Anyway back to the gig. I give Paul, a guy i met at Glee and then the orders signing, a lift down there. We had a really nice chat in the car and found out that we have a lot of interests in common, and that he's going to see the Pipettes too! It took 3 hours, so i was glad that i had alllowed for 4, as it then gave us time to sit in Regents Park and eat some sandwiches. It is a nice park, very well maintained and there were a lot of people using it at around 7pm. If you are ever in the area, and need somewhere to have a nice picnic lunch, I can recommend it. The theatre itself was nice, the seats are sloped so that even I had a good view... now for the bad bit. I was two seats away from the left hand speakers and they were terribly loud. So loud that i had to put my fingers in my ears (and yes, i could still hear perfectly well). The security was very tight on not taking cameras. During the support act (Jon Allen) they were literally going over to people and telling them to stop taking pictures. Which seemed a shame as the guy was ruthlessly plugging his album, so he obviously wants people to take an interest... I can understand it when there is perhaps an official recording going on, or an official photographer (there was no recording, and i saw one official photographer who stayed for the first song, so i'm guessing that he was probably press), but i know that Nerina doesn't mind having her photo taken. And she was wearing a gorgous floating pink dress and lovely sparkly heels. Still Dave took some sneaky photos, but i was in a prime spot and could have got some really good shots..ah well. The security guard who sat close to where i was sitting looked as glum as anything, as if if i tried to take a photo she would be down on me like a ton of bricks..so i didn't dare. The loudness did bother me too, i personally think that Nerina is at her best when it's just her and her piano or guitar. She has such a great voice that she has no need to mask it. Ok, i'll give her the string quartet, but at one point she had three guitarists and drums..and from where i was sitting it did rather drown her out. She commented that the audience was very quiet...i think it was due to the rather draconian security guards personally...

Still, it was Nerina and she is always ace, and i had nice chat with Paul. And it was great to meet some Nerina fans that i haven't seen in at least a year, maybe closer to 3 for some! I also bumped into anna neale, who seems to be going down well in Canada!

posted by small 4:31 PM