Status Quo - Bedford Park - Sunday 5th August

Charity Shield (oh all right, Community Shield) at Wembley - United winning thanks to Edwin's 3 penalty saves! - for me then a high speed dash to the station to get to Bedford and meet Richard. Excellent outdoor bill for us - Quo supported by the Quireboys. Greatest hits from Spike and the boys and a solid performance from Quo in front of a decent crowd - although we had to leg it during the encore to have any chance of getting home. 

One downside for me are enormous insect bites on my legs. One is so painful on my ankle, I can barely put weight on my leg today - that can't be right!

Scorpions - Hammersmith Apollo - Monday 30th July

Hammersmith -Still the best venue in London and this was one of the best shows of the year. Skipped all but the last song of the seemingly drugged/drunk/not bothered (delete as applicable) Michael Schenker, but enjoyed over 2.5 hours of classic German Rock! 

Uli Jon Roth joined the rest of his former bandmates and even if this is not your style of music, you would not have argued with the show as a pure performance. "Are you with us tonight?" asked vocalist Klaus Meine. Oh yes!

Slade II - Canazaro House, Wimbledon - Thursday 26th July

Slade II - I refuse to call them "Slade" without Noddy and Jim. Support provided by "The Bay City Rollers" (well, Les McGowan and chums anyway). Small crowd (less that 200) for an outdoor "festival", but actually good fun none the less. Even found a pub on Wimbledon Common I'd never been to!

Concert For Diana - Wembley Stadium - Sunday 1st July

Sure you saw this on TV if you were interested. The only thing I will say is that the sound seemed much better in the venue than on television. Oh, and Kanye West.... What's all that about? A suitable toilet break anyway.

Aerosmith - Hyde Park - Sunday 24th June

Got there late as had been at the Oval for Surrey's Twenty20 match. Therefore missed the Answer and the worst of the heavy rain! In fact only caught Joe Satriani and Aerosmith.

All a bit damp, but I though Mr Tyler & Co were really good - even if there were a few too many ballads. Had to remind Richard the next day that another CHART ACT had been seen with the inclusion of at least one of Run DMC turning up for "Walk This Way".

I gather Brian May was backstage - shame he didn't make an appearance on stage!

The Answer - Borderline - Wednesday 20th June

Pre-Hyde Park warm up for the Irish Rockers. If you read my previous entries, you'll know that I think this is a really good band and tonight was no exception. They even did a version of Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion".

Gary Moore - Shepherd's Bush Empire - Friday 8th June

I'm sometimes a bit wary of Mr Moore these days as you could get a lot of obscure blues in the set. I needn't have worried as we got a set combining the best of his blues material, with a bit of the "Monsters of Rock" stuff thrown in. Highlight for me was "Don't Believe A Word".

Ian Hunter - Pigalle Club - Tuesday 15th May

The Pigalle Club - officially the worst venue I can remember going too. Unless you'd paid the £60+ for dinner and a table, you couldn't see a thing from the bar (where you were kept) or upstairs where you could attempt to peer over the diners and balcony. What a rip-off (as was the £4 small bottles of beer). 

The conversation from everyone around us was how awful the whole place was. Oh.. the performance. Well it was semi-acoustic with a lot of new stuff. Sounded OK, but for what we could see we might as well have been in a pub listening to the CD. 

I'm loathe to keep going on about it, but I can't describe how poor the whole experience of visiting this venue was.

[Footnote: I generally don't like celebrating any venue closing down, but I am delighted to see the back of this one in 2012 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigalle_Club]

Bryan Adams - Wembley Arena - Thursday 10th May

First time seeing Mr Adams for a while. Had a decent seat overlooking the stage. A solid performance, but the set was a bit too "ballad heavy" for me. Tempted to go Friday night as well, but cash a bit tight, so will give it a miss.

Ataris - Mean Fiddler (Astoria 2) - Friday 4th May

Not just a bad photo - this was the actual
lighting and "view"

New band for me in a familiar venue. I've got a few of the Ataris CDs, including the excellent "So Long, Astoria" and recognised a fair few of the songs. The predictably young audience was fairly boisterous, so we didn't get too near the front. This meant barely seeing the band - not because of the distance, but because the lighting was the worst I've ever seen at a gig - the band were in almost darkness throughout! 

Note sure what the point of that was, but Richard tells me that is normal for bands of that ilk. Anyway, pretty good except for the visuals!