Magic Numbers, Loose Salute - Barfly, London - Monday 6th June 2005

The last opportunity to see the Magic Numbers in anything like this small a venue, for the medium term future at least. A chance look at the Barfly website revealed this date, so I duly bought 4 tickets. 2 other friends went the eBay ticket route, so there were 6 of us in total, probably a decent (if small) percentage of the Barfly!

On the way into the venue, we were given special "backstage" passes (they looked like them, but didn't have the same powers, unfortunately!

Support band Loose Salute featured something I've never seen before, a heavily pregnant woman singing lead vocals. She was, according to reliable females that know this kind of thing, over 8 months pregnant. I hope her baby liked her music, because it was OK but really nothing special at all.

The Magic Numbers were milling around inside the venue until about 2 mintes before they went on stage, and when they finally appeared, the crowd erupted. Seeming to know every word to every song, (the band were surprised by this, because the album wasn't out - little do they know about downloading music!!), the crowd truly appreciated that, next Monday when the album comes out, seeing the band in a venue like this will not be possible for a good while. For their part, the band finally seemed to be grasping the extent of the affection for them, and that, once the album is released, their lives won't be the same again.

A magic moment, seeing a band close up that are just on the brink of big commercial success, but that are already the finished article in front of your eyes. An "I was there" gig of the year.