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So, this weekend was comparitively quiet! On Friday night we helped out at 21 as per usual. Then on Saturday we did a bit of shopping during the day, and just spent a bit of time relaxing! I have rediscovered OpenTTD (which, incidentally, is all Matthew’s fault!) so I’ve been spending hours designing railway networks. They’re not very complicated ones at this stage, but I am aiming to work in some cool junctions at some point… it will be like Clapham Junction!

Aaaanyway. On Saturday evening we stayed in, watched a bit of Futurama – generally didn’t do very much! Which is probably a good thing as the rest of June is quite busy for us. On Sunday we went to two services in the morning (shock! horror!) and then, a service in the evening as well (gasp)! Still, they all went pretty well – particularly Sunday@6. I felt like the music really clicked last night, and there were quite a few people there as well, which was good after a couple of quiet weeks.

So, there you have it! You may still be wondering about the title of my post. I should clarify: on Friday, I bought us tickets to go and see Muse at the O2 in November :-) It’s a hat-trick because by the end of this year we will have seen our three favourite bands live (Keane, in February, and Coldplay in September). Really looking forward to the next two – Keane were amazing in February, if the next two gigs are equally as good I will be happy.

Unfortunately, I could only get seated tickets for the Muse gig (at Keane we were standing – and pretty near the front too!), but I’m sure the music will be good either way. Roll on September and November – not something you hear me say often!

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!

Bring it on: we’ve just booked tickets to go and see Coldplay in September next year at Wembley. Sweeeeet.

This means that in 2009 we will be seeing two of our favourite bands – Keane and Coldplay … if we could get to a Muse gig as well that would make it a hat trick! Unfortunately I don’t think the bank would take the strain, but still. Really looking forward to next year :)

Just wanted to say, I’ve booked some tickets for me and Phil to go and see Keane at the O2 on 13th February next year! In internet terminology, “w00t” :-)

I’ve been wanting to see them live for ages now, “Under the Iron Sea” is probably one of my favourite albums ever, and the new album (“Perfect Symmetry”) is shaping up to be a good one as well. So, yay!

Aaaanyway. In other news, I watched “The 40 Year Old Virgin” last night. Strangely enough, one of the messages the film seemed to give was that “it’s OK to wait” – the main character was treated with dignity and not portrayed as a complete loser. Despite some of the rather vulgar humour, it was actually quite an intelligent film and I quite enjoyed it. Won’t be buying it on DVD though ;-)

I was thinking the other day – an occupation I seldom get involved with, I hasten to add – and I was wondering what music now will be around in years to come.

We’re living in an age of pop music – there is probably more music produced now, per year, than there has ever been. OK, that’s probably an exaggeration, but – there is a lot of it around! So, how much of it will still be around in the future? Who are the modern day Queen, Beatles, and Rolling Stones? (I still listen to these bands – particularly the first two – frequently).

I would like to humble offer up a few suggestions of what will still be around in (say) twenty years time.

• Muse. What a band. These guys are amazing – despite being only three men strong, they produce a huge sound. Not just that, but Matt Bellamy is a great songwriter as well as a virtuoso guitarist and pianist. What I like about Muse is that they combine excellent songs with unusual ideas and great musicianship. My favourite example of this is probably ‘Butterflies and Hurricanes’. If people have forgotten about Muse in twenty years, it’s a travesty!
• Coldplay. A lot of people I know don’t like Coldplay – I can’t understand it. They write great tunes, and arrange and perform them well. Their last album (Viva la Vida) was probably their best yet, certainly in terms of experimenting with the music. However their previous albums all were very strong melodically, even if the earlier albums were more simple in terms of arrangement.
• Keane. Similar to Coldplay really – these guys write really solid tunes, and are very strong melodically. “Under the Iron Sea” is one of my favourite albums ever, every single song on it is a cracker.

There are a few other bands I like, but I’ll leave it there for now! So… what distinguishes a band like the ones I mentioned above? I think it’s two things: 1. They all have something to say; 2. They say it well! Their songs are usually well crafted and arranged – it’s obvious that plenty of time and thought has been put into the words and music. Proper music should resonate with you, should have something to say, or somewhere to take you emotionally.

Some of the bands I’m going to mention in a moment seem to think music is all about writing a catchy tune which you can whistle on your way to work – real craftsmanship doesn’t come into it! It’s all superficial – but I’ll come onto that in a moment.

Let’s talk about the bands I don’t think will be around in a few years.

• The Kaiser Chiefs, The Arctic Monkeys, The Fratellis, Scouting for Girls (and other similar bands). Phil and I listen to Virgin Absolute Radio most evenings when making dinner. A while back, they went through a phase of playing a lot of music by those bands – and we just couldn’t tell one from another! They all sounded exactly the same. Same arrangement, same guitar sounds, same ‘mockney’-style singer, same subject matter. In other words, I think the record companies had found a formula which worked, and decided to seek out more bands which sounded exactly the same in order to sell a few more CDs. (Note: the only exception is Scouting for Girls – although they do have a Mockney singer. I’ve included them because all their songs sound the same, and they’re all incredibly repetitive. And they also ripped off ‘God Only Knows’ by the Beach Boys in one of their songs).

I realise that if I start to go on about these bands I will sound like a grumpy old man, so I’d probably better stop there. Suffice it to say that I think these bands don’t write songs which go much beyond the superficial (as Bill Bailey would say, they’re not exactly plumbing the depths of human experience). They also seem to be incredibly cynical, which doesn’t sit well with me.

I don’t quite know how “She Loves You” by the Beatles is any less superficial than “Flourescent Adolscent” by the Arctic Monkeys, but somehow it is. It just feels like with some of these bands that they don’t really give a toss about what they’re singing (i.e. a cynical attitude) and, to me, that does not make a great song.

Right, I definitely will stop there! Let’s see if anyone has any other suggestions as to what bands we’ll be listening to in years to come, or other thoughts on the matter :)