Given that we rarely set foot outside our own door these days other than me going to work or to Uni, we’ve actually been to a few gigs this year. They ranged in tone/quality from the sublime to the ridiculous.

We’ve seen:

Crowded House – sadly a poor shadow of their former glorious selves. Mind you, the Plymouth Pavilions isn’t exactly a great music venue (in fact, it’s pants) so I suppose that the tour bookers should hold some responsibility for not providing the right ambience for a gig of this nature. Their songs are wonderful but to be frank, a CD in the comfort of home would have been just as pleasurable, probably more so. The best bit by far was the impromptu cycle ride around the stage by their bassist, Nick Seymour.

The Bad Shepherds – I have dreamed of the moment that an artist would cover Wreckless Eric’s monumentally brilliant but stonkingly under-rated “Whole Wide World” and so this gig filled a void in my world that I’d not even been aware had existed. I’d have given this gig sublime status on that evidence alone. We went along to see the band performing in a cave near home – see this… We thought the joke would wear thin after a couple of numbers. For anyone who has not heard of the band they are Ade Edmondson’s band who play punk classics in a folk stylee. Opening with “God Save the Queen” (not our so-called national anthem) and running through a set covering songs from all of the great punk artists from the Buzzcocks to the Ramones, they were amazing. Their instruments covered everything from (in my limited understanding) bastardised bagpipes, though someone will tell me I’m sure that they are some ancient Celtic thingies, through to a stand-up bass, via mandolin, penny whistle and accordian. Bloody excellent.

The Drifters – well, Ray Lewis, front man of the Drifters for many years anyway! This gig got sublime status just for being held in a tiny pub a mile from home where the Landlord regularly manages to secure amazing artists to play – I kid you not, he’s managed to persuade Alexander O’Neil to play there more than once! The pub can’t hold more than 50 people or so I’d have thought, so to get so “up close and personal” at a gig was, for me, a return to the glorious days of the Hope and Anchor in Islington or the Moonlight and Starlight in, I think, Harlesden. You just can’t imagine what a joy it was to have a real singer in a pub rather than a sub-karaoke-act of a so-called band, which is what we normally get around these parts. I’ve seen the Drifters before, in the late 1970s and this brought back memories and made my little sister wildly jealous!

Pam Ayres – at the Du Maurier festival – we were probably the youngest people in the audience and the woman in front of us who was 90 if she was a day was laughing so hard that we thought she might need medical attention. Pam is the undisputed queen of the ridiculous but done in the sublime way that no-one else could achieve. “Oh I wish I’d looked after me teeth…..”

Edwyn Collins – well, this one was just me and Colin – a gift for me for my 50th birthday, coming up next week. Edwyn has been a hero of mine since the early 80s. I last saw him play at the ICA in London, one of my “best gigs of all time” and since then he should have died. By "should have" I mean that he went through such a terrible illness that few people could have survived. He suffered two huge cerebral haemorrhages in 2005 and is still suffering from the effects in as much as his walking and speech are impaired and he’s more-or-less lost the use of one of his hands. But the great thing about our complex brains is that we use a different bit for singing than the one we use for speech and so he can still get onstage and belt out songs like the exceedingly good one that he is. Promoted as a showcase gig for his forthcoming album and as such was pants…….though only because most of the material he played was the stuff that Colin and I cherish from watching him play for nearly thirty years now. (I first saw him play in 1982.) The gig was everything a good gig should be – hot, sweaty and a sublime band. Edwyn can’t play guitar live any more but he has found a great guitarist to play alongside him and the rest of the band are excellent too. Edwyn himself is a wonderful singer....still! Edwyn still rocks, after all that’s happened to him. He’s a legend.

This photo was taken by Colin on his camera phone – I lost my bottle and didn’t take my camera with me because the 100 club has a “no photos” policy. I didn’t know what I’d do if I’d been searched and my 5d taken from me so I left it behind. What a coward huh?