Gigging In The Name Of The . . .

Our songs are nearly polished up and ready for release so we’ve started booking live concerts.

This got us talking about how much we love going to gigs, and some of the most memorable.

Rod’s Top Three . . .

Frank Zappa at Wembley Arena – A hit and miss venue for sound quality. It didn’t do The Cure any favours when I saw them there. But Zappa was phenomenal. He spent much of the time sitting with his back to the audience tuning his guitar. But it didn’t matter; the band were so good they didn’t need him.

Jethro Tull at Hammersmith Odeon – We had tickets two nights in a row. On the first night we were right at the front, directly under the sweat dripping off Iain Anderson’s beard as he played the flute perched on one leg.

David Byrne at I-can’t-remember-the-venue – The audience was getting rowdy because he took ages to come on stage. Then he came out in front of the curtain with just a guitar under a caged miner’s lamp, and we thought, is that it? Half way through the first song the curtain fell to reveal a massive band with a choir and brass section, and then we went mad!

Too many other great gigs I remember – REM, Queen, Joan Armatrading, Billy Bragg (many times), The Killers, Florence and the Machine, Crash Test Dummies, Paul Brady, Fairground Attraction (in small pub venues).

Finn’s Top Three . . .

Go Go Penguin at The Sugar Club – This jazz band blew me away. They had recomposed a soundtrack to a film by Francis Ford Coppola. The film was playing on a screen behind. It was an incredibly visual and aural experience and the lights and sound morphed, bringing a sense of true immersion in the concert.

Mark Knopfler at 3Arena. It was amazing to see him play as he has such a way with the guitar. The instrument is an extension of himself, the notes fall out of the guitar like words from his mouth. It was an absurdly wonderful experience.

Paul Brady at the Church of the Three Patrons – He played many of the songs I had grown up listening to in my parent’s car. It was a solo performance but he kept the energy alive all by himself. The order of the songs was fantastic with the energy moving towards a climactic performance of The Homes of Donegal. He’s an incredibly sensitive and powerful performer.