Family Affairs and other matters

Yesterday would have been my 20th wedding anniversary had we survived.

Given that I didn’t want to sit at home contemplating what could have been,  I decided ages to book tickets to do something different and went off to see David Gray wobble his stuff at the Hammersmith Apollo.

What an amazing voice he has.  I know some might consider him to be middle class dinner party music, but not me.  He is a brilliant singer and songwriter in IMHO.

Actually it’s not just David who’s head looks as if it’s about to fall off during the set – he’s amassed a team of head wobblers and left leg shakers.  Quite an extraordinary amount of energy must be used in his small movements.  He was very sweaty by the end of his set – his suit jacket was soaked.  I suspect he loses tons of weight each night (sorry apologies at this point to diehard David Gray fans who don’t want to know about sweat but the order of his songs – I’m a rubbish reviewer – I’ll get my brother on the case next time).

He sang most of the old favourites from “White Ladder” and “Life In Slow Motion” and a few from the album he released this year “Draw The Line” and even brought Annie Lennox on stage to sing two songs with him at the end – my how their voices complimented each other.

I’ve got a reasonable photograph to show you given that we were sitting in the circle bloody miles away.  What’s the deal with photographs these days anyway?  When I worked at EMI artists had total control of what was released.  We used to get sent a very small selection of approved photos from the artist to use.  Somebody like Stevie Nicks would do all her interviews in near total darkness, draping scarves over each and every light and sitting like a clairvoyant in the corner and refuse any photos and now it’s all changed – I realise that there still might be some rules BUT everybody in the audience had a phone camera and a video camera and what can you do about any of that?