Oops,

that would be us, then. Euphoric over win. Sort of.

I don’t often think of the Finns as being terribly amusing. This one was. And it doesn’t matter if he wakes up tomorrow wondering what on earth he said, because none of us know for sure who he was. Masks are good, occasionally. Even the Swedes had a person reporting on the votes who could actually speak English. People seem to have caught on, realising the importance of not making fools of themselves, language wise.

The UK thought they were finally taking this song contest seriously enough. But they didn’t. Look at what everyone else does! Even the Russian grannies were better than Engelbert. And it goes without saying that we want Wogan back. Now. Or at the very least, next year.

The Swedish song wasn’t too bad. And let’s hope they can avoid the exam season for next year’s contest.

Baku calling

There is a strangely Transylvanian theme to this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Lots of capes and menacing dark looks, as well as those weird wing things on people’s shoulders.

Somewhat unusual that so many performers appear to be fully clothed. And old. Older, I mean. Like Engelbert and the Grannies. What’s more, they sing in languages other than English. Unless the songs are written in very poor English and sung in even worse. But I’m guessing several countries have opted to use their own languages. Good idea.

The Nordic countries like having immigrant singers, unless going for the superblonde look like Iceland did. The German boy was pretty (so many of them were, even if they did look Mafia/Dracula-ish) but could somebody please tell him to take his stupid hat off!

Who do we dislike enough that we want their country to win? Please not Greece! Though their song makes that less likely.

Let’s go for the Grannies, cookies and all.

That’s disturbing

Let’s talk about bladders and other disturbing stuff! Are you sitting comfortably? Might be best to visit the toilet now, before we begin.

I was struck by the discussion about Bianca Jagger and whether or not she used flash to take photos at the opera. It doesn’t matter whether she’s famous. It’s neither more or less right for the famous to behave badly. And the way people use phone cameras or other digital cameras it’s often hard to tell if the bright light you see is flash, or simply the camera going about its business.

At the recent Joan Baez concert I went to, it said flash photography was not permitted, which I took to mean that photos without were fine, so I got my camera out. But after a while I felt the light visible when I used it was not acceptable to people sitting opposite me, so I put it away, and only got it out again at the end when absolutely everyone was taking pictures, with flash and everything.

Daughter has been known to agonise over the legality of taking pictures at concerts. It often says you mustn’t. But people still do. I don’t feel there should be any ‘rights’ to images of someone singing on a stage. (Different for theatre productions.) What I do feel is that people shouldn’t disturb others.

The Guardian’s theatre critic Lyn Gardner reckons ‘people’s bladders have quite clearly got weaker over the last 20 years,’ and I know what she means, but suspect the answer is that they haven’t. What has changed is people’s habit of drinking indiscriminately at all times, regardless of what they are about to do, like go to the theatre. And also that they have got neither the instinct to try and ‘hold it in’ nor the inclination not to keep leaving their seats from – usually – the middle of the row.

If I have to ‘go out’ mid performance I tend to wait for a suitable moment both for leaving and for returning. I was a bit disconcerted at the National Theatre to find that the usher hovered anxiously outside the Ladies until I emerged again, and checked I was all right. Very caring and sensible, but I’m glad I didn’t know until then.

Went to the MEN arena for an S Club concert many years ago. Was startled by how the audience kept popping out for food and drink in the middle of the show. I suppose it’s the sports arena mentality, coupled with the sheer noise level at these events.

The understanding of what disturbs others varies from country to country. During Roger Whittaker’s concert in Cologne I waited for a song to finish before returning to my seat, only to have the usher urging me to just go in. She clearly thought I was stark raving mad for thinking of others.

And speaking of Roger; I once sat next to a woman, who was happily singing along to every single song. Having exchanged pleasantries on arrival, I felt it would be rude to complain, even though she was ruining ‘my’ concert. I thought if I asked her to shut up, I would ruin her evening instead. I gritted my teeth, almost cheered when Roger got to a song she didn’t know, and after the interval I asked the Resident IT Consultant to swap seats with me.

It is not always the audience who has mishaps, either. I recall the tiny St Paul’s chorister who was sick on stage and had to be bundled out by an older ‘boy.’

To get back to the bladders, it all depends on how long you have to sit through something. Films are frequently dreadfully long these days, with the added pain of too many commercials and too many trailers. With no interval necessary as cinema equipment improves, we simply have to pop out mid-film. And seeing as they want us to buy buckets of fizzy drinks, how can they possibly mind the running in and out? Nor is popcorn terribly silent to eat, and not odour free, either.

At least films don’t talk back to the audience when they rustle their sweet wrappers a little too loudly. Perhaps they should.

A Praguematic overture

I am a witch. This is quite important to keep in mind when reading the following.

We never used to go to Hallé concerts when Offspring were very young, but on realising friends took their girls to concerts I decided to try it with Son, when he was about ten. I picked a light type of subscription, for the Hallé Pops, and the Resident IT Consultant and I took it in turns to take Son. It went well and he really enjoyed the concerts.

In Son’s first term at Secondary school he received an invitation to a birthday party from a boy I’d never heard of until that moment. It was for Concert Night. Son surprised me by saying he wanted to go to the party instead… The Resident IT Consultant was needed to chauffeur him there, which left me, and a very young Daughter to go to the Bridgewater Hall. But it was worth a try, and she was so excited by the whole idea.

It was a Hallé raffle night, which I knew since it had been announced the previous time. I also knew I wasn’t buying a raffle ticket at a cost of £5. But as we arrived up at Circle level, there was a nice young man waving tickets at us and I hauled out my fiver while saying ‘but I don’t want to go to Prague.’ (That was the prize. Two plane tickets to Prague. And back.)

Throughout the concert I felt increasingly bad, and when the time for the draw came at the end, I just wanted to leave. I knew we were going to win. Carl Davis was conductor that night, and he was going to fish out the winning ticket. He put his hand in the hat (cake tin?), and I froze with fear.

‘Let’s have a drumroll first’ he said, pulling his hand out again. We had the drumroll. Hand back in. Winning ticket came out. Mr Davis took an age to read the number out (which I have long forgotten) and longer still to determine what to call the colour of the ticket. It was some kind of green. So was ours. Right number, too. Daughter whooped.

We were up in Circle, as I said. It took us forever to get down to the main foyer, where the rafflers waited anxiously by the door, hoping the winner would eventually turn up. I marched up to them and asked what sort of green they were wanting. It was our kind.

They were very happy to have their winner, and then they made us queue jump the autograph queue so that we could obtain Mr Davis’s scribble on our programme.

After which we went home, Daughter feeling more than satisfied with her Hallé debut. (She’s the winner in our family. It was all her fault for coming.)

But I did mean it. I didn’t want to go to Prague. Nothing wrong with Prague, I’m sure. I hoped the tickets were business class, which could be exchanged for four economy tickets, but it turned out they weren’t and couldn’t. So what with the cost of potentially buying two more tickets (don’t ask about ‘babysitting’), paying for hotel and meals (and not very veggie ones, I suspect), we came to the conclusion it couldn’t be done.

That’s why we never went to Prague.

And I still wonder how I could be so certain from the moment I said what I said to the raffle ticket seller.

It’s starting today

Wonderful Town, that is. You know, the musical at the Lowry, starring Connie Fisher, who seems very nice, despite saying that Maureen Lipman has large feet. Here is a short video clip where Connie will persuade you that you need to come and see Wonderful Town. It doesn’t have to be at the Lowry, but if it is, you get the full Hallé orchestra (first two weeks) as well.

Book now, or it could be too late!

Roger Whittaker is 76

Happy 76th Birthday Roger!

The photo is from Cologne last year when Roger and the band are finishing off the concert with Ein Bisschen Aroma. And that has me starting again, nanananananananananana…

It’s 45 candles on the cake for John Barrowman

Happy 45th birthday to John Barrowman!

Hardly surprising John is like he is with such crazily fantastic parents. Good thing they gave up on the idea of throwing him out for being a noisy baby. (Although he is still pretty noisy at 45.)

(Photo Helen Giles)

Joan Baez – the 2012 Manchester concert

I felt so guilty, dragging the Resident IT Consultant to another concert, even though we don’t go often and even though it was Joan Baez at the Bridgewater Hall. Decided it was good for us, however, and it was. What won’t be so good is this amateurish review of Joan’s concert. I have just been reading what one of my favourite music reviewers thinks of people who are not experts on writing about music. Although I refuse to be intimidated.

Well, I know what I like, as the saying goes…

Besides, I like Joan Baez, and whereas she might not sound the same as she did forty years ago, her voice has the ability to transport me back to about 1970, and that’s good enough for me. Her singing reminds me of what ‘it felt like’ back when it was cool to like Joan and when we still thought the world might one day – soon – become a better place.

She went through guitars as though there was no tomorrow. Her assistant Grace trotted out with a new one (newly tuned, I assume) for almost every song. On this tour Joan has a two-man-band along, and that is quite sufficient. Many of the songs she did on her own anyway, and her style is such that too much ‘noisy’ accompaniment is neither necessary nor wanted.

Joan started out with some ballads, including her favourite type, with unhappy people who will soon be dead. But there is no avoiding the fact that Farewell, Angelina made the audience much happier. She reminisced about Woodstock, and about not giving birth in a caravan. Praise for Dylan, the best songwriter of the 1960s, and some confusion over Donovan’s contribution to one song.

Her stage drink this time was reported to be fruit tea, rather than the Irish coffee she’d once enjoyed, leaving her face with froth all over. It’s a relief to see someone like Joan on stage, feeling so secure in herself that she can wear cool and clunky shoes, so unlike the seductive dresses and impossible shoes other singers go for.

She must have been reading my mind, because as I was wondering if she only consorts with people on the right side of politics (the left side, obviously), she mentioned a conservative friend who loves Joe Hill, despite this beautiful song having been written about the ‘wrong person.’

I could be mistaken, but I felt Joan sung more songs that I didn’t know, or perhaps just ones I haven’t heard so much, including a love song written by her keyboard and strings and everything else musician, Dirk Powell. There were big hits as well, like Suzanne, Jerusalem, and an unusual arrangement of Swing Low Sweet Chariot.

As usual, no interval, but after 90 minutes Joan came back on for three encores. First ‘Dixie’, sung with a bunch of fan’s flowers in her arms (very effective look), followed by Imagine. We had to ask for the third, but Joan said we were worth it, so got Blowin’ in the Wind. That’s when the audience stood up, and cameras flashed, making it the ‘rowdiest’ part of the concert.

Came to my senses on the way out. No point in feeling guilty. Not just because  we are worth it. But I remembered that of all the singers I’ve forced on the Resident IT Consultant, Joan Baez is one he fell in love with. That could be why he seemed so happy.

It was a good concert.

Bowery Songs

OK, so afternoon tea sounds a little OTT. But we like that pot of tea we have in the afternoon, usually with toast and jam. It’s sometimes the only time we sit down peacefully in the ‘nicest’ room in the house. It’s a bit crazy, but that’s how it is. Sometimes we even engage in conversation.

If conversation seems too daring there is always music. I generally listen to everything on shuffle on the iPod, so the novelty of putting on a CD and hearing a whole album from start to finish has some value. If it’s to go with the pot of tea I tend to pick a CD that no one will object to.

One of the ones I pick more and more frequently is Bowery Songs by Joan Baez. The more I hear it, the better it gets. There is something about it that makes me feel calm and happy. And it’s not as if the songs are particularly ‘happy’ as Joan is still protesting all that is bad with society. But she does so with music that is good for the soul.

I try not to pick Bowery Songs every time. In case someone complains.

Being Per Gessle

That’s Att Vara Per Gessle. I looked to see if the book by Sven Lindström has been translated, but it seems not, which is a shame. On the other hand, maybe too few people around the world would want to read such a tome. To be honest, I don’t think I would have, had it not been for the shared connection of Halmstad as home town.

Halmstad isn’t all we share. Looking at the class photo from 1968 I felt it could have been mine, and whereas I didn’t wear glasses back then, Per could have been me. We lived near each other, but there is two and a half years between us. Like me, Per seems to have started school a year early. His handwritten list of LPs could almost have been mine.

But that’s where the similarities stop. Reading Att Vara Per Gessle is hard at the best of times, simply due to its sheer size. Beautifully designed, every page looks like the cover of an LP. The paper is thick and heavy, and the almost 300 pages take time to work your way through. Personally I’d have found it easier without the design, but there is no getting round the fact that it looks good.

So, I’ve been at it a few years now, reading in fits and bursts when I felt up to balancing the book. It’s so full of facts, that you occasionally need to distance yourself from too many numbers. Per is a fanatic who keeps track of everything, and the book is much the same, complete with a CD.

I have enjoyed it enormously. It’s both interesting to see all that goes on behind the scenes of success, as well as a ridiculous feeling of pride that a local boy made quite so good.

The book has everything, from Per’s early years at home in Halmstad to his current – rather fancier – home in Halmstad. See, he went far, but he didn’t go too far in the geographical sense. That’s nice. You can be a small town boy and an international star.

I knew Gyllene Tider as an even more local boy band, from Harplinge. That’s when I paid any attention to them at all. The fans phoned the hairdresser’s where I was having my hair cut, asking if the hairdresser’s son (drummer) was at home. Annoying, I thought.

After that I was half aware of Roxette, Per’s group with Marie Fredriksson. And by the time he started on his solo career, Offspring were interested in him and his music, so I was almost not behind at all.

Suffice it to say that I had no inkling that there was so much work behind something ‘simple’ like a new album, or a tour. To this non-musical music listener the background information has been a real eye-opener. Also realised I’ve only listened to a fraction of Per’s music, so might have to look into some more now that I know where it’s come from.

This might be a ‘warts and all’ book. I don’t know. There are plenty of warts, but it may not be all the warts. It’s reassuring to see that not all was rosy, and it’s salutary to discover that things went wrong, too.

Fun and informative, and for someone from the same time and place it’s much more than the rise of a star. (Just wish my childhood memories of Per’s hotel could have been left in peace.)

And I have considerably fewer tracks on my iPod than Per has on his.