Right, that’s the ironing all done and safely put away
without incident (yes, there have been more supernatural ironing board
incidents, but that’s for another day).
So what have I been up to? Well, living the life of an
international jet-setter, or so it seems. A couple of weeks ago (Friday 19th)
I flew to New York to see one of my all time favourite bands, UK, play at the
Highline Ballroom. I hate flying. Not because I have any great fear of the
plane exploding or being hijacked by terrorists. Or even the airline food. It’s just that I hate situations
where you’re at the mercy of other people’s lack of consideration. Mrs B and I haven’t been to a cinema for
years, for precisely that reason.
Even gigs are becoming an ever-increasing challenge, as you have to put
up with those people who think it’s their God-given right to block your view
with a camera-phone. Fortunately,
this time around my fellow flyers turned out to be a bunch of entirely reasonable
human beings. Dare I say it, the
flight was almost enjoyable! Settling
in with my trusty iPod, I quickly managed to escape into the world of my
current fairy tale with pen and notepad in hand. And the ideas just came tumbling out. Over the last couple of weeks I’d been
trying out various ideas to progress my current clutch of characters through to
the oh-so-fab finale I have planned for them. Trouble was, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the action
had all become a bit weak and predictable. There was definitely a feeling of
anti-climax after what had gone on before. On the plane, however, a complete
different set of scenarios emerged that had me grinning from ear to ear. Needless to say, I can’t wait to transfer
the gruelling trials in my head onto the page.
On arriving in New York I checked into my hotel and then
walked the few blocks to the venue. Which was when I bumped into Eddie Jobson
in the street. Eddie is the keyboard player, violinist and all-round musical
maestro behind UK and it was great to shake his hand and say hi.
The UK show was amazing. I’d originally booked up to see a
solo Eddie Jobson concert, focused around his amazing The Green Album. Apparently,
ticket sales weren’t good enough to justify that show, so it was rearranged to
be a UK show, complete with John Wetton.
Unlike last year, there was no Terry Bozzio but the band was completed
by Alex Macachek on guitar and Virgil Donati on the drums. I’d seen Alex with
UK when they played in London last year, and many, many years ago I’d also seen
Virgil play with Planet X, so I knew the show would be good. Both were fantastic and slotted
seamlessly into the classic UK sound. What made the show even more amazing was that Virgil and John
only met that very evening at the soundcheck – watching them play 2 hours of
some of the most awesome prog ever written (including King Crimson numbers like
Starless and Red) you would’ve thought they’d all been playing together for
years. It was a staggeringly good show, with everyone on top form and John
Wetton’s vocals sounding more amazing than ever.
Fresh from my solo exploits in New York, the following weekend Mrs
B and I flew to Rome for the weekend. We both instantly fell in love with the
city, but are definitely in need of some new feet after doing so much walking. But it was all worth it – so much to see
and so many wonders around every corner. Of course, I just happened to have booked the trip to
coincide Steve Hackett’s Genesis Revisited show at the Teatro Sistina. What a great gig! Two hours of classic Genesis performed
by exceptional musicians who not only played all the right notes in the right
order (okay, so there were a couple of odd bloopers here and there, but they
are human after all) but managed to totally capture the atmosphere of those
classic songs too. My particular
favourite was Dancing with the Moonlit Knight – the whole Sistina crowd broke
into a spontaneous chorus to accompany those classic opening lines and it was a
definite tingles-down-the-spine moment. Steve and the whole band were great and
I can’t wait to catch a number of other shows on the upcoming UK tour.
Well, you can never get enough Genesis can you?
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