Life's about experiences. These are mine.
Reading holds an annual programme of classical music events called “Classical Music Alive” which includes a variety of events. As part of this we went last night to the Hexagon to see Film Music Gala. This was basically classical music but for those that are afraid of classical music! I’d never seen the Hexagon so …
Continue reading “Royal Philharmonic Orchestra – Film Music Gala, Hexagon, Reading”
My annual round-up of the year just gone (you can read the previous year’s reports here). This year I was interested to see how the fact that now I am pretty much fully retired would have had an impact on some of these stats. For a start, I feel that I have listened to less …
During lockdown one of the things that many took great delight in was Toyah & Robert Fripp’s weekly videos where they would cover another artist’s song in their own style. What made these so watchable wasn’t so much that Toyah barely dressed for the videos (although that obviously helped) but that Fripp would wear make-up …
Continue reading “Toyah & Robert’s Sunday Lunch, Basingstoke 2023”
I have always been a big Genesis fan and Gabriel-era Genesis in particular. I was too young to see Genesis in concert with Gabriel as the front man so seeing him live has always been on my bucket list. To be fair I had seen him play in 2007 but this was at a festival …
Continue reading “Peter Gabriel, O2 Arena, 20th June 2023 – Don’t Look Down”
I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast two concerts that I have been to recently – American pop rockers The Band CAMINO and British aging rockers Mike + the Mechanics. The Band CAMINO, O2 Institute, Birmingham The Band CAMINO have been around long enough to release an EP and their eponymous debut …
Continue reading “The Band CAMINO vs. Mike + the Mechanics, May 2023”
My annual round-up of the year just gone (you can read 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021‘s reports). This was very much a transitional year as I moved from working part time to retirement at the end of August. I haven’t fully retired yet as I am still doing some consultancy but my daily rhythm has …
WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD! If you haven’t been and want to keep the magic for when you do stop reading now! When it was announced a year or so ago that ABBA were reforming and would be performing I knew that we would have to go. ABBA has long been a guilty pleasure of ours. The …
Continue reading “ABBA Voyage, ABBA Arena, London, 25th August 2022”
There is a shop in Reading that I regularly frequent and takes plenty of money off me and that’s the Oxfam Music Shop on Duke Street. It is a tiny place, not much bigger than my front room but it packs a lot in such a small space. They always have a great selection of …
This is the fourth summary of my year that I have done (you can read 2018, 2019 and 2020‘s reports) and, for reasons I will outline below, this year is very much incomplete. Nevertheless it is still worth taking time to assess the year. Data for this report has as ever been taken from a …
Well what a year that was! Not quite the one I was expecting to have that’s for sure. We didn’t get to go on the holidays we had planned but we got to see a lot more of our granddaughter which was more than adequate compensation. For me the adjustment due to the pandemic wasn’t …