Author: Dee

Gig Review: Jim Bob at The Cluny, 9th November 2022

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Still catching up with the gigs from what is now four years ago. What this process is teaching me is that I really need to be more prompt with these reviews. It’s amazing how much you forget.

This was an early anniversary celebration for me and Geth (those who (a) attended our wedding in November 2012 and (b) have a particular niche music awareness may remember that we did our first dance to Carter USM’s ‘And God Created Brixton’).

Berries were the support act. I don’t really remember anything about them, sorry!

There’s no setlist on setlist.fm for this particular show, but the one listed for the Sheffield date is near-identical from my memory.

As is typical for Jim Bob gigs these days, it was a great mix of Carter classics and solo stuff. Geth and I had really been enjoying the recent solo stuff (‘Battling The Bottle’ and ‘The Summer of No Touching’ are big favourites of mine) so it was a constant vibe. We stood on the balcony platform to the side of the pit (I can’t do pits these days!) so the view was slightly blocked, but that didn’t spoil a thing. (Geth afterwards: ‘that was the best gig I’ve been to all year, and I could only see his feet’.)

I had to crouch down to get this one!

Other than the abovementioned, my highlights were ‘Bloodsport for All’ (though, this being late 2022, my mind did wander to the question of whether the ‘God Save the Queen’ reference should be changed to ‘God Save the King’) and ‘Prince in a Pauper’s Grave’ (my all-time favourite Carter song).

It was a great night and definitely up there with the best of 2022. Jim Bob is playing Newcastle again this spring and I’m sort of tempted!

Gig Review: Duran Duran at BST Hyde Park, 10th July 2022

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Shortly after the Dublin gig, I was off to see Duran Duran again!

I was in London on my own for this one so arrived fairly early for the day-long BST event (Duran were headlining) as I didn’t really have anything else to do. None of the music acts during the afternoon caught my interest, and it was a very hot day (one of those days I feel a bit wistful for currently, writing this from the middle of winter!), so I took the opportunity to chill with my picnic blanket under a tree, enjoy food from the festival stalls, read a book and people-watch. (All the girls were in Veja trainers that summer. That is a very strong memory.)

This was my view for most of the day:

I did venture out to catch a bit of Chic and Nile Rodgers, but the sun was still pretty strong so I retreated back to my tree. I knew Nile would be back on stage with Duran later on!

Thankfully it was a lot cooler by the time the main set started. We were very much in the Future Past era at this point, so the setlist was similar to Dublin (London setlist available on setlist.fm here), but the vibe was very different – equally lovely, but somehow more energetic. I was a long way back in the crowd (BST had a large VIP section so unless you were paying through the nose you couldn’t get anywhere near to the stage) but everyone around me was there to dance. It was a great atmosphere. (And Nile came out as expected to join the band for ‘Notorious’ and ‘Pressure Off’!)

It was dark by the time the band finished and a big crush to get out of Hyde Park… but such a buzz and so worth the trip down to London!

parkrunday: Newbiggin-by-the-Sea #356

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One of those winter Saturdays where you don’t know where you’re going until 8am!

By that point, Newbiggin was one of three realistic options locally who had announced they were still on following the course check. We went with it because it sounded the safest bet in terms of staying upright. Quite a few friends had the same idea so it was a nice morning out!

Photo from Newbiggin parkrun Facebook page.

No idea where we’re going next week either (January parkrunning is generally more relaxing if you DON’T plan it), but at least it should be better weather! (I hope.)

Gig Review: Duran Duran at St Anne’s Park Dublin, 12th June 2022

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This was another COVID-postponed gig, and turned into a bit of a nightmare with the postponed logistics, especially as at some point Geth decided to come along for his birthday weekend. It was a flying visit to Dublin in the end but I really enjoyed it!

It was a bit of a festival atmosphere in St Anne’s Park – love an outdoor gig in the summer. The first support act was Sinead O’Brien. Simon came out to introduce her (something, he claimed, that he’d never done for a support act before). I recall her music being fairly chilled out and a good way to start the show.

A return to blurry gig photography, sorry. Hopefully this will improve over the next few gig review catchups as our phone cameras get better.

The middle act was Goldfrapp, a band that I always quite enjoyed in their hit days, so it was good to have the opportunity to see them.

I think this picture might have been taken of the big screen rather than the band themselves!

In between the acts, it rained a lot 😒 and we made good use of the various plastic bags we’d brought with us.

I tweeted about this gig at the time, so here are a couple of links to my contemporary thoughts:

TLDR: as a gig experience, I probably enjoyed it even more than Birmingham the year before (although that was special in a different way!). Duran played some unexpected songs, and it was a really fun atmosphere, with Geth getting a lot of love from fellow gig-goers as it was his birthday, and lots of dancing in the crowd.

It’s fun to look back at the Future Past era gigs now that I’m used to the band’s Danse Macabre look!

They finished with ‘Rio’, which is fairly standard. Geth was dragging me to the exit during that one as the train back to Dublin city centre was due… and then the train driver waited for everyone anyway, for about an extra 20 minutes!

Setlist.fm has the deets here!

I didn’t have long to wait for another Duran gig, so expect another review soon…

Life without alcohol: seven years sober

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I can safely have alcohol-free fruit cider now. That was a big discovery during the seventh year.

When I was first sober, I absolutely could not safely have alcohol-free fruit cider. Real cider was my drink of choice when still in active alcoholism, and in those early days, I found that drinking the AF stuff made me want the real stuff. As such, I avoided it like the plague for years. But I felt stable enough by this last year to have a few cautious sips of the AF version again, and now it feels like fruit juice. I’m really happy about that as it’s an option offered by a lot of pubs.

Geth doesn’t drink much these days either. He finds his health and running is much better as a result. It’s nice that we can be alcohol-free together and it makes life so much easier.

There are so many more AF drink options available now. It’s becoming less and less frequent that I have to settle for a Diet Coke.

I still have the nightmares about relapsing. Mind you, I still have them about cigarettes too, and I quit smoking in 2008. Maybe it’s just my subconscious’s way of keeping me alert and not taking anything for granted.

Forty-one

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I’ve been feeling a little ‘meh’ about this birthday (which I suppose is to be expected the year after a milestone age). Happy birthday to me. Guess I’m forty-something now.

Partly this is due to looking back at past birthday / new year posts and feeling like I claim to have learnt the same lessons every year but never put them into practice. Change has to be gradual, I suppose, but I would like it to hurry up a bit. However, I am feeling fairly happy and positive about the upcoming year, and also feeling able to be more kind to myself going forward.

Anyway, today has been lovely as usual. I finally got to do a birthday parkrun! I opened presents and ate birthday cake and played videogames. Perfect.

Cake!

Hoping to feel a tiny bit better about forty-two this time next year!

parkrunday: Jesmond Dene #244

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This was both my first ever birthday parkrun and my 50th run at Jesmond Dene!

We knew the snow was coming, but it wasn’t forecast to arrive until this afternoon – so it was a bit of a surprise when the first flakes fell from the sky a minute or two after we set off from home. A minute or two after that, the ground was whitening; by the time we got to the end of the road, I was anxiously checking my phone every couple of minutes to see if Jesmond Dene (who had already declared themselves on at 8:10am, five minutes before the snow arrived) had changed their minds!

Thankfully, we arrived to find the briefing in full swing (with lots of safety warnings, naturally) and I got a birthday shoutout! The Dene was so beautiful in the snow. Geth and I took it super easy for a 34ish minute finish on a special day.

A perfect birthday parkrun!

Days like this make me so, so grateful to the volunteers who put events on in these conditions and make the tough decisions about whether to go ahead or not. Lots of local parkruns had to cancel at the last minute today.

Next week is unplanned as the winter weather is forecast to continue – so it’ll depend on which ones are on.