With the country still in the midst of lockdown and no sign of any live music in the foreseeable future if at all this year I thought I would take the opportunity to look back in the archives, sounds posh I know but it’s just an spreadsheet, and revisit gigs I attended on this day down the years. I will keep this going until I can attend my first gig again in person so hopefully this also brings back memories for my gig going chums who have joined me on this great musical journey down the years.
Another couple for today’s trip down memory lane for you down the years.
2012, Cody Chestnutt, Jazz Cafe, London
Mmm this was an odd one. Billed as an evening with Cody Chestnutt in conversation and music I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. This was either going to be a car crash or great. In the end it was probably somewhere in between. After the brilliant low fi debut ‘The Headphone Masterpiece’ Chestnutt hadn’t done much in the intervening years apart from see the errors of his ways and denouncing that record as misogynistic refusing to play any of it again. I would guess if all rap stars took that approach their careers would certainly be severely curtailed.
And so it was we had a mixture of some new songs and questions from the audience but none of the old stuff. When he is good he’s very good and certainly when I saw him again in 2016 for a straight show he was very good. Tonight though Alex and I soon got tired of the pretentious questions from supposed hip and trendy North Londoners.
Suffice to say this won’t live long in the memory certainly from a musical aspect.
2003, Rolling Stones, Twickenham Stadium, London
It’s a Stones gig. What more is there to say? They play the hits, Jagger struts his stuff, Richards gets a couple of vocals nuff said. Primal Scream were support and were good and I think Angus and Malcom Young from AC/DC came on stage at some point.
Nice to hear ‘Salt of the Earth’ which apparently they hadn’t played for 15 years. I don’t think the Stones play bad shows as the slick set is finely tuned. You know what you are going to get, they deliver, we all go home happy, job done.
That’s it for today’s trip down memory lane. Here’s hoping we can get to some form of normality soon. Support your small local venues and smaller artists in these difficult times, stay safe and keep on rockin y’all.