[gig] Kasabian, Brighton Dome, 16th May 2009

Executive Summary: YAY!!!

This was one of the most cheerful, bouncy and enjoyed gigs I've been to for ages -- a real sense of everyone getting into it and having a fabulous time. We were up in the circle, sitting down like old people (I don't have the stamina to stand up for three hours, let alone bounce around as I'd have liked) but had an excellent view. Tom Meighan has great presence, and rarer, elegance: I could watch him all night. Oh, wait ... Light show fab and not reliant on coloured spot + dry ice -- I liked the neon tubes and the geometry.

True, at one point (with behatted guitarist and jangly tambourine) they were channelling their inner folk band: but on the whole they sounded more rock, less trance, than on (particularly) the first album. Very together, too.

( setlist )

Luckily the new album -- out June 8th -- is on preorder.

More write-up of Grand Day Out in Brighton later.

2009/36: Blackberry Wine -- Joanne Harris

Blackberry Wine -- Joanne Harris

Jackapple Joe was the first adult book he had written. But instead of releasing him it had trapped him in childhood. In 1977 he had rejected magic ... He was on his own and that was the way he wanted it. As if when he dropped Joe's seeds into the cutting at Pog Hill he was also letting go of everything he'd clung to in those past three years: the talismans, the red ribbons, Gilly, the dens, the wasps' nests, the treks along the railway line ... (p. 284)

( slightly spoilery review )

bright lights!

This seems to be a good week for UK-based observation of the ISS: I just watched it go over. Check Heavens Above for times. (woolymonkey, my balcony is available for educational purposes. Also, on Weds only, wine.)