Eeeeeeeeeeee.... grand!

Well, what a lovely weekend I’ve just had. Bereft of children (I’ve hardly spoken to OD since she hoofed back to the Beast and as it was the girls’ great Aunt’s sixtieth birthday party on Saturday I didn’t see YD either) I had the kind of weekend I used to have twenty years ago: Friday night I went to a gig with my mates; Saturday daytime I pottered about, including a run to the supermarket; Saturday evening I went to the cinema with a beautiful woman; Sunday we stayed in bed till lunchtime (bar a quick hoof down to the newsagents) before heading down to see some live jazz at a local pub; we then came home, watched a film and fell asleep snuggled up on the sofa. It was, as they say up north, reet grand.

So what did I get up to? Well, actually if we go back to Thursday I went to see We Are Scientists at Brixton with MM. A very mediocre band who have a couple of reasonable tunes but very little else yet seem fantastically popular at the moment (a bit like The Automatic who I saw at the Astoria a couple of weeks back). They started the set by playing Phil Collins’ ‘Against All Odds’ as an intro tape (post-modern irony; don’t cha just love it) before jumping in mid-song and finishing the rest of the number themselves. That, sadly, was the only interesting thing they did all night.

Friday though was a different kettle of fish. I think (and I may be wrong) that this was the twentieth time I’ve seen Cardiacs in twenty years, which is not a bad average especially for a band who I didn’t like at all the first time I saw them (although, to be fair, they weren’t that great in1986; however by 1990, when I saw them for the second time, they were amazing). Seeing as they tend only do one gig a year (every November at the Astoria, and - before you ask - yes it is always packed; I think they realise any more than that might dilute their fan base), and as this will be their last show their (the Astoria is due to be demolished early next year), they announced via their website that if their followers e-mailed their favourites in, they’d construct their setlist accordingly. Thus Friday’s set included some fan favourites that they’d not played in a few years. Plus former their former lead guitarist, Jon Poole, and that Ginger chap from the Wildhearts (both of whom were playing in the support act) joined them for three numbers, including a blinding four guitar version of ‘Bell Stinks’. A cracker of a show and, at just under two hours, you really felt that you a good night out.

Saturday night was cinema with FM and we saw ‘The Prestige’. This could have been such a good film but it just didn’t quite hang together for a number of reasons. Firstly, whilst the character motivations were made clear (the rivalry between the two magicians; the assistant who becomes lover to them both) these weren’t really conveyed to the audience. Thus we knew why they behaved they way they did, but we never really felt emotionally engaged with them. Aside from David Bowie once more proving that he simply cannot act, the main irritation for me was the in the dénouement where – for a film which constantly resides within the realm of realism (the magic is always explained so that it is more of a period piece than anything else) – it briefly enters science fiction and, to me, that was a such a complete cop-out that it spoiled everything which had gone before.

So, Sunday lunch time and it was the Northside Jazz Band at The Horns. Very trad, no-one on-stage under pensionable age, but would you want it any other way? I think not.

The music continues tomorrow night with The Flaming Lips at Hammersmith and then the Bonzos next Saturday at Shepherds Bush. Grand!