Just The Ticket

Finally got round to putting some suitcases back into the loft this afternoon, an exercise I’d been inadvertently putting off for a few weeks. An unexpected bonus was finding a file full of old music memorabilia – including a wad of old concert tickets. That was the end of my afternoon plans for a visit to West Hartford, as I ploughed through the stubs reminiscing! Sharp eyed readers may note the Adam & the Ants programme – this was my first concert in January 1982, going with my Dad and cousin Rob ~ a brilliant, theatrical show!

Rob and I hit the Newcastle City Hall for our first “unaccompanied” concert: The Alarm, and that was the start of many others thereafter… including trips away with Selbys Travel for shows in Birmingham, London and Edinburgh, festivals etc.

I like that the former ace Newcastle venue “The Riverside” used to do hand-written tickets – not something that would be done today with all the ticket scams! Note the David Bowie ticket from there? He did a “club tour” in 1992, amazing!

Amongst the tickets are a few bits from the concert stage – setlists from Radiohead, Tindersticks (you’ll all have their records eh?!), The Cranberries, Cranes, plus chord reminders for Julianne Regan (All About Eve) and autographs of Robert and Simon from The Cure when they played a show at Newcastle Mayfair in 1992…

Click the photo for a larger, clearer view & see how limited my music tastes were / are!

Dooinglittle

Just back from a busy two day visit to London where I had the pleasure of watching Pixies performing their doolittle album at Brixton. Awesome gig with all the doolittle b-sides and a few extras thrown in for good measure. It had been 19 years since I last saw them!

Edit this setlist More Pixies setlists

This afternoon I had a half hearted look for the olive-backed pipit at Newbiggin and heard gripping tales of the buff-breasted sandpiper at Cresswell. It's all getting very exciting.

Doolittle Birding

Friday afternoon, another week of work over... excellent!

Thursday was bright and sunny - so a trip to East Chevington was called for during the afternoon. On the north pool a single roseate tern roosted amongst the common, arctic and sandwich tern and four 1s little gull were pottering about. Water levels continue to drop, so hopefully late July will attract plenty of waders.

At Hauxley the main bird species of interest was the appearance of two drake scaup ... otherwise it was fairly quiet (albeit noisy with all the juv BHGs' and grey-lags!). A few wigeon have returned and most of the grey heron were in odd sun-bathing poses!

Hopefully the weekend will provide opportunity to get out and about... possibly even take a photograph or two?

Highlight for me so far today is the purchase of tickets to see the Pixies at Brixton in October. Loved this band first time round, but only saw them once (Preston 1990)... so could not resist this opportunity to see them again, especially as they'll be performing the whole of the Doolittle album for it's 20th anniversary!

Here's a clip (co-incidentally from Brixton, 1991, Black Francis is somewhat thinner here than today...) - check out the crowd after about 33 seconds!

and... they've sold out... nice!