time, I treated the evening as a 'random gig number 3' so wasn't sure what to expect! Turns out it was an excellent evening (shades of last year's Woodpigeon gig) & pretty much a capacity crowd. A note for cake lovers -the cafe/bar at the Church was still selling foodie bits along with drinks, had a hard time resisting! Dry The River were very good. I don't know much about their background (plenty of scope online as they have both a website and myspace ), but their set (all new stuff - believe the debut album is currently being recorded) seemed to me to show shades of William Elliott Whitmore , Jeff Buckley; lo fi indie ish with a bit of modern folk thrown in. Very int...

Something of a first on a few counts. I stumbled across the legendary Peter Green 's tour dates a few weeks back. Slightly surprised as I was under the impression he was no longer around!! I wanted to go to tonight's (24 th February) show at The Globe, but it was (somewhat unsurprisingly) sold out. Fortunately, Green's 23rd February show at Huntingdon Hall in Worcester still had tickets available. Huntingdon Hall was originally built in the 18 th century as a Methodist chapel but has been a live venue for a while now. It's certainly one of the more unusual live music venues we've seen. First visit for both of us, somewhat different to have a church pew for one's seat! Looked like a sell our or near sell out on the night. Also interestingly, the show/door times operate more like a theatre than a live venue - show started at the advertised time which nearly caught us out! The support act was a local singer-songwriter called Dan Whitehouse (not forgetting Tom ...

This time M and I visited new(ish) venue Cardiff Arts Institute for some Sunday evening entertainment. The CAI hosts quite a few free music evenings (as well as other events, curated by various promoters including the likes of Kruger ). This one was a mixture of local and non-local bands but none were indie-guitar types. First up were Fife duo Panda Su , who could I suppose be classified as 'singer-songwriter' but also kinda folk, lo fi...instruments included a glockenspiel, so far so interesting. They only played about 4 songs which is a shame as they were at the very least 'good' and worth a future look. Next up were the locals (complete with fan club - at least half the audience!) King Louis Collective . Their site states soul/ska/tropical which is pretty spot on, this lot of multi-instrumentalists would be right at home on Craig Charles' 6Music show ! A variety of tracks including a cover of Kings of Leon 'Use Somebody'. They seem to have fairly regular...

Something of a quiet start to the year for us for one reason or another, so I picked a random band off the Clwb Ifor Bach website and came up with Strange News from Another Star , playing last Friday 5 th February. First time at Clwb Ifor Bach for a while, and it was full (too often there's been an audience just in double figures!) - though as all bands (2 supports, Goodtime Boys and Panic Basket) were local that's not too surprising. I won't waste much time on the dire Panic Basket except to say that screaming "12345678" does not constitute a song! Goodtime Boys were better but neither much our thing. The main guy from SNFAS , Jimmy Watkins, has a good line in banter, starting the gig with a poem about the residents of St Mellons , and with printed flyers satirising David Cameron! Again, the style of music is probably not our thing (more in the line of my earlier student taste) but certainly interesting and worth checking out. They were described as '...

M and I have just returned from a trip to Sheffield -too long since we last went, but then I always say that! The main reason for the trip was to see Fleetwood Mac on 2nd November, yay! We of course had our fill of lovely Remo's coffee and hot chocolate (link to a previous post included as there still does not seem to be a website), & of Record Collector -even made it to the pool at Pond's Forge this time! Winter had well and truly arrived on concert night! Sheffield Arena was pretty much full for the show. Very wisely the band did not have a support. Set list first (from this site ): Monday Morning The Chain Dreams I Know I'm Not Wrong Gypsy Go Insane Rhiannon Second Hand News Tusk Sara Big Love Landslide Never Going Back Again Storms Say You Love Me Gold Dust Woman Oh Well So Afraid Stand Back Go Your Own Way World Turning Don't Stop A very enthusiastic crowd with the applause/appreciation, but my only real criticism is that there was no standing area. We wer...