It's the small things in life that keep me happy

Two things...

First - imagine my surprise when I picked up this morning's Ticket in the Irish Times and the first line of the the readers review of the year quotes some guy called "Colin" raving about the Feist gig in Tripod...


Woohoo!! I've made the print media, my year is complete!!

Thanks Jim!

Second thing - I went to see Cathy Davey at the Button Factory on Wednesday night and oh sweet mother of jaysus that girl is on form. What a shaggin voice. As with the Feist gig, it's so strange to hear an act live where the performer's voice is as good if not even better than the recorded version you're so used to.

Anyone who's heard Snow Patrol live will be familiar with the wonders that post production can work on someone's voice - no offence Mr Lightbody!

Anyway twas my first time in the new version of the old Temple Bar Music Centre and I have to say the place looks a lot better - I'm not entirely sure about opening the venue up to the bar as this just increases the chances of the Whelans syndrome creeping in (every muppet yapping at the bar gets to ruin your best efforts to enjoy the gig) but to be honest it didn't seem to make much of a difference - the entire crowd were talking anyway. It was a decidedly mixed crowd and I'd be interested to know how many of them were there purely on the back of her radio play with Reuben.

Anyhoo Ms Davey is beyond sweet - I'd heard that on the tour of Something Ilk she'd suffered from acute stage fright but if she did there was no evidence of it on Wednesday night. There still seems to be a certain shyness there but given that she's bolstered by the best Irish album of the year (I haven't heard Adrian Crowley's album yet!) her confidence just kicked in when the songs took off.

And what a set! She started relatively softly - I think I only counted 2 songs from Something Ilk which just shows the strength of Tales of Silversleeve.

Personal highlights - Reuben and Sing For Your Supper were stormers but that was to be expected. The encore was superb with the eerie All of You being sung oh so quietly against some sort of trellis decorated with fairy lights ("check it out!" if you were there you'll know what I'm on about!) and the perfect closing song was Rubbish Ocean - phenomenal.

But the absolutelycompletelydefinitelynodoubtaboutithighlight had to be a certain Donna Summer song - everyone just had this stupid smile on their faces as the bould Ms Davey launched into I Feel Love - happy days!!

By the way the story about the gardai stopping the van on the way back from Limerick was priceless - more for its telling than anything else!


Cathy Davey, Final Fantasy, Okkervill River AND Dan Deacon ....

Carlsberg don't do Christmas gigathons but if they did...