Whistling in the dark

Stornoway should have been the headliner in this pairing. Caught them for a couple of songs at Middlesbrough Music Live and have seen Beth Jeans Houghton a few times now.

She is young and has a gorgeous voice, is very cute and very creative.  What’s the problem?

Part of her persona is giggling through a bunch of messing up.  She is from the area and the crowd is supportive but it is annoying when you pay money to see someone in a fantastic venue and it doesn’t seem like they have bothered to rehearse very much and have possibly spent more time planning outfits.

I highly recommmend her EP and hope she gets her sh*t together for future gigs.

lyrics of zorbing

Conkers shining on the ground,
The air is cooler
And i feel like i just started uni
Walking backwards to my van
You’re at your window,
And I’m tripping every time i think of

Lying in your attic
I can feel the static
The storm has broken, Heavens open

Send my body out to work
But leave my senses
In orbit over south east London
Wind the window down and pinch
Me on the shoulder
Whilst i’ll be driving off to dream of

Lying in your attic
I can feel the static
The storm has broken, Heavens open
So electrifying, Oh I’m nearly flying
Lost my heart between the sheets of lightning

I’ve been singing you this song,
Inside a bubble,
Been Zorbing through the streets of Cowley,
We were always meant to be,
Zorbing together, And i think its high time we started

Lying in your attic
I can feel the static
The storm is breaking, windows shaking
So electrifying, Oh I’m nearly flying
Lost my heart between the sheets of lightning

Lying in your attic
I can feel the static
The storm has broken, Heavens open
So electrifying, Oh im nearly flying
Lost my heart between the sheets of lightning

conkers on wikipedia

zorbing on wikipedia

Kev’s new favourite song (even if it’s a bit folky for him) because it involves disconnecting…one day we both will:

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Kev and I went to see Video Games Live at the Sage – Northern Sinfonia performing music from video games.
Possibly the only time we will see Northern Sinfonia at the Sage decked out in Threadless Gaming T-shirts.
Kev was wearing:

I was wearing:

Would have been just as happy wearing:

Some photos from the evening:

The show was good fun.  Multi-generational audience. Our only lament was that we weren’t seeing it in the US or Japan where it would have been sure to sell out and more people would have been dressed up.

Jack Wall was the conductor, Tommy Tallarico was the MC. It turns out he composed the music to one of the games I used to play Earthworm Jim (also loved the cartoon). Martin Leung the video game pianist also performed including a rendition of Super Mario blindfolded. There was also a skype video chat with Marty O’Donnell.

You can watch a good chunk of it with the youtube playlist below.

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Went to see Bon Iver perform at the Sage Music Centre in Gateshead tonight. It was in the smaller Hall 2, sound is as amazing as Hall 1. We were on level 3 (as high as you can go) and the view was still great.

Anais Mitchell opened for them. She was pretty good…best song of the set Cosmic American from her 2004 CD “Hymns for the Exiled”. Her latest CD is “The Brightness” released on Ani DiFranco’s Riteous Babe records.

The main event was Bon Iver (pronounced: bohn eevair, though when I heard Anais Mitchell say it it kind of sounded like bonnie bear) is mainly Justin Vernon plus Mike Noyce and Sean Carey and a bass player who I can’t find the name of for the life of me.

Justin Vernon has a gorgeous voice and a wicked collection of guitars and the four musicians on stage work together tightly for a really rich sound. You can hear the album (there’s only the one) on their virb.com page. They also have a myspace page and an official site.

Mike Noyce was stunning as he sang a beautiful cover of Graham Nash’s “Simple Man,” and the whole group sang a cover of Sarah Siskind’s “Lovin’s For Fools” after it was requested by an audience member. The video to the right is the same cover, different night.

Justin Vernon kept commenting on what a nice, professional venue the Sage is and the caliber of the crowd…he seemed a bit surprised and bewildered to be there at times. For me I can’t imagine hearing Bon Iver in a place with flawed sound – what a travesty it would be not to get the full range of emotion and beauty in the songs.

All well and good, the part that kicked my ass – the song that came on after the encore song when the lights came on: “Love Me Sexy” by Jackie Moon aka Will Ferrell in Semi-Pro (one of the many movies I saw on flights on this summer, surprisingly entertaining).

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