Songs for the Road... in York

The David Ford gig at Fibbers on Thursday was truly fantastic.

During some of the support acts, we spotted him sitting at the merch stall. We could tell it was him because he was wearing David Ford's hat and I'm not sure he ever takes it off. It was tempting to go over and say hello but we didn't due to not wanting to look like stalkers.

He started the gig with State of the Union. He used a looping pedal to build up layers and layers of looped sound. I haven't seen anyone do that live before and it's very impressive technically. It looks like it must be really hard to get the timing right on it, but maybe it's just one of those things that looks harder than it really is. The sound was spot on throughout the evening - you could really hear every word.

After that he played loads of other songs from his two solo albums, and also a random cover of Leonard Cohen's Everybody Knows. I personally would have liked a few old Easyworld songs in there too but I wonder if he's trying to leave those days behind a little.

I spent a lot of the gig with a big smile on my face because it was just so damn good. A real master was at work.

Afterwards I bought copy of the second album on CD (I'd previously bought it off of iTunes but the CD has a couple of extra tracks on it including a cover of There Is A Light That Never Goes Out). David was still around and the man running the stall said he'd sign the CD for me if I wanted. Of course I wanted! And so we wondered over to where he was trying to have a quiet chat to some people and shyly asked if he could do the honours... he was very nice about it! Even though we probably looked like stalkers.

If you get chance to see him (the tour is proceeding at this very minute) then please check him out. Easily one of the best singer songwriters in the UK.

In other Fibbers news, it's good to see that they have reverted back to selling Guinness there.

David Ford Music News

Janice Long played a new David Ford song on the radio last night. This was quite exciting - Easyworld were one of the best bands ever and so anything new from David is going to be a good thing. His debut solo album was good but mostly quite downbeat. The new song was a lot poppier and so I was looking forward to getting my hands on it and the rest of the new album.

So I got the new album off iTunes. But whilst looking for it I found something even better - another Christmas album! This one's called "It's Not Like Christmas" and it's got tracks by various people on it including The Electric Soft Parade and Minuteman. And David Ford! And The Duke Special (featuring David Ford)! So I'm obviously looking forward to listening to all that even though it's not Christmas for a while yet and even though half the songs are likely rubbish as they inevitably are with this kind of collection. At least they're Christmassy rubbish.

And finally on this tack, The Duke Special are clearly in the mood for collaborations at the moment as they have a new single out which features Neil Hannon and Romeo from The Magic Numbers (it's called "Our Love Goes Deeper Than This). It's great, immensely catchy and feels like the start of the summer. Which is just what I need now that winter's encroaching.

And that ends the music news.