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This weekend started off fairly normally: 21 has started again for the autumn term so we were helping out there on Friday night.

On Saturday we did a bit of shopping – a Waitrose has opened up in Colchester, fairly near us, so we went there for the first time. It was incredibly busy, but looks like it will be a good place to shop. Phil was very excited as she is a big fan of Waitrose, I think we will be back there fairly often!

After lunch we headed down to Wembley Stadium to see Coldplay. They were on at 9PM, but there were a few support acts beforehand. We got there one or two songs into White Lies’ set. They were pretty good, although I didn’t really know much of their music. Ditto for Girls Aloud, and Jay-Z. I must say I’m not really a fan of rap music, but Jay-Z seemed pretty good at what he did and I enjoyed it even if it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea.

Coldplay were brilliant. I didn’t quite know what to expect, but they played most of their well-known songs, a few older songs such as The Scientist, and quite a lot of their newer songs (from Viva la Vida and Prospekt’s March). Chris Martin seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time wriggling round on the floor, which was quite amusing although a bit strange! I laughed when he got half way through playing ‘The Hardest Part’ on the piano and then said ‘Oh wait, that’s wrong’ and had to correct himself as well.

My favourite song of the evening – well, couldn’t really say, but ‘Glass of Water’ and ‘Life in Technicolor ii’ were both great to hear live. The latter is probably one of mine and Phil’s favourite newer songs of theirs.

The only downside was that we were quite a long way up – a long way from the band! They did have screens up, but it wasn’t quite the same. When we were at the Keane gig in February we were standing quite close to the stage. Although there are pros and cons to that as well, I think in general you get more atmosphere down there. Still, we got into it and had a good time nonetheless.

The real problems started after the gig. Coldplay finished at 11PM, and our train was at 00:18. It took us about 10 minutes to get out of the stadium, and then about half an hour to get to the tube. At this stage we were a bit worried, but thought we could just about make it. Then the tube train only went two stops (to Baker St) before turning round and going back. So we had to jump on another tube train – but unfortunately the next one only went to Moorgate (i.e. one stop before Liverpool St)! Long story short, we missed the last train back to Colchester.

We basically just spent the night wandering around London, which was quite fun in a surreal kind of way! And then we caught the first train back at about 4:10AM. Unfortunately (again), due to engineering works we couldn’t go directly to Colchester. We had to go to Stansted and then catch the bus. Ah well, chalk it all up to experience! If we go to Wembley again we will know what to expect. We finally got home at about 7AM!

Not surprisingly, we didn’t do much on Sunday! Phil went to church in the morning and I went to Sunday@6, but nothing much to report apart from that.

We had a brilliant time at the Keane gig! Although I was wrong about Katzenjammer – if you search for ‘Katzenjammer Norway’ it will come up with the right band. This video will give you an idea of the kind of thing they do (there are a few more on YouTube as well). They were actually really good, very unusual but quite fun!

Frankmusik was next, and that was what I expected. They were very good, and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for the album when it is released later this year.

Keane, the main event, came onto the stage at about 9:15. They started off with ‘The Lovers are Losing’, which was absolutely cracking live. Actually some of the songs they did sounded much more energetic live than they do on the albums, ‘Black Burning Heart’ and ‘Spiralling’ come to mind, but all of them were played in a pretty upbeat way. It was superb!

Let me try and remember the songs that they played (not in order): Somewhere Only We Know, Bend & Break, Everybody’s Changing, This is the Last Time, Bedshaped, Is it Any Wonder?, Leaving So Soon, A Bad Dream, Crystal Ball, Try Again, Spiralling, The Lovers are Losing, Better Than This, You Haven’t Told Me Anything, Perfect Symmetry, Again & Again, Playing Along, and Black Burning Heart.

So we really got our money’s worth ;) In short, it was a fantastic evening – Keane are amazing live. Worth every penny.

Well, it’s finally here: today is when we are going to see Keane live at the O2! I can’t wait, it’s going to be amazing.

The other two live acts on tonight are Katzenjammer and Frankmusik. I hadn’t heard of either of them before, but apparently Katzenjammer are a sort of comedy piano duo and Frankmusik is a band (also on Island records) who have a similar style to Keane.

So it looks like we’re set for a good night! I just hope that the snow holds off and that we don’t have problems with the trains, that would be annoying. But hopefully that won’t happen!

Sorry about the lack of updates recently, it’s been a bit busy! This weekend was no exception. On Friday we had the 21 Christmas Party, which went well. Then on Saturday Phil was playing at a wedding at midday, so I met up with Chris I and his friend Eleanor in town for lunch, and then they came back for a cup of tea. Afterwards, Laura came round for a cup of tea, so we did lots of tea drinking that afternoon :-)

In the evening, a work colleague of mine was playing in a band at the Cambridge Arms, so we went up there to hear them. Their set was great, the only bad thing about it was that it was too short!

On Sunday morning, I got confirmed. Yes, that’s right – I’d already been baptised, so I decided to go for the full set. Joking aside, I felt like it was a good thing for me to be doing – particularly thinking about potentially going into ministry in the future. It was a really good service, I think everyone enjoyed it (except for the kids – unfortunately it was quite long!).

After the service we went to the Anchor at Nayland for lunch with my parents and Phil’s parents. The food was delicious (as it always is there, or at least has been when we’ve got in the past!).

Afterwards we headed out to Eight Ash Green for the Lessons & Carols service.

And because it’s Tuesday, I’ll include Monday night… last night we went to the All Saints Club (basically Sunday School at Fordham) Leader’s Meal. Great food and great company, what more can I say?