iceLife The half heard mutterings of a Kiwi a long, long way from home.

Our friends Bek and D joined Jo and I for the show put on by a living legend.
So legendary in fact at one point he changed his brand to a symbol.

This is also the gig A has most come close to being thrown out for filming at. I've got a cellphone and its not very good but the admittedly very polite young man took me outside and was firm about such matters.
Quite firm.

So these aren't a couple of photos from that show. It was good, really very good, here is a review from one just like the one we saw. Also it was cheap, maybe half the price of and we got a free CD coming in the door which remains a cool thing to do.

It was a very professionally put on, highly visual show. He played many but not all of his hits - as he said, at one point, "London, what are you doing for breakfast? Cos I got SO MANY HITS I could PLAY ALL NIGHT!". It seemed true. A bit, well, confident, but undeniable. They kept coming, and we're sure he missed some out.

Here is a setlist similar to the one we heard, he played random songs every night but it all blurred into one big groove in the top floor of a basketball court:
1.Let's Go Crazy
2.Take Me With U
3.Guitar
4.Shhh
5.Musicology
6.Pass The Peas
7.Play That Funky Music
8.Sexy Dancer vs Le Freak
9.I Feel For U
10.Controversy (a sinppet of Housequake too)
11.Wonderful World
12.Cream
13.U Got The Look
14.If I Was Your Girlfriend
15.Pink Cashmere
16.Lolita
17.Black Sweat
18.Kiss
19.Purple Rain

Encore 1 - Acoustic
20.Little Red Corvette
21.Raspberry Beret
22.Sometimes It Snows In April

Encore 2 - Full Band
23. Crazy
24. Nothing Compares 2 U

Jo, I, Roger, Mary and Sandra went along to the Royal Albert Hall to see BBC Prom 36: BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

This was a world premiere of a new work composed specifically for the Proms series.

Here is what the BBC had to say:

Walton himself conducted the premiere of his warmly lyrical Viola Concerto, in a Proms concert that featured Paul Hindemith as soloist. While Walton, still early in his career, tapped into a new vein of mature expression, Rakhmaninov, in his final orchestral work, found a blistering exuberance at the end of his life; this was a work that Malcolm Sargent introduced to this country at the Proms.

The set list was (dare we call it that?) as follows:

Guto Puw ... onyt agoraf y drws ... (... unless I open the door ...)
(BBC commission: world premiere) (15 mins)

Walton - Viola Concerto (26 mins)

Rakhmaninov - Symphonic Dances (36 mins) featuring Lawrence Power on viola, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by David Atherton.

Can't pretend to have understood too much of it, other than - "gee that sounds nice" - but it was very pretty to listen to, and I thoroughly recommend taking in a Prom or two if you ever get the chance.