A cheapskate foiled again...

For the second day in a row I visited FOPP to try and spend my recently won £20 token - but found nothing...

This week, I’ve been choosing a couple of albums a day to listen to rather than having the jukebox on shuffle...

So far I’ve chosen:-
Air - 10,000hz Legend
Freddie Hubbard – A Soul Experiment
Dar Williams – My Better Self
Sigur Ros - Takk

In addition, today on CD I’ve been listening to a new arrival from e-bay. The Violet Archers’ “End of Part One” – main man of the group is Tim Vesely of Rheostatics. He writes the most tuneful numbers of the three main writers in Rheostatics and this is a good little album...

We listened to it as we made our way into town tonight to see Dar Williams...

I think this is the fifth time I’ve seen her since discovering her music in 1996 – oh dear 10 years ago already - aarrgghhh!!!

Interesting increase in ticket prices over the years (without her UK popularity increasing that much, though she regularly fills 2,000 seaters in the states)...

1996 £4
1998 £6
2000 £8
2002 £10
2006 £14 (ticket shoes £12 though - see below)

I am quite sad when it comes to Ms Williams – I still have all my tickets and a few hand-written set lists....

Before the gig, we dined at The Baked Potato Shop in Cockburn St – Cheese, Onion & Pinapple all round – when we had our record shop in St Mary’s Street, every Saturday one of us would run up to the baked potato shop to buy our lunch – happy days...

The shop was once owned by my old footballing buddy, the now, like me, crocked David Bann, who owns a celebrated veggie restaurant in St Mary’s Street these days, though his old recipes still grace his original shop – the aforementioned Baked Potato Shop....

Comedian Jim Park – the man involved in my ankle breaking incident - has a stake in the restaurant and looks like he gets too many free meals these days though I’m reliably informed he’s recently started exercising again after a “Supersize Me” style binge of excess...

We washed down the tatties with a coffee from Starbucks before heading down to Cabaret Voltaire...

I had held off buying tickets beforehand as I object to the addition of so-called booking fees which, in this case, inflated the price from £12 to £13. I was, however, hoist by my own petard as the on-door price was £14 – a cheapskate foiled again...

Inside we bumped into Emily Scott, one of the singers I recorded recently for the next OOTB CD. At the session she’d told me she only knew one Dar Williams song – and even then, not that well – maybe she was there because I’d told her how good Dar is – or maybe not...

As we sat at the side of the room listening to opening act Adriana (from Livingston) I found it amazing that people have so readily quit smoking in pubs and clubs. It’s great...

Tonight was the first time I’d seen Dar with her band (in the US she usually plays with a band but on her UK tours she usually plays solo). The band rocked – she had the coolest bassist (Mike Visceglia) I’ve ever seen I think – he looked like a cheeky cross between Dustin Hoffman and John Cale....

Her long time drummer is Steve Holley ex of McCartney’s Wings. Her guitarist is Ben Butler – whose fretwork was most impressive indeed...

What a great concert – even though we were squashed in amongst all the lesbians up at the front of the stage – I don’t have anything against lesbians of course and, for some reason, Dar has a huge gay female fanbase – I think many people thought she was gay when she first started out but she’s now married with a kid...

Unlike previous DW gigs, we didn’t hang about to meet and greet but headed home, again listening to Mr Vesely...

We rounded off the day with a hilarious episode of “My Name is Earl” on video...

A good day...

Highlight of the Day : Dar Williams In Concert