A review of a gig what I went to last night (22)

Last night it was back to Fibbers for the (likely) penultimate time this year. It was time for... the mighty mighty Bluetones.

Support was from Sixty6 (again). Fifth time I've seen them this year, and I don't have much to add, other than that they are still pretty decent.

Then a band whom I was not aware of in any way - Velvetine. Female fronted, bit funky, bit jazzy. They grew on me quite a lot through their set, though a few of the songs I enjoyed less than others (as will always tend to be the way!). They had a guitarist who looked like a young Tom Baker. He wasn't doing any voice-overs unfortunately, but he did sing backing vocals. But not in a Tom Baker stylee. They also appeared to have a hobbit on drums. But then I see hobbits everywhere at the moment. In a couple of songs, the main girl singer sounded like Tallulah from Bugsy Malone. I actually mean that in a nice way though, rather than the nasty insult it may sound like.

It was great to see The 'Tones in a small venue. Last time I saw them was back in March 2002, on the greatest hits tour. They now seem to have pretty much given up on new stuff and are still doing greatest hits. Lucky they have ones that are so good then. The set was fantastic, and had 'most everything one might want - Are you blue or are you blind, Bluetonic, Solomon bites the worm, Slight Return, Keep the Homefires Burning, If... and many others.

They even did Putting out fires from the first album which may be my favourite one of them all. It's a song that always made me a little sad, even when I didn't understand it so well. And many memories throughout the set that I unfortunately don't have time to go into here. Ah, nostalgia...

I'd managed to get a big crowd of actuaries out last night, and so the AR(SE) score is a new record. We had 8 actuaries and 3 trainees (doesn't it sound fun?), giving a table-leading 9.5. Here is the table for the last ever time:

9.5: The Bluetones
5.0: Puressence
4.5: Trachetenburg Family Slideshow Players
3.5: Easyworld / Snow Patrol 1 / Graham Coxon / Keane / The Brakes / ED Davidson
3.0: The Open 2 / Thirteen Senses 1 / David Devant
2.5: Four Day Hombre 1 / Snow Patrol 2
2.0: Delays / Athlete / Dawn of the Replicants
1.5: The Ordinary Boys
1.0: The Open 1 / J. Richman / Four Day Hombre 2 / Simon & Garfunkel / Seafood / Thirteen Senses 2 / Cherry Falls

Bluetones: All hail their mightiness.