Five minutes later Mark and I are heading across London towards Kings Cross listening to The Dead Weather. We push our way into the main room at the Scala, craning our necks to see the band as they power into “The Sprawl” and “Cross the Breeze” from the mighty “Daydream Nation. I am so thrilled, not only do I get to see the greatest No Wave band in the world in an intimate London setting, they are playing songs from their finest album, one of my all time favourites. Kim Gordon is incredible, playing a low strung guitar with Mark Ibold from Pavement bobbing behind her on bass. All to quickly they are gone, only to return and play “The World Looks Red” and Brother James”. I am in heaven. Finally they are back one last time, Kim taking centre stage to perform “Kool Thing” how good can it get? As I get older in my boots every day, Kim and Thurston are a reminder that you can get old and still burn with the same fire that you did as a teenager.
I head across London to see this girl Ingrid. She is a Myspace star who has achieved success through licensing her music into shows like Grays Anatomy. Ingrid herself is perfectly entertaining, with a self-deprecatory wit interjecting between each song. She engages with the audience throughout even inviting members up onto the stage.
The band are immediately electrifying. Used to playing night after night in arenas across the globe they are so powerful in a venue of this size. I am just so thrilled to be up close to the man himself, to hear him introduced as “Columbia Recording Artist, Bob Dylan!” I feel so proud. Third song in he plays “Tangled up in Blue” I can’t quite believe it, my favourie Dylan song, tossed out early in the set, like AC/DC’s “Back in Black” “Highway 61” is delivered at a breakneck pace, he sings it as “Highway 65” in case it gets too straightforward. It is so hot in there. Then he only goes and plays a killer version of “Like a Rolling Stone”. It is still good to see Bob finally face the crowd, hold his hands aloft, he does care after all
He returns to encore with a blistering version of “All Along the Watchtower” which is really special, dark and angry. We get to see him introduce the band and it is wonderful to just here him talk and joke with his fellow musicians. Then finally he ends with “Blowin’ in the Wind” delivered in a swing tempo before another salute to the audience, all of the band bowing in line and then he is gone. He did come out from behind his keys for the final number to play the harmonica and it was a wonderful moment. And that is the enigma.
I go and watch out front. Kasabian come on to “Vlad the Impaler” it is perfect, all of the air raid spotlights going mental, the strobes, the sirens, everything you could ask for. It is one hell of a punch with which to launch the show. Follow it up with “Reason is Treason” a brutal one two. Tom is fabulous, whipping the crowd into a frenzy; truly there are no frontmen in British bands who can hold a candle to him. It is only a forty-minute set tonight, hemmed in by the constraints of the Camden Crawl. “Fire” has been transformed and gets everyone in the room punching the air tonight, I can't wait until the recod is out there and everyone knows all the words.
We are going up to the Birmingham NEC tonight to see AC/DC one last time on this run of Arenas. We jump in the motor and make good time up to the NEC. I haven’t watched a gig here actually sat with the audience for a while. It is like something from the seventies, I guess I am just so spoiled with the O2. We are fannying getting jacket potatoes and hot dogs and manage to miss the animation at the beginning, which is a shame. The seats are great though, just to the left of the stage. Of course we are on familiar territory again which is what we want. It is hot, feels like there is no air conditioning again. I have always been hugely impressed that Angus uses the same Gibson SG from start to finish on each show. Every song off Back in Black still sounds magnificent, I find myself taken back to a mythical high school where it is always the summer term and we are meeting the girls after school.
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