Madonna

Live at Hyde Park, Tuesday 17th July 2012

Madonna was one of my big five acts that I wanted to see live, so one is ticked off the list following last night’s Hyde Park gig, but was she worth the money, time and effort? Well just about. There was nothing wrong with the show, in fact nothing wrong with Madonna. OK so I, and judging by audience reaction, many others would have liked a few more of her old songs, but she doesn’t do that and, to be fair, we knew that before we left home. But it was the whole Hyde Park experience that left me questioning the value that I got for my money.

I thought I was going to come across as a grumpy old man when I explained that I had found the evening a 75:25 trade-off, but in fact the group largely agreed with the opinion. The show was magnificent, but to truly appreciate it, you have to be able to see it. The inner circle ring was quite a large expanse that left the masses quite a long way from the stage even if you managed to get to the very front. We picked our place on a side, unfortunately as it turned out, the wrong side. During the performance, Madonna chose to use a pier from the main stage which ran down the left hand side; our luck was we had positioned ourselves on the right, which meant that she was completely out of view, leaving only the screens to watch, and for whatever reason, she spent an awful lot of time on that pier. And that was the root of my main gripe; I came away feeling that I had paid £77 to watch a video.

My second bone of contention was the constant pushing and shoving as people made their way through the tightly packed area towards the toilets, food outlets or simply seeking a better viewpoint to the detriment of the people who had arrived earlier. I’ve done one Hyde Park concert previously and do not remember it being quite as physical as this one. A shower of rain saw the umbrellas go up completely obscuring any sight of the stage and even the screens were barely visible. This led to anger, and of course, a fight ensued. By the end of the concert, with the 10:30 p.m. cut off time only minutes away, Madonna said her goodbyes in true Madonna fashion with an expletive, and to be honest with my legs and back aching, I had had enough of the whole wearing process.

The show was a bit dark at times, after an energetic opening showing that the 53 year-old can still strut her stuff, the next number saw a pistol-totting Madonna going through a routine to a Tarantino-like video back drop, all a bit sinister.

Many of the songs were new to me, my fault for not listening to MDNA before the event, and some were not greatly to my taste, leaving me wanting a step back in time. Like A Virgin was reduced to some weird ballad affair, that I just hated. Express Yourself, with our Madge dressed as a college cheerleader and drummer boys suspended high above the stage was really good and when she decided to give her audience a little something of which they craved, Like A Prayer and Papa Don’t Preach went down a storm.

Madonna, of course, does preach and the audience were treated to one of her rants regarding Equality, Race and Sexuality, which went down well with the massive gay following whilst the rest of us thought she was just going off on one.

Madonna’s done, I still like her music and the show was great, but she is a tick on my list and I don’t think I’ll be rushing to spend another £77 to watch a video that I can probably rent for £3.

The Courtelles

Live at The Unicorn Marden, Saturday 14th July 2012


For The Courtelles to be described as a comfy old pair of slippers is not meant to be derogatory, but a group that plays 60s songs of which every word is known and happily sang along to, makes them as comfortable as the old slippers.

The Courtelles played The Who’s My Generation and that is where the music came from. But a glance across the bar at the 18-year-old who was also contentedly singing along to 50-year-old songs illustrates the timeless nature of what is, to be fair, rather simplistic songs in comparison to the heavily produced tracks of the current day.

The group were a standard four-piece with one guitarist who could swap his strings for an organ or a harmonica as the set demanded. The drummer was the lead singer and like the barmaid was just a kid singing these old songs. His brother was the bass guitarist. There were at least a couple of older hands front stage, both of whom did their share of the vocals.

The 60s songs ranged from the very simple Manfred Mann numbers Doo-Wah-Diddy and 5-4-3-2-1 to Jimi Hendrix’s Foxy Lady and Purple Haze. Add in a little Cream, Small Faces and a huge dollop of the Beatles and you have a night that is a lot of fun.

It was a like an episode of Pop Quiz as the “who sang that” question was posed many times with only one song, Green Tambourine, escaping us. Lemonpipers being the answer.

A three song encore was finished with The Monkees’ Daydream Believer that left the audience begging for more, but sadly, as Bruce Springsteen found out at Hyde Park this evening, closing time is closing time.

This was really good fun, for the children of the 1960s and likewise for the teenagers of today.

Bitten By Monkeys

Live at The Unicorn Marden, Saturday 1st July 2012


I have a theory about bands that do the pub circuit, if you see a couple of over-50s fronting up then you are in for a good night. This is obviously because they are going to play the music of my generation and Bitten By Monkeys did not disappoint.

The old rockers in this band, Algie and Alan Hall, were backed by a couple of youngsters playing drums and organ. The young drummer, Tim, is the son of Alan and he came into his own with some superb improvisation when a power failure left the landlord scurrying around to repair the fault.

Bitten By Monkeys are old friends of the Unicorn and had their audience in the palm of their hands with an early rendition of Free’s Wishing Well, whilst any opportunity to hear Springsteen’s Born To Run is going to be highly appreciated by yours truly.

Enjoyable renditions of Unchained Heart, Sweet Home Chicago and Summer in the City kept the audience’s feet tapping until the night was brought to an end with a ballad, of which I can’t remember the tune, I really must take a pen and paper!

Algie signed off by telling us that if we have enjoyed the evening then we’ve been Bitten By Monkeys and we most certainly were.