Tuesday 11 September 2007

Like Saturn's rings/An icy loop around me/Too hard to hold

Posted by speedygeoff on Tuesday, September 11, 2007 with
Riccionne: a speedy goose at the World Masters Athletics Championships - Kevin Chamberlain in the M60 800m:

Heat 2: 7th in 2:30.23, qualified for the semi finals.

Semifinal 2: 8th in 2:24.70. There were less than 3 seconds between first and eighth; Kevin qualified last as the 12th fastest; beating the 13th fastest (5th place in the other semifinal) by 0.1 seconds.

Final: 9th in 2:23.44. Only 1.4 seconds outside Lindsay Hooper's ACT M60 record.


Snow Patrol
Five stars out of five for every song played last night by Snow Patrol. An awesome concert. Jenny and I had perfect seats, the best in the house - top row, in a dead straight line to the stage. Every word was audible, every song had its unique light show, the band was firing on all cylinders.

Playlist
1. Hands Open (b)
2. Chocolate (a)
3. It's Beginning To Get To Me (b)
4. Headlights On Dark Roads (b)
5. Signal Fire (c)
6. Grazed Knees (a)
7. How To Be Dead (a)
8. Tiny Little Fractures (a)
9. Spitting Games (a)
10. Chasing Cars (b)
11. Shut Your Eyes (b)
12. Make This Go On Forever (b)
13. Set The Fire To The Third Bar (b)
14. Run (a)
15. The Finish Line (b)
16. Open Your Eyes (b)
17. You're All I Have (b)

(a) Album 3 - Final Straw (2004)
(b) Album 4 - Eyes Open (2006)
(c) Spiderman 3 soundtrack

Interesting - for all but a couple of songs, the arrangements were bar-by-bar identical to their recordings.
Interesting - not one song was played from their first two albums. This is justifiable, albums three and four are superior, and much better known.
Interesting - every song they played, bar one, is on my MP3 player running play list. The exception was "The Finish Line". ("There is no finish line" - right?) But "The Finish Line" was haunting, eerie, ghost-like, great.

"Run" is my favourite song by anybody. Not well known by the audience. In fact, their third album "Final Straw" was not well known, but their fourth album "Eyes Open" was. In my view, both albums are as good as each other.

Light and colour throughout were excellent, and varied from song to song. There were beautiful falling-snow images for "Chasing Cars", for example. Sensational.

Other highlights were the brilliant harmonies of "Make This Go On Forever". And the fact that they sang "Third Bar", which I did not expect to be included, but they had a female who was just as good as Martha Wainwright join them from the support band.

I could go on and on. Variety, intensity, passion, creativity were all on display. It was just brilliant.



The original Nike ad.