Work trip to Philadelphia, USA - 27th February to 2nd March 2007

I last went to Philadelphia around 8 months ago, when it was oppressively hot and sticky. No such problem this time, as clear, crisp wintry temperatures on my arrival, gave way to lovely spring sunshine by the time I left. This was a better time of year altogether to see the city looking its best.

Arriving at the dreaded US immigration, I noticed some very prominent signs which were titled "Assaulting a Federal Officer", and which proceeded to list the various possible penalties for doing such a thing in all kinds of different ways (with a weapon, with a firearm, etc). Probably a good idea to put the signs there, because after waiting in a queue for ages, only to get to the front and be asked stupid questions, in a confrontational way, by a complete idiot, assault is probably a very tempting option for many people. On this occasion, however, my immigration experience was suspiciously smooth - maybe they have realised that they have been a little over the top in the past (although I doubt this).

My hotel was again right in the city centre, on the square where City Hall stands - so in the most lively, most attractive, and all-round best part of town. I had a great view out of the window, of the famous Love Park and Statue, and a big selection of skyscrapers which thronged a dead straight boulevard through town.

Around the city centre are an absolute myriad of restaurants and other food places, as you would expect. One feature of these is that their menus feature a ridiculously complicated number of choices. For example, I went to buy a sandwich soon after I arrived. I ordered the size and filling from the menu, but was still asked about another 6 questions before somebody eventually handed me a sandwich - with cheese, without mustard, with toasted bread, without extra meat filling, with double salad, but of course without the dreaded honey mustard ranch dressing.

All of this made me think firstly that Americans are extremely fussy, or at least they demand and expect the right to be. Secondly, that restaurants, especially fast food places, dream up all of this unnecessary complexity, as a cunning marketing ploy to enable them to bewilder and therefore sell more to people. And thirdly, that they have some downright weird names for food - everybody has "signature fries", which are basically just fries that are done slightly differently and uniquely by that particular place. Why they have to call them "signature fries" to make them sound better, is beyond me. It is all so unnecessarily complicated, it reminds me of this

Americans are also a weird bunch in many, many other ways. They do some things, and say some things, that we would just never dream of doing, mainly because it would be stupid. The best example is probably how shockingly widespread the practice of wearing your mobile phone in a "holster" on your belt is. None of them seem to realise that it makes you look like an utter fool, so they all fall over themselves to do it anyway. They have rubbish mobile phones anyway, because a complete lack of competition in the mobile phone industry means that they can only get phones that we had a couple of years ago, and only then on something ridiculous like a 2-year contract.

Whilst I was there, I had an interesting conversation about how to go about watching "sports" in America - in particular the Philadelphia Eagles "football" team. They have a huge season ticket waiting list, and an extortionately-priced "club level" of premium seats. Does this sound familiar? My colleague who is a fan, gets a call every year to try to persuade him to buy the expensive seats. When he eventually came up on the regular season ticket waiting list, the cost was around $320 for an 8-home-game season. But, to get a season ticket, he first had to buy the "ownership licence" for the seat - kind of like a bond I guess - which is resellable on the open market, and gives the right to buy a season ticket. This costs $15,000 as a one-off upfront payment, and seat licences can cost $50,000 on the secondary market. Watch out for this at Arsenal before too long, with Keith Edelman proudly saying "we are learning from the cutting edge of sports marketing in the USA".

Another experience was from an ice hockey fan. When his team got to the end of season play offs, he was invited to buy tickets. He could only buy tickets for all the games his team could possibly play, if they went all the way - in one package. It all had to be paid for upfront. And, if his team didn't play the maximum number of games, he could only get his money back as a credit against renewing his season ticket for the following season. Again, I hope that the Arsenal directors are not reading this.

Anyway, it was great to see Philadelphia without sweating buckets this time - and I got to talk to more Americans and get to know them better. It is a strange place, and I'm not sure I'd like to live here - the thought of eating processed turkey almost every day is not a terribly appealing one to be honest. Nevertheless, a good trip, and I'll be back before too long I'm sure.

Kings Of Leon, The Hold Steady, 120 Days - Astoria, London - Monday 26th February 2007

Last Time I went to see the Kings Of Leon, they were awesome, and the gig was possibly one of the hottest I've ever been to (temperature-wise at least). So, when they announced an NME Awards show at the Astoria, it provoked great excitement, and the setting of a number of alarm clocks to make sure tickets were secured. Again, gay clubs meant that the doors opened stupidly early, but on a Monday night that was no great hardship.

The first band I saw were 120 Days, who confused me a little. They started off with a decent enough set of indie-ish songs, which were fairly reminscent of the Happy Mondays. Then, 2 of my mates arrived and asked what they were like - I said they were not bad at all. Annoyingly, their set then degenerated into some fairly thick dance music, with the odd repeated vocal over the top - they literally turned from the Happy Mondays into Underworld overnight. This made me look a bit stupid really, as my description of them completely ceased to be true from that moment on. Most annoying.

The next band, and in fact the main support band, were called The Hold Steady. I really liked them - they reminded me a little of Counting Crows, except that of course they were much better than Counting Crows in reality. They were (or at least sounded extremely) American, and they had an excellent mix of different instruments - mainly guitars and keyboards, but creating a good sound. Their vocalist was singing for part of the time, and talking for the rest of the songs - but he made all of the songs sound different and interesting. The music was easy on the ear, and although those with me didn't agree, I'd really like to see them again some time.

Then the Kings Of Leon appeared. They raced straight into one of the standout tracks from their excellent new album, closely followed by Taper Jean Girl and King Of The Rodeo. By this time, the crowd reaction was completely adoring, and you would already tell that this was going to be a great gig. They ran lots of songs together, so there were few gaps and lulls, and in fact the band hardly said a word in between songs for the whole set. I looked at my watch after about ten songs, and we were still only half an hour into the set - always a good sign.

The great songs kept coming - they have so many good songs from their first 2 albums, and their new album initially sounds fantastic too. They even left out several of my favourites, and still had more than enough great songs to pull off a brilliant set. Ending up with Slow Night, So Long, the set lasted for a breathtaking hour and ten minutes - and I would have immediately sat through the whole thing again. I have never seen the Kings Of Leon play live when they have been anything less that utterly amazing - the grinding, loud and dirty guitar sound is just a fantastic ingredient for excellent songs. Seems like there were a lot of famous people at the gig as well, although annoyingly I didn't see any.

Meanwhile, in the face of such a fantastic live show by a stormingly great band, it is great to see The Sun's "Bizarre" column focussing on the important parts of the set, like how good the guitars sounded the tightness of Caleb's jeans. Honestly, they did not deserve the privilege of being at such a good gig. One good point, in that the band sound like they have 2 decades of back catalogue, rather than 2 albums, but a piss poor review all round here.

The Gossip, Bonde Do Role - Astoria, London - Saturday 24th February 2007

This was a last-minute decision to go to a gig, for want of anything more interesting to do. The Gossip have released a few decent songs over the last year, and have an "interesting" image, so I thought I'd go along. Being an Astoria gig, and with gay clubs to accommodate afterwards, everything started and finished ridiculously early - doors opened at 5:30!!

So, by the time I got into the venue, the main support act was playing - a Brazilian "act" called Bonde Do Role. They were completely bizarre, and frankly not much good - they consisted of a DJ who played samples of various other songs on top of backing beats, and 2 vocalists who did rubbish shouty karaoke over the top. I would seriously fancy my chances of being able to do better myself, and that is not a good sign at all.

The Gossip came on stage with the singer wearing something that looked exactly like a shiny black bin liner. Given that she is somewhat on the fat side, this didn't seem like a very good idea - probably very sweaty. After the first song, she disposed of said bin-liner to loud cheers. The number of photographers in the pit at the front of the crowd was incredible - Beth Ditto being named the coolest person in music by the NME probably helped that. As the bin liner was disposed of, she was wearing a bright blue bodysuit, making her look rather like Bubbles De Vere from Little Britain. If you look like that, it takes some balls to get up on stage and do what she was, so 100% fair play to her.

Anyway, om to the set. I thought that Beth's voice was incredible, amazingly powerful all round. Having said that, most of the songs really weren't all that great - they were really lifted out of the ordinary by the great voice that was singing them. Very few songs stood out beyond having a really special vocal - meaning that any song with decent guitar or drums as well, was a real highlight. Most of all, that was true about Standing In The Way Of Control, which is a quite brilliant song.

I was glad I went to this show - not the kind of gig I'd usually go to, but a decent way to spend an evening nevertheless. Beth Ditto has a fantastic voice (as Noel Gallagher agrees!), but I can't agree either that The Gossip are a great band all round as a result, or that she is anything like the coolest person in music. Good singer, but she is singing too many unremarkable songs for them to be too much more than an average band with a great (and very unconventional) vocalist. More an interesting band than a particularly good band, for me at least.

The Automatic, The View, The Horrors, Mumm-Ra - Brixton Academy, London - Friday 23rd February 2007

The final gig of the annual NME Awards tour, wound up in Brixton on a Friday night. To be honest, the line up was something of a disappointment given the bill that NME had put together for the previous 2 years - Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party, The Futureheads, The Killers, Mystery Jets, We Are Scientists, Arctic Monkeys and Maximo Park had all played this tour over the last 2 years, and somehow on paper, this bill didn't quite match up. But, still a good way to spend an evening!

Given that the doors opened very early, I didn't make it to the venue in time for the first band, Mumm-Ra, to start their set. The Horrors were due to be on next, so I also decided to delay my entrance until about 7:45, in the hope that they would also have played by that point, and I would be spared the annoyance of seeing them. Mumm-Ra were due on (and off) before 7pm, so that was a plausible thing to do.

So, getting into the venue at 7:45, I was gutted to catch the last song of Mumm-Ra's set, which was the excellent Out Of The Question. So, not only did I now have to watch the Horrors, but my delaying tactics had meant that I had missed Mumm-Ra too, all because everything was happening much later than advertised. Message to NME - if you say that a band are coming on at 6:40, stick them on at 6:40! Mumm-Ra, from what I managed to hear, sounded absolutely excellent - very annoying.

The Horrors were up next - if you look at a photo of them, it conjures up a mental picture that they are likely to be pretty atrocious. In fact, they are even worse than that, and I cannot believe that people pay to go and watch such utter crap - half an hour of unintelligible, tuneless drivel. However, there seemed to be lots of 14-year-olds going mad for it, and even complaining at the end, that the band had left "songs" out of their set. Live bands often exceed your expectations, and they were no exception - they were far worse than anticipated. Run a mile if you see them playing on a bill near you.

The View came on next, who were predictably great. There were some technical problems early on in their set, which made for huge gaps between songs, and also meant that they seemed to play all of their songs at twice the normal speed. This made the late start all the more annoying, because they could have been given more stage time, and in fact had to leave out many of their live staples.

Many of the crowd were fairly unfamiliar with their songs, to the extent that live favourite Screamin' And Shoutin' was played second up, to a good number of bemused faces around me. They also seemed to be playing to the crowd (from what you could understand through the thick Scottish accents). Building up to Wasted Little DJs by giving the crowd advance warning that they were going to play it, was just a good opportunity to get everybody excited, by giving their favourite hits top billing. So, a fairly inexperienced View crowd, but the band did a great job of winning them over, and by the end, Superstar Tradesman saw by far the most mental crowd action of the night.

I had thought that, as headliners, The Automatic would risk being out of their depth here - but they pleasantly surprised me. Their set was very entertaining indeed, and despite a similar sound and songwriting style for most of the set, it stayed engaging for the whole time. Playing Monster reasonably early on helped, but the set still flew along even after that. The keyboard player is clearly a fool, but the set rocked along very nicely - running many of the songs together helped greatly with this, as it prevented too many boring lulls in the action.

I don't think they should necessarily have been headlining, given The View's recent album success, but let's not hold that against them, because they were very good. For the encore, all of the other bands invaded the stage, with the notable exception of The View, who could and should have been headlining in front of bigger crowds than this. They are in a bigger league now. A great night out all round though, roll on the next NME tour!

Trip to Amsterdam, Netherlands - 20th to 22nd February 2007

As well as the trip to the uninteresting town of Eindhoven for the football, it would of course be rude not to at least spend some time in Amsterdam, which is somewhat more interesting, and has more to offer the casual visitor. So, arriving on the morning of the PSV game, it was straight to a bar to indulge in the local brew - which luckily is a good choice between Heineken or Grolsch!

Getting the train down to Eindhoven at about 5:30pm was the cue for the worst 6 hours of the whole trip, with an annoying Arsenal performance in a boring town. After the game, all away fans are herded onto a train platform, from which runs a direct train back to Amsterdam - very handy. On arrival back in Amsterdam, the police are on hand to lead the English fans directly towards the red light district, which of course is exactly where everybody wants to go. The only question was around who would stop off at McDonalds first.

The thing I like about Amsterdam is that big groups of friends with different "tastes" can all find fun there. You have culture, restaurants, drinking, smoking weed, and ladies - and everybody can pretty much just go off and do as they please. So, drinking for me.

The following day was raining and grey, so what better excuse to spend the day in the pub. By evening, and the Barcelona vs Liverpool game, everybody was suitably drunk, and we had filled up with a massive steak each from one of the many Argentinian steakhouses around the city. After the football, it all turned into a very late night of drinking.

Annoyingly, on the final day of the trip, the weather was absolutely lovely - very surprisingly so for late February. A shame then that we only got to enjoy it on the short walk to Amsterdam Central station, on the way to the airport, and on the way back to rainy London. But, a great trip, amusing city, which given the number of times Arsenal have played nearby, is getting very familiar now!

PSV Eindhoven vs Arsenal - Philips Stadion, Eindhoven, Netherlands - Tuesday 20th February 2007

This game saw Arsenal's third visit to what must be the Netherlands' most uninspiring town of all - and that in a country which has its share of dull places. This was amongst the "easiest" of Champions' League draws that Arsenal could have had, so generally there was good optimism amongst the travelling Gooners. Coming on Shrove Tuesday too, we walked into a Mardi Gras festival in the middle of Eindhoven, which further added to the party atmosphere.

Once inside the ground, we took our places in the away section, hemmed in as is usual in these places, by a bloody great net that did a decent job of blocking the view. Considering we were about 3 miles from the pitch, in the top corner, I'm not sure what it was there to do - you would have needed to be an Olympic champion to have thrown anything onto the pitch.

The teams came out, and Arsenal started the game at a great pace - creating a number of interesting chances in the first half. PSV did not really look to be at the races, they were creating nothing, and only Arsenal's failure to finish the chances they were creating, seemed to be keeping them in the game. 0-0 at half time, the general feeling was that we were well in control, and would comfortably wrap the tie up in the second half.

Then something strange happened. A different Arsenal emerged for the second half - one that gave the ball away all the time, passed to the opposition, and barely ventured forward to create anything, even when they did have the ball. Unfortunately, a different PSV also emerged, one that had found some boldness from somewhere, and were no longer afraid to attack us. A long range shot went in after around an hour, and it was all uphill from there.

For the rest of the game, Arsenal played like a European away game of old - in other words, badly. Couldn't keep the ball, couldn't create good passing moves or chances, and didn't seem interested. The pinnacle of this came at the final whistle - as soon as it went, the Arsenal players disappeared down the tunnel as fast as they could, with no acknowledgement of the travelling fans. Very poor.

So, we have it all to do in the second leg at home in 2 weeks. I don't doubt that Arsenal are quite capable of scoring twice against that PSV team - the bigger problem is that if we concede one, it spells big trouble indeed. We will have to play better than that, if we want to get through a tie that we really should be comfortably winning.

Arsenal vs Blackburn Rovers - Emirates Stadium, London - Saturday 17th February 2007

This was an absolutely shocking football match. Occasionally you get 0-0 draws of course - some are boring, some are more exciting than the final score suggests. This was horrendously boring - pretty much nothing of any interest at all happened for the entire 90 minutes. There have been some dull displays at the Emirates Stadium so far, where Arsenal have struggled to break down defensive opposition, and this was perhaps the best example yet of this annoying new phenomenon.

Blackburn approached the game with a very clear plan, to keep things tight as can be, try to get a 0-0 draw, then take the game to a replay at their place. Accordingly, they barely ventured over the halfway line to try any attacking whatsoever, and concentrated instead on trying to nullify all Arsenal attempts at goal.

The first half was just utterly dull, the second half mixed dullness with frustration, as Arsenal created a few chances, but just could not get past Brad Friedel in the Blackburn goal. 120 minutes in midweek at Bolton surely didn't help Arsenal to be full of energy, but as much as Blackburn killed the game by being so defensive, Arsenal weren't exactly sparkling either.

Possibly the only incident of note during the entire game was on around 70 minutes, when the referee denied what looked like a nailed on penalty, when Aliadiere was fouled in the box. After missing 2 penalties at Bolton in midweek though, I'm not sure even getting that decision would have made the difference.

One vaguely interesting thing about this game - apart from being the first domestic game where Arsenal have failed to score (a fact that Mark Hughes was idiotically proud of at the end). In the week that Arsenal have quietly admitted lying about their attendance figures (the crowd numbers given are actually the number of tickets sold, not the number of people in the stadium), today's attendance was given as 56,000. With a half-empty away end, and swathes of empty seats in the upper tier behind the goal, it can't have been more than 52,000 in reality.

I'm sure that, with only just over 48 hours notice that this game was even happening, many of our "new" season ticket holders may have been totally unaware that the game was going on. Lucky them, because it was absolutely nothing to get out of bed for on a Saturday morning, let alone anything to write home about.

Kasabian, The Enemy - Hammersmith Palais, London - Tuesday 13th February 2007

NME Awards shows seem to get better and better as the years go on. Forget the tour, although that is a decent show, featuring The View this year. The real action happens with the London series of gigs in February. Often exclusive sets with no national tour attached, this time featuring Kings Of Leon, We Are Scientists, Maximo Park, Kaiser Chiefs and Kasabian - as well as a stackload of the most exciting bands in the country.

This show is apparently to be one of the last at Hammersmith Palais, before the place gets knocked down later this year. Although it is a historic place, I actually don't think that much of it as a venue - your view isn't great and it is hard to move around the place. Nevertheless, there seem to be too many venues under threat at the moment - it is more profitable to turn them into flats or shops, but that shouldn't be allowed!

I arrived just at the end of the opening set, from The Hours. The song or two that I heard sounded OK, although I really didn't see enough to make much of a judgement. The main support band were The Enemy. With a single called Its Not OK (To Be A Slave) which has been on heavy play on MTV2 for the last month or so, I was eager to hear what they were like. The single was an undoubted highlight of their set, but overall I thought they sounded like a decent band - a good sound, several good songs apart from the single, and an interesting set overall.

Kasabian came on stage to an absolutely riotous reception, and ploughed straight into Shoot The Runner. Unfortunately, the sound died about a minute into the song. Kasabian's monitor speakers still worked, but that was all that was working. The band played on regardless, and the crowd joined in with the words as best they could. Just as people were starting to boo at the lack of sound, it came back as suddenly as it had failed. Given the soundchecks and preparations for these events, which go on all afternoon, it is amazing (and annoying) just how often there are sound problems at gigs. Hmmm.

The rest of the set was excellent, although I did think that the sound was not at all loud enough - more volume throughout the venue would have been better. The band seemed to be on fire, and really enjoying themselves - there were several shouts from the band about how good the crowd were, and a good time was had by all. Obviously, highlights included LSF as the set closer in the encore, and as ever, the chorus was being sung all the way back to the Tube station. Great live band, great gig - but then we knew that anyway. This is what the NME thought of the gig.

Work trip to Paris, France - 12th to 13th February 2007

Another trip to Paris for work, it is always a pleasure though. This time I got to experience a couple of proper French working days, complete with big lunchbreaks as well. My company's office is right in the middle of lots of Government departments, so there are French flags flying all over the place, like in the photo here. In fact, it is pretty close to the Elysee Palace, where the President "lives", so a notable part of town.

Every time I go to Paris, I am struck by something new - apart from London it is undoubtedly the city that I know best, and a fantastic place at that. Lots of parts of the city look very similar I think (wide boulevards, straight endless streets, metro signs in view almost everywhere, etc) - but if you take one look at a street, it is often absolutely unmistakeable that it is a street in Paris - the place just doesn't look like anywhere else in the world. Beautiful.

Good food on this trip, as ever, I got back to Waterloo with a very satisifed stomach! A massive plate of steak tartare was a particular highlight - and I didn't need to eat anything for the following 24 hours after that!

Arsenal vs Wigan Athletic - Emirates Stadium, London - Sunday 11th February 2007

Another home game, another game where we let the opposition score first. I'm sure we don't do this on purpose, but it is becoming such a strong pattern that I am probably going to bet on the opposition's star striker to score first in our next home game. It might help pay for a chicken balti pie at half time.

I was sat at the south end of the ground for this game, in what would normally be the away section - had Wigan managed to fill more than half of their allocation. That meant that I was surrounded by Red Members, many of whom didn't know any of the songs - in fact the guy next to me didn't seem to know any of the players' first names!

Wigan scored in the first half, an absolute screamer from Landzaat, which rocketed past the keeper into the roof of the net. Some blamed the defence and/or keeper, but to be fair, there was nothing that either could really have done about it - just a great strike that saw us one goal down. That deficit persisted until half time, so the mood on the concourses was a "here we go again" one.

Arsenal tried and tried for the whole second half, but Wigan played pretty well in defending their lead. Their constant timewasting was very annoying and frustrating, especially from Kirkland, but I understood why they were doing it. Their ability to keep possession, and even to create a couple of breakaway chances, was impressive, and made it hard to see how they had recently lost 8 games in a row - obviously not by playing like that.

Then, with 10 minutes to go, the game erupted into controversy. Flamini brushed past Heskey, who fell over dramatically into the box. 3/10 a penalty, but obviously Paul Jewell and Sky TV (more on them later) thought it was a nailed on penalty - despite being quite possibly outside the area. Minutes later, Flamini was a whole 46 centimetres offside (as proved by Match Of The Day later that day), in the build up to the Arsenal equaliser. Which made up for a goal we had previously had disallowed when Adebayor was marginally ONside. All six of one and half a dozen of the other.

A matter of minutes later, Rosicky scored his first Premiership goal for Arsenal, getting his head onto a ball that had been whipped in at high speed from the right. Lehmann managed to get booked by the idiot referee for timewasting - ironic considering that Kirkland had been doing far worse all game.

A good comeback from Arsenal, and Wigan can feel hard done by not to have got anything from the game - but the refereeing decisions did not treat them too badly at all on balance. They could have had a penalty, but then they could have had many more than the 2 or 3 yellow cards they did collect. We could have had a goal disallowed for offside, but we also could have had a mistaken disallowed goal given. As far as the referee went, it all evened itself out reasonably in the end.

Of course, that wasn't how Sky TV saw it. Paul Jewell would say that all the decisions were wrong - he is the Wigan manager whose team lost when they maybe deserved more - so he is bound to grab excuses. Sky on the other hand are supposed to be fairly unbiased. Not to highlight every instance where Arsenal got remotely lucky, as if it were evidence of some huge conspiracy between Arsenal and the referees and authorities. All the while, whilst utterly ignoring all the (equally numerous) instances where Arsenal were hard done by - but then those incidents don't quite fit in with Sky's one-eyed anti-Arsenal approach. Other people agree with my feelings on this, notably and amusingly here.

A decent comeback (again) from Arsenal at home. Wigan probably deserved more, but Arsenal had a little too much for them in the end, especially as they tired in the last 10 minutes or so. If only certain Manc and Chelsea-loving broadcasters would ever give us any credit for it.

The Belgrave Scandal, Pictures of Shanghai, Guilty Pleasure - Forum, Tunbridge Wells - Saturday 3rd February 2007

This was my first Belgrave Scandal gig for a while, since the mid-November date in London's swanky Cafe De Paris in fact. A last minute arrangement at Tunbridge Wells Forum, to cover for a late cancellation, this meant that the venue was much less full than usual. Never mind, there was beer flowing, and the band were wearing their suits again.

First band on were called Guilty Pleasure, a name that they will surely have to change if they start to get anywhere, to avoid being sued by the Sean Rowley and VH1 cheesefest of almost the same name. They are from North Kent, from where there seem to be quite a few decent bands emerging lately, most notably the Underground Heroes, mates of The View. The North Kent sound seems to be extremely strongly Libertines-influenced, and this band were no exception. Still very young, I have certainly heard much worse on offer as the first band on at the Forum. A decent enough soundtrack to spending twenty minutes at the bar.

Next up were a Tunbridge Wells band called Pictures of Shanghai. They had a big emo sound - not my cup of tea at all, but I had to admit that they were pretty good at what they were doing. I'm not all that keen on what they call "angst-ridden" vocals, but the guitars sounded good, and even the singer was pretty impressive given the musical style.


The Belgrave Scandal came on stage for their headline slot, and pretty quickly started throwing new songs into their set. For a first listen, the new stuff sounded pretty good indeed - something of a new direction, and reasonably different from their older songs - they have obviously been doing something other than eating and drinking over Christmas after all!

This being a headline set, it was longer than usual, and there was time for an acoustic solo from the singer and lead guitarist - this worked really well I thought, and when the band came back on for final song Soul And Power, it went down a storm. All in all, a very good gig - the new songs sounded very promising indeed, and the old stuff was pretty damn good too.

Bloc Party, Absentee - Astoria, London - Friday 2nd February 2007

I went to this gig with reasonably low expectations - it had been a while since I was really regularly listening to much of Bloc Party's music; I had had little chance to hear any of their new songs, and in any case thought that they might require hard work before you could really get into them. Having said all that, I'm really glad I went, because my modest expectations were comprehensively exceeded.

Except, that is, by the support bill. This was the last of 3 Bloc Party nights at the Astoria, and there had been a different support each evening. Missing Fields and in particular Metric, did not make me happy, especially when tonight's offering was Absentee, a band that had never really excited me before when listening to their recorded stuff.

And now I know why they had never caught my attention - I thought they were awful. Their set seemed to plod along forever, with dismal and dreary music, and not much hint of energy from the band on stage. Not that many in the audience seemed to like it either - absolutely not my cup of tea at all. The singer's voice was so deep that it was hard to hear any lyrics, and they just seemed to set the whole set onto a down.

Because of the club nights on at the Astoria, most gigs there finish reasonably early - and certainly by 10pm. I was surprised, though, that when Bloc Party came on at around 8:45, the upstairs was still half empty, and the downstairs was by no means packed at that point. Obviously some Astoria amateurs that weren't getting in early enough.

Their loss, because the band got off to a flyer of a set, Like Eating Glass making an early appearance to a great audience reception, closely followed by new single The Prayer. There was a sprinkling of songs from their new album, but a very pleasing number of their fantastic old songs - reminding me just how damn good many of them are. Banquet was a very obvious highlight, along with Little Thoughts, which is apparently a fairly rare live treat.

The new songs sounded good, but as suspected, I think I need another few listens to get properly into them - none were immediately amazing as I recall. But for me, so were many of the songs from their first album - it took me a while to really get to like Banquet even. So, a great live set is always a good way to go, because it now means that I'll buy the album and give it the necessary few listens. A very good set by a band that write epic songs, and that sound frankly marvellous when they play them live.