Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Welcome to Wonderland

In contrast to Sunday, tonight's Winter Wonderland, courtesy of Xfm Manchester, was a top gig. Top venue, top company, top bands.

With Karen's roast beef dinner still sitting warmly in our stomachs, nine of us headed to the Apollo, in time for all but the winners of the Rock School competition.

It's youngest 'adopted neice' R's first ever gig and she's bouncing with excitement. I tell her that in year's to come, when people ask her "what was the first gig you ever went to", she's going to have a pretty cool answer.



First up is the Ting Tings and they're absolutely excellent. I've liked their stuff on the radio and the energy of their live act just took it to different levels.




The Courteeners follow with a cracking set and the crowd are lapping it up.



Stephen Fretwell, meanwhile is good enough, but doesn't really capture my imagination.



Happily the Cribs are more to my taste and deliver a killer set (though I'd never noticed what bad posture Ryan has, until I looked at the photos I'd taken - ooh his back will be murder in years to come...).



The penultimate act is James Walsh from Starsailor, who blows the crowd away with soul-achingly beautiful songs delivered solo with acoustic guitar. Sheer quality.




And then finally The Charlatans, proving that they have a pretty decent back catalogue. Not at all sure about Tim's taste in macs, but happily it is soon discarded to reveal the more familiar black hoodie look.

All this and bucket loads of cash raised for Shelter - what more can you ask for?

1 comment:

Merlin said...

Gosh, The Charlatans. Now that takes me back a bit