I’m Back!

Yep it’s true. I’m back and bigger and better than ever.

Firstly, I need to make some apologies.

To those of you who I haven’t spoken to enough, when I really should have done; to those who I argued with and upset and was mean to – I apologise. I apologise for not talking, or for talking too much – for the tears and the tantrums, for the arguing and the pain. Basically, I’m sorry for having been such an almighty pain-in-the-arse.

And the hugest THANK YOU in the world too, to Mrs H3 for sticking with me through thick and thin – you are, quite literally, my lifeline. Without you I wouldn’t be writing today. I love you matey, in all your guises.



There are two main reasons why the blogging stopped, neither of which I really want to go into in detail. Enough to say that the concert season pretty much dried up for the summer (damn you festivals!), thus leaving Mrs H3 and I in the situation of having to make our own entertainment down the pub - although that did produce some interesting evenings as the pictures show, and I have been recovering from an illness which has left me unable and not wanting to write anything, let alone a blog.



But as the words of the song say, I’m picking myself up, dusting myself down and starting all over again and the re-emergence of the blog is part of that.
So, back to the good stuff.


*~* MUSIC *~*

The concerts have started again, although they are a little thin on the ground, especially after the extremely sad announcement that Chas and Dave have split up. Obviously our entire autumn schedule had revolved around their concerts, but neither Mrs H3 nor I have any interest in seeing the Chas Hodges Band. We need Dave to make our evening complete. However, all is not dim on the concert front as we do still have Marc Almond, The Flaming Lips, Gary Numan, Alice Cooper and the mighty Rolf Harris to see between now and Christmas and Mrs H3 is off to see Dizzee Rascal later this week.

This is a weird feeling for me, as I’ve never had any interest in Dizzee (although I quite like Bonkers) and I decided that I didn’t want to see him, so told Mrs H3 she could find someone else to go with her. Of course, now I’m wishing I hadn’t said that as it seems very strange NOT to be going to a concert with her and I’m worried that I’m going to miss something good. So yep, now I’m wishing I was going!

Since I last blogged a million years ago, we’ve been to see I Am Kloot at Relentless Garage who have just released a new album of b-sides and rarities, and who were absolutely fantastic (no, of course I’m not biased). I rather like the venue and it was a joy to see the songs performed by the whole band again, although I was a little surprised by their jazzed up version of my favourite song Fingerprints and not entirely sure that I liked it that way.



We also saw Peter Doherty at the Roundhouse, which I’m not sure was the right venue for him. Although he was good as ever, we got the impression that he wasn’t completely comfortable there and he seemed to be lacking something that we’ve seen at previous shows of his. A good evening, but I think he’d have been happier somewhere where the audience could get a bit closer – the gap between stage and audience at the Roundhouse is huge and their bouncers are numerous and well-prepared. There was never any chance of a stage invasion, which probably ruined Peter’s night a little as he does like to get people up on stage whenever he gets the chance.



A repeat visit too, to the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. Once again they were very good (although they omitted Psycho Killer from their repertoire this time unfortunately), but the venue, Blackheath Concert Halls, was dreadful. The whole building was over-heated, but the concert room itself was totally airless and it was hard to stay awake because of the heat, although the chairs were so uncomfortable that they did help a little. There was one fan, located in the bar area, which Mrs H3 and I spent most of the break standing in front of (bad luck to anyone else who wanted to get the benefit) in an attempt to cool down. The toilets were acceptable, but the cold water had been turned off, leaving only scalding hot water for hand washing – definitely not needed at any time, but especially when the place was already so warm. All in all the evening wasn’t as entertaining as it should have been and even though the UOGB did several of those clever multiple song mixes including some I’d never heard before, it was hard to think of anything else but getting out and getting some fresh air. This was followed by the worst chips I’ve probably ever tasted in my life from a fish and chip shop that apparently has won awards for being the best chip shop in...well, I’m not sure where...London? the UK? The world? I’m guessing maybe it’s the best chip shop in Blackheath.

We were also fortunate enough to see the always excellent Blue October at the O2 Islington Academy. This is a strange little venue and not being in the mood for heading for the front (much to Mrs H3’s relief I imagine) my view of the band was rather restricted, to the point that in the end I gave up even trying to see them and just enjoyed the blast of freezing cold air from the excellent air conditioning whilst I got lost in the music. There was a bigger crowd than I’d anticipated which I’m hoping is a growing fan base rather than people just turning up on the off-chance, although as Mrs H3 pointed out, rather a lot of the audience were foreign.

There was a chance to meet the band afterwards, but although I wanted to get a hard copy of the latest album Approaching Normal, the whole thing looked rather disorganised and there were a lot of screaming girls around, so we decided instead to just get the hell outta Dodge. Amazingly, the car park that we’d used was almost empty despite being pretty cheap. Definitely a good find for future concerts in that area as getting up that way is a nightmare when the tubes are playing up as they were for the IAK concert.



Finally, Mrs H3, her mum and I all wandered down to the Lewisham Country Fayre (apparently Lewisham is in the country) and had a pleasurable afternoon petting llamas and goats, eating cakes, drinking tea and watching Boney M. Yep, that’s right, Boney M were headlining the afternoon’s attractions. Running through their range of hits (most of which Mrs H3 didn’t know, being such a youngster) the band, who still contain one original member (the woman in red) were enthusiastic and lively and we rather enjoyed the show, although there were some very strange people there – which I suppose livened the proceedings up even more.




*~* FILMS *~*

Now the last time I posted about films it was, of course, excitement at the impending Harry Potter film that I’d been counting down to for over a year. As luck would have it I ended up seeing the film twice on opening day, the first time alone, the second with Mrs H3 and I think it would be fair to say that it comes in as my second favourite of all the films, top place still being held by the Prisoner of Azkaban.

It’s almost time for the DVD to be released and way too late for reviews, but I think my view pretty much fits with the majority of other HP fans – the film was good, but had its flaws. I was confused rather than elated when I left the cinema the first time and couldn’t actually decide if I thought the film was brilliant or rubbish.

As ever there wasn’t enough Snape, although admittedly there was more than any previous film and I was hugely disappointed that they missed the most important line of the whole book out of the film – it wouldn’t have taken too much more screen time for Snape to say ‘DON’T CALL ME COWARD!” I was disappointed too at the lack of the battle at the end of the film, instead replaced by a pointless (in my and lots of others opinion) attack on the Burrow. I was also exasperated by the Ginny/Harry/Room of Requirement scene as that leaves too many important things unsaid or undone for the next film.

In fact that would be my main criticism – too much important stuff not explained. Mention of the horcruxes, but not how they were made, or why they were important. Too much stuff removed and little put in that added substance, although the fish scene was quite delightful.

The ‘unfortunate event’ as it’s become termed by Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode, was wrong and gave a completely different impression of the end of the film to the end of the book. And I have to congratulate too, Steve Kloves for still attempting to ship Hermione and Harry even when it’s completely obvious that they’re never meant to be a couple.

Since then there’s been little on the cinema front either, although Mrs H3 and I did, sadly, waste two hours of our lives going to see The Time Traveller’s Wife which was incredibly dull and just totally crap and the completely excellent District 9 which I would definitely recommend to everyone, although I did find it incredibly sad.

But this week has seen the beginning of the new season and the release of a load of films that I want to see and of course I’m now on countdown for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland next March (as it’s a little early for me to be counting down to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One ). Coming up are 9, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant , New Moon, the Twilight sequel; Where the Wild Things Are and, surprisingly, Guy Ritchie’s version of Sherlock Holmes (or maybe not a surprise as it stars Robert Downey Jr). Out now are Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Up and even Zombieland which received pretty good reviews.

I went to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs after good reviews from both critics and friends and thought it was excellent. I went to a Saturday afternoon showing and thus shared the cinema with lots of children, all of whom seemed to enjoy the film as thoroughly as I did. This animated film revolves around the premise of a man who invents a machine to turn water into food and is both laugh-out-loud funny (for children and adults) and touching and although a little mawkish at the end, is generally an all round feel-good movie. I came out of the film feeling glad that I’d seen it, which I think says it all.

I was also impressed with the staff of Showcase Cinema at Bluewater as they had no problem in throwing out a large group of youngsters who were mucking around in the cinema and refused to shut up even after repeated requests from the rest of the audience. The woman who removed them received a cheer from the rest of us.

And the fun doesn’t stop with films. Halloween is on its way and Mrs H3 and I are going to Hendrick’s Halloween Ball - St Anthony’s Dance a fancy dress event at the Troxy ho sted by the Last Tuesday Society. The following night will see us once again dressed up (for a change) for the Sherwood Oak Halloween Party . Expect a huge bunch of photos to appear shortly.

So I think it’s time to shut up now. You see, now I've got going again I can just rabbit on...and on...and on....

Music, Music and More...

So the Peter Doherty concert came and went without much excitement to be honest. The venue was interesting to say the least – Proud at Camden which is based in Stables Market, an old horse stables and hospital. The market is a nice place with an interesting selection of shops (read freaky in Mrs H3’s terms) and Proud is an art gallery and bar during the day; bar and music venue at night. The bar itself is interesting enough, playing an eclectic choice of music, the stables having been kept to provide pockets of privacy, each one with a widescreen TV to show the football (Chelsea were playing that night – sorry can’t remember who they were playing as it wasn’t Birmingham and it wasn’t a very inspiring game). We chose to sit in the one with the black leather seats and the big speakers – which I guess would be called the music area. There was also a room with a table football machine, one with a pole and disco floor and several others that I can’t really remember what was in them but you get the idea. Water was £2 a bottle which I guess is pretty standard for these sort of places.

Neither Mrs H3 nor I had bothered to check the venue out until the day when I looked it up on the net just before leaving work and discovered that the concert was scheduled to run until 2.30am. Now obviously that gave us a huge problem as we were parked at the O2 and the last tube leaves at about midnight and it’s a bloody long journey back to Mrs H3’s house on the night bus which would have meant probably getting home at about 6am. We sat in the bar watching the football and hoping that Peter would grace us with an early visit with club music after, but alas it was not to be.

He finally made an appearance at 10.45pm and launched into a similar set to the ones we’ve seen him do before, accompanied by Graham Coxon on a couple of songs and also – new to us – by a pair of ballerinas. Now I’d love to say that the concert was the best we’d ever seen, just Peter and his guitar (plus the guests) in such an intimate venue – and to be fair he was just as good as he’s been every other time we’ve seen him, but the ‘music room’ that the concert was held in was awful and severely depleted our enjoyment of the concert.

Now I’m usually quite happy in the smaller venues, although Mrs H3 tends to get a bit claustrophobic (she wasn’t awfully happy at Camden Underworld and thinks Half Moon is a little on the small side) but even I was having trouble in Proud. First of all the internet says that the capacity is for between 500 and 800 people (depending which site you read) however, I think that’s wildly optimistic. From what we could see (and admittedly being quite short that wasn’t much) the room isn’t much bigger than Half Moon’s 200 capacity space. And that was the problem. So many people were packed into the small area that it was almost impossible to move.

I’ve been to a few of Peter’s concerts now and I know two things – you don’t want to be down at the front or you end up covered in drinks and god knows what else that his mad fans throw at the stage and you don’t want to get caught up in the mosh when that gets going. The first we fortunately had no chance of doing, as crowded as the room was – the second we had no choice, because even pressed against the wall of the bar at the back of the room we were still in the moshing area.

Being somewhat on the short side my view of the stage was pretty much non-existent for most of the set as the stage is pretty low and there were a lot of tall people in front of me. I found this very annoying as I do at least like to get the occasional glimpse of the performer when I go to a concert. Finally I’d managed to secure a place right at the back, squashed up against the bar which afforded me a very occasional glimpse of Peter and his ballerinas (although I never did get to see Graham) when incredibly tall men happened to sway in the right directions (i.e. apart) and leave a sliver of a view.

Of course my position wasn’t the best. I was in the way of anyone trying to buy a drink – and there were many – and Mrs H3’s position was no better than mine. Add to that the lack of air from all those people squashed into such a small place and the whole thing became rather miserable.

To be honest it didn’t take much convincing for us to decide not to bother staying until the end of Peter’s set and instead try to make it back to the Jubilee Line for our last tube as he didn’t do anything different to what we’d seen before. Happily this turned out be the correct choice as he was only on stage for another five songs (which didn’t include Fuck Forever – and disappointingly for us there was no sign of the Wolfman either), which would have seen us stuck on getting the night bus and incredibly pissed off for having missed the tube.

My personal view of Proud is that they shouldn’t allow more than 300 people into the music room and they should raise the stage by a few inches to give us shorties who are stuck at the back at least some possibility of a view ... or better still arrange viewing in height order (with a strict no throwing policy enforced obviously).

The few photos of the evening have been added to the end of the slideshow of Peter's concerts below. They begin with the marvellous carved horse statues that are part of the restoration project that is taking place at Stables Market.

Anyway, tomorrow is the long-anticipated Ultravox reunion at the Roundhouse which I am very much looking forward to, even though I’ve been struck down with some strange summer cold or something (and no it’s not swine flu – just a sore throat, headache and just general miserableness).

We didn’t make it to the Headphone Disco in the end. Mrs H3 was ill – struck down with the same bug that I’ve now got I think – and as it didn’t start until 10.30pm and finished at 3am it gave us a similar problem to the concert with regards to getting home (neither of us wanted to drive to Islington). Having looked at the Facebook photos of the evening it seems I would have been about twenty five years older than every other person there so perhaps it’s a good thing we didn’t go after all.

Cinema...

On Friday evening we’re heading to the cinema to watch X Men Origins: Wolverine, the first of several films that we’ll be going to see in the near future. We’ve already booked our tickets for the Imax showing of Star Trek on the 27th May and of course I’m still on countdown for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The Birthday Stuff

So as I may have mentioned previously, last Friday was Mrs H3’s 30th birthday. The weekend got off to a good start for her on Thursday with a birthday party held by her work colleagues, which began at work and continued into the pub where I understand copious quantities of Sambuca cocktails were consumed. I would like to point out that I wasn’t at this celebration as it was expected to be just a few quick drinks after work. However, it went on ‘til well past midnight…dirty stop outs!

On the big day itself, Mrs H3 and I went to the O2 where we first visited the new British Music Exhibition at the Bubble. This is a fascinating journey through the history of British music from 1945 to the present day and includes music, videos, costumes (including Adam Ant’s King’s of the Wild Frontier suit and David Bowie’s Pierrot costume from the Ashes to Ashes video) and much more besides. Highlight of the trip for us had to be the dance room where we learnt to disco dance and (oh I really hate to admit this) do the dance for the birdy’s song which we could then watch back on video afterwards. Unfortunately we didn’t get to learn a musical instrument or record a song as the places were already taken and we didn’t want to hang around for too long waiting. The exhibition has an interactive ticket which you can use to log various points and then look up further details on a special account on the internet afterwards (and yes it does apparently put the dances and any other activities you’ve taken part in on there too) and also includes three free ITunes downloads. I thought this was an excellent exhibition and well worth a visit.

Lunch followed at Zizzi’s where the astute waitress spotted the flashing and giant 30 badges that Mrs H3 was sporting and deduced it was her birthday. Generously she gave us a free glass of Prosecco each to celebrate with our meal, which consisted of their scrummy cheese & balsamic onion garlic bread followed by pizza.

And so it was time to visit the other exhibition currently at the Bubble – Body Worlds & the Mirror of Time. Mrs H3 and I visited the original Body Worlds at Brick Lane back in 2003 and were interested to see the new exhibition. To be honest, although it was much better value than last year’s Tutankhamun, and a damn sight more interesting too, it was pretty similar to the previous show, and with less exhibits. I think we felt that once you’ve seen one plastinated body you’ve seen them all really, whatever strange positions they’ve been put into – although this exhibition does feature (and I really hope I’m not giving anything away here) a giraffe – and bloody huge it is too! As ever there was a section on conception, pregnancy and child birth which I had to skip as I’m far too squeamish about that sort of thing, but other than that we did spend time taking in the whole thing which took about an hour and a half to complete. If you didn’t get to the original Body Worlds exhibition I would definitely recommend it, although it doesn’t feature the plastinated body split into a series of lengthways slides which was for me at least, one of the highlights of the original.

And so we came to the evening when we joined Mrs H3’s parents, her brother and his girlfriend for an evening at an entertainment venue called Madisons in Biggin Hill. This is one of those places that features a set menu which is served whilst the bar staff entertain the customers with a few songs and dancing on the bar and serves cocktails, bottled beers and other expensive drinks. The meal was not overly ambitious, the starters were pate, prawn cocktail, bruschetta and parma ham and melon; the main course a choice of salmon, chicken or lamb shank all served with (lumpy) mashed potatoes and a dessert of either apple and rhubarb crumble and custard or vanilla ice cream. The entertainment was okay though with the undoubted highlight being at the end when they set fire to the bar and a fire eater performed. During the evening Mrs H3 was called to the stage, along with the other people celebrating their birthdays and was presented with a birthday cake that I had bought for her – a small sponge cake featuring a photo of the Hoff (who else). Home once more we finished the champagne that we’d opened earlier in the evening and chatted until the wee small hours before finally heading off for bed.

The following day saw me at work as usual, feeling somewhat tired from the previous late night and early morning (I have so much trouble sleeping in new places). This was followed by the less than inspiring England friendly match and then a meal at the pub followed by a few drinks. We had originally intended to dress up and go to Maidstone for the evening, but everyone who had told us they were going backed out at the last moment and after a few drinks we decided we couldn’t be bothered to go. Instead we stayed at the pub with Dan, Bobby and Martin and had a few more drinks before acquiring more champagne and heading home. Obviously old age (and the late night the day before) was catching up with us, along with the clocks going forward and by the time we’d watched Peter Doherty on Jonathan Ross it was gone 3am.

Sunday began with a visit to the local café for breakfast, and for me the chance to relax for a few hours as I didn’t have to work. Mrs H3 headed home for a birthday party with her family, which I attended later in the day before we headed out for the Peter Doherty concert at the Troxy. The evening was completed in style with a kebab at Lewisham’s finest kebab house. I arrived home just after 2am feeling completely knackered and very glad that I wasn’t working the following day.

The fun hadn’t finished for Mrs H3 though. Keen to continue the celebrations she and her work colleagues went to the theatre to see the musical Le Cage Aux Folles on Tuesday evening whilst I flew out to Spain to see my parents, with whom my sister and my nephew Freddie who is now 3 months old were staying for a much needed few days of R&R.

It's That Time Again ...

Good grief another month gone already! So once again you get the extremely late and horrendously long update.

Firstly a HUGE apology to Mrs H3 for not mentioning earlier that amongst all the things we were doing recently we were celebrating her 30th birthday on 27th March. Part of the reason for this is that for quite a long time she was panicking about reaching this milestone and I didn’t want to upset her any further with a reminder, but then obviously failure to blog regularly came into it as well and so instead of getting ready for the big event after a complaint that I hadn’t mentioned it on here, all I can do now is report on the weekend and say congratulations on getting through the celebrations and for realising 30 isn’t the end of your life!


The Music Bit…The Deal was for the Diamond and the Skulldozer!

So the last time I blogged we were on the verge of going to see Elbow at Wembley and what a fantastic evening it was too. Completely different from the Brighton gig in so many ways, not least the quantity of people in attendance (obviously, considering the size of the place compared to previous venues, although I have to admit I was surprised at how full the place was – I guess it really is finally their year). It was clear from the moment that Guy and the lads stepped onto the stage how chuffed they were to be there and the huge crowd added considerably to the anthem-like numbers such as One Day Like This, although as I said before I’m just happy to see them wherever they perform (however, not the show they’re doing supporting U2 – and not just ‘cos of the £150 price tag - and annoyingly, the concerts in Manchester with the Halle Orchestra sold out before I even had a chance to read their Myspace blog post about them!)

Unfortunately my snazzy new phone broke (the slider cable broke causing the screen to black out) and had to be sent back to Sony for repair however, once again Mrs H3 and I managed to take copious amounts of photos and video footage (pics below as ever … I really will get my Youtube channel up and running for the videos one day I promise).





So then began the Peter Doherty (yes Peter in the press now he’s turned thirty (just like Mrs H3!) and grown up, although actually he’s always called himself that) tour to promote his rather excellent new album Grace/Wastelands which began with two concerts in Brighton and Folkestone and ended on the Sunday after Lisa’s birthday at the Troxy in London. Disappointingly, for all those detractors who have done nothing but slag him off ever since I mentioned we were going to see him, he is now completely clean and turned up at every gig.

The first at Brighton Dome (where else) was an interesting affair to say the least. The first support band didn’t turn up so his drummer came out and did a few songs, followed by a friend of his who we’d seen at the Royal Albert Hall and hadn’t enjoyed, although he was better than the drummer. Finally came Dot Allison and her band, who weren’t my (or Mrs H3’s) cup of tea at all. Luckily, having parked ourselves in the front row of the stalls seats, we were having fun watching the other members of the audience which took our minds off the support. When Peter eventually made it onto the stage, dressed casually in jeans and jumper, he did so with his full band along with a three piece string orchestra and at one point a double bass player and Dot again (as she collaborated on some of the songs), as well as Wolfman who strangely didn’t sing along to For Lovers as I would have expected. The music ranged from his solo acoustic stuff to full on rock and roll chic with a lot of free-form jazz type stuff in between. At one point there were so many people on stage I thought it was turning into a Sigur Ros concert. However, throughout he was excellent, even if the pseudo free-form jazz stuff didn’t particularly float my boat and with a crowd that was very clearly upper middle class and awfully polite it was funny to see the excitement that songs like Fuck Forever and Can’t Stand Me Now produced. It was a really good, if somewhat different evening to the one I had been expecting. He finished without an encore, which came as a surprise to most of us, but as he’d been hit by a drink thrown by someone in the audience and then almost by a lit cigarette, perhaps not completely so.

The following night at the Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone was completely different. Firstly, we totally missed the support acts and then chose to go and sit on the balcony to watch the show rather than join the moshers. This was an excellent choice as it turned out as the crowd were very different in culture to the previous night. So was the show. Peter, who was once again sporting the casual jeans and t shirt look performed solo for the most part, with only occasional guest appearances by fellow Babyshambles cohort Mick Whitnall and the always value for money Wolfman (still dressed in the same clothes), to break things up (and no, he still didn’t sing on For Lovers). Peter spent a considerable amount of the concert proving his guitar skills with some lengthy riffs and even more time dodging the considerable amount of drinks that the very rowdy audience threw his way. After promising to finish with Albion, he did actually close with Can’t Stand Me Now. As is our wont Mrs H3 and I didn’t move when the lights went up, waiting for the venue to clear somewhat before heading home and it was lucky we didn’t for about seven minutes later Peter reappeared to do a blinding version of Albion to a by then largely empty room. As ever both evenings were caught in pictures and video.

And so to the Troxy - a beautiful art deco venue in Limehouse, London. This was the last night of the tour, and the last night of a very long weekend of celebrating for Mrs H3 and I. The audience was made up of a selection of the types of people that had been at the others - both the stylish and fashionable and the die hard beer throwing fans and the show was sold out. Once again we opted to miss the support acts, although we weren’t successful in the case of Dot Allison, who hadn’t grown on us at all. The gig too was a hybrid of the previous ones we’d seen – the band and the string section was in attendance as were special guests Graham Coxon, Wolfman (and yes this time he did sing on For Lovers and he was bloody awful – although he was wearing different clothes at last!) and Lee Mavers (the lead singer of 90’s band The La’s), which meant of course that the free-form jazz was back, but also there was the acoustic numbers (which I think on balance I generally prefer) too. Peter had chosen to be more formal for this last evening, dressing in a suit and hat, very dashing and very much in step with the venue. Unfortunately, the late arrival meant that we were quite far back and so my view of Peter wasn’t good enough to take any photos or video, although Mrs H3 did manage to. All in all I felt this was the most interesting of the three shows because of the mixture of styles, although I have equally enjoyed all of the shows just for the opportunity to spend a great deal of time gazing at Peter Doherty who, when clean, is a truly beautiful looking man.




So the next concert on the agenda is John Bramwell at the Half Moon in Putney on Thursday, the first time I’ve seen anything I Am Kloot-related for almost a year. Needless to say I am very excited at the prospect of seeing him (and hopefully Pete) again. I’m really hoping that he might be doing some of the tracks from the new Kloot album that he and the band performed in gigs earlier this year. This is followed on 22nd April by another evening with Peter Doherty in Camden and then the eagerly awaited (by me at least) Ultravox concert at the Roundhouse. Early May brings a visit to see the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain at the Cadogan Hall in London as I have become interested in learning to play the ukulele (if anyone wants to teach me please feel free to shout).

Lastly, I just wanted to mention that the new album Hocus Opus One by one of my favourite Wizard Rock bands Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office has finally been released. This long anticipated album is a heavy duty slice of electro-dance pop and is definitely worth a listen so check them out at their Myspace page by clicking on the link. Hmmm, actually while I’m about it I’d also like to mention another excellent new release. Zoë from Split Seven Ways and Malfoy Manor is giving away free (as she often does – check out her Myspace pages) The Broken Bird e.p. under the name Zoë’s Adventures Underground. This is a beautiful piece of work and non-Wrock, for those of you still a little nervous about the whole Wizard Rock thing.

Concerts, Harry Potter and the wonderfulness that is Wizard Rock!

So it’s been a little while since the last catch-up again as I’ve got lots of things coming up in the future, but there’s been nothing much of interest going on in the recent past.

Valentine’s Day came and went without troubling me as usual and lack of money meant quiet evenings down the pub in lieu of any real excitement. But that all changed as the first of the two Elbow concerts we’re going to finally arrived last Saturday night after a somewhat drunken and uproarious Friday session that involved rather too much champagne among other things. Now I’m still ecstatic at the fact that they won the Best Band award at the Brits (although a little surprised I will admit) and then followed that up with another win at the NME awards, the well deserved Outstanding Contribution to British Music so was looking forward to seeing them immensely, especially after my disappointment at missing them last year.

So Saturday night found us at the Brighton Dome, tired from the previous night but happy and ready to be entertained. And what a good job Elbow did. The Acorn are supporting them on their tour, which is good as I really enjoyed their album Glory Hope Mountain and thought they did a fine job. But Elbow were sublime. Obviously incredibly happy at their awards and their ‘sudden’ fame Guy was happy to talk and joke with the audience and even at one point engaged in a question and answer session between tracks. The concert was uplifting and every bit as good as the BBC televised one earlier in the year, although of course the songs weren’t just restricted to Seldom Seen Kid as that one had been, nor was there the huge orchestra and choir.

Between us Mrs H3 and I took about 500 photos (see a selection below) and a good deal of video (hurrah for my fabby phone – although I did feel a slight pang for the crap quality of the old Nokia and am considering taking it to Wembley just for old times sake). So on 14th March we’ll be at Wembley with the guys (and possibly David Hasselhoff) doing it all again, except a bit different. It will be interesting to see the band in such a large location and I’m suffering those pangs of all fans whose bands go global, that I’m torn between wanting to see them in such large venues but at the same time still wanting to see them in smaller places. I expect knowing how down to earth Elbow are they’ll be doing a mixture of both for a while.



Also on the horizon are concerts by Peter Doherty on consecutive days at the Brighton Dome and Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone on 20th and 21st March and after a lot of praying and wishing on my part I Am Kloot, or at least Johnny Bramwell, is finally coming south of the Watford gap again and performing at the Half Moon in Putney on 9th April with an appearance at the Boileroom in Guildford on 11th May. We will be fitting in a visit to the Roundhouse on 30th April to see the newly re-formed (and believe me I’m very excited about this) Ultravox, who I haven’t seen since the Monument Tour in 1982. But the fun doesn’t stop there. It’ll be Chas and Dave time again on 14th May in Croydon and on 18th July Mrs H3 and I will be heading to London for the first day of the Lovebox festival. I am definitely expecting to see an eclectic mix of music there with bands like Florence and the Machine, N.E.R.D. and of course the mighty Duran Duran. The following week will see us at Shepherds Bush for the latest Gary Numan concert.

But one of the events I am most looking forward to is the Hogwarts Jamboree UK on 27th June which is being held in London. Now everyone who knows me knows that I am Harry Potter fanatic (what…you never realized?) and am into everything HP related. Through this I have become involved in a genre of music called Wizard Rock which, having started (rather late I will admit) as a vague interest of mine in hearing bands who called themselves after Potter characters and sang songs about the stories, has turned into devotion to the cause with a considerably increased CD collection.

How to explain Wizard Rock? My personal view is that it’s almost impossible (unless you have a complete hatred of music) not to like at least one of the bands around and believe me, although most of you not in the HP fandom will never have heard of this phenomenon, there are literally hundreds of Wrock bands out there. The musical styles are varied – everything from pop to blues to rap to country, with a healthy dose of comedy thrown in for good measure. In fact, think of a musical style and somewhere there will be a Wrock band that meets your criteria.

Initially started by American bands like Harry and the Potters and Draco and the Malfoys, it didn’t take long before the Wrock revolution spread worldwide (and I mean worldwide as there are bands in Sweden, Australia, Japan, Israel and Canada to name but a few) and Britain can boast what I think are some of the best bands around. Personal favourites are Split Seven Ways, Riddle TM, Peeved, Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons, Siriusly Hazza P and the awesome Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and excitingly for me at least, some of these bands will be appearing at the Hogwarts Jamboree.

Ok so this was a funny moment for me: As usual I had 4Music on in the background while I was working earlier on. On comes the video of Apologize by One Republic. I’m confused: the words are all wrong. Then I realize. I’ve listened to the Ministry of Magic’s cover version of the song so many times now that I’m automatically singing their words, rather than the original. And I have to admit I prefer the MoM version.

So lots of music already planned, with more to come I’m sure. After all Michael Jackson is rumoured to be doing a series of concerts at the O2, which I think must be a dead cert assuming the tickets aren’t stupidly priced, although knowing him…. Plus of course the festivals are just beginning to be announced. I’m really fancying Sunday of the V festival, even though Oasis are headlining on the main stage, as there are plenty of other bands that I love playing (read Elbow, James, Snow Patrol and Ocean Colour Scene) and Keane will be headlining the 4Music stage.