How’s about a bit of a round up then.

So twenty-eleven draws to a close I thought it would be an ideal time to do a roundup of the CDs that I thought were rather spiffing these last 12 months.

2011 has, contrary to popular myth, been a pretty good year for music. Festivals seem to have been popular despite our shoddy British weather and the naysayers pronouncing their death.

Bands still seem excited about making records, certainly in the field of Rock & Metal which I prefer to listen to, and Michael Jackson is still dead. So all in all a positive year I’d say.

In no particular order here are my top 10 albums of 2011. If I was forced to choose a favourite it would have to be the Vintage Trouble CD.

Black Spiders – Sons Of the North

Black Spiders have been building up a solid reputation on the live circuit for a couple of years now but in 2011 they seemed to accelerate into the stratosphere with the release of their debut album in February and appearances at both Sonisphere and High Voltage festivals. The album builds on the previous EPs that the band have released since 2009 and is in the same traditional hard, bluesy rock vein. The songs on this album are powerhouses with catchy chunky riffs and must sing-a-long choruses. Tracks like the opener "Stay Down", with its crowd pleasing line "fuck you and this one horse town", "Just Like A Woman" and the set closing anthem "St Peter" will have you singing at the top of your voice and only when the song ends you realise that you are on the top deck of the bus and not your local sweaty gig emporium. My favourite track on the album has to be the tongue-so-far-in-cheek "KISS Tried To Kill Me" with its proclamations that it was Gene not Paul and wasn't Ace's fault. A fantastic album and if you could get to see them in 2012 get me a ticket and I'll rock out with ya.

Joe Bonamassa - Dust Bowl

Actually Joe could have been in my top albums 3 times this year as he has been possibly the most prolific guitarist on the planet with this album, The second Black Country Communion album and a Collaboration with Beth Hart called Don't Explain that is a collection of classic soul and blues covers. I decided that, whilst I applaud Mr B's prolific output I can not have him dominating this list. Whilst the BCC2 album and the Beth Hart collaboration are both particularly good albums, I have chosen Dust Bowl as the one to feature in the list as it has elements of Rockabilly in it :-) (Yes I am that shallow). The title track has some classic, easy laid back Joe playing with a rolling groove that will have you humming it all day. John Hiatt lends his hillbilly style to his own "Tennessee Plates" that would not sound out of place on a Dave Edmunds or Brian Setzer album. The rest of the album has plenty of styles too, from the upbeat R&B of "You'd Better Watch Yourself" to the American folk styles of "Black Lung Heartache". Vince Gill, Glenn Hughes and Beth Hart also lend their vocal talents to make this one of Joe's most accomplished albums to date. With the promise of a new solo album and a new BCC one in 2012 we have much more to look forward to.

Skindred - Union Black

I am quite a new convert to the Skindred cause having only become aware of them at the Sonisphere festival in 2010 where they held court to about 5000 metal heads at 3pm and tore the fucking stage a new one and had everyone of the punters there well and truly on their side. This year saw the release of their 4th studio album and probably their finest (to date). Blending metal & punk with heavy doses of dub, reggae and hipedy hopedy they come up with a sound that is totally and unquestionably Skindred. The album has classic tracks that will certainly have you bopping and bouncing at your local sweat pit. "Cut Dem", "Own You" and "Game Over" will probably become Skindred classics and Gun Dem could have slid right off of Sandinista (if Sandinista tapes had been mixed in with Led Zep II)

Urban Voodoo Machine - In Black N Red

UVM are starting to make more of a noise this year. Tipped as leaders in the new British rockabilly revival? I do not see it personally, to me they have more of a Romany, burlesque sound to them more than rockabilly. Think Gogol Bordello mixed with The Pogues with a hint of Ennio Morricone and you'll probably be nowhere near them.... In Black N Red is their 2nd album and picks up exactly where the first one, 2009s Bourbon Soaked Gypsy Blues Bop'n'Stroll, left off. Disc opener "Go East" sounds like it could slip nicely into an Alex Cox western and has a fairly upbeat lilt to the lyrics this rapidly starts to go down hill with songs like "I'd Rather You Shot Me Down" and "Heroin (Put My Brothers In The Ground)" and "Alone In The City" all have a pretty grim and realistic view of inner cities in 2011 UK.

Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

Wasting Light is the Foo Fighters best album since "The Colour & The Shape" FACT. Agree or disagree you are either right or wrong. The Foo's have written some great songs over the years and their live shows have always been amazing but their albums have always failed to impress this listeners ears since their sophomore effort of 1997. This may be because one Pat Smear is now back as a full time member of the band and hasn't been so since TCATS or maybe Dave Grohl has just remembered how to write great rock songs. I could go on at length about the best songs on the album but to be honest all 11 tracks are fantastic. The album has poppy/catchy songs (Bridges Burning, Rope) slow/ballady songs (I should have known) and heads down/nose bleeding out and out screamers (White Limo). Basically buy it now mofo's.

Alestorm - Back Through Time

Ahh Viking/Battle/Pirate metal call it what you want, I love it. Songs about Norse Gods, battles, drinking wenches and whoring ales are always fun. There have been a few really good Viking Metal albums out this year: Korpiklaani, Turisas and Amon Amarth all released mighty fine albums but I have to say I love Alestorm's latest album. Hailing from Scotland these boys sing exclusively about Pirates all with a bit of fun. The title track "Back Through Time" pokes a little fun at our Scandinavian brothers in metal telling the story of a band of pirates that travel back in time to kick the shit out of the Vikings. Lyrics like "You put your faith in Odin and Thor, we put ours in cannons and whores" certainly tell you the theme of the album. Songs like "Rum" and "Buckfast Powersmash" tell tales of high drinking and debauchery whilst the two bonus cuts on the special edition are high octane covers of The Wurzels "Oi Am A Cider Drinker" and Lazy Town's "You Are A Pirate" that are a must for a drinking and dancing METAL party.

Vintage Trouble - The Bomb Shelter Sessions

This band hail from Los Angeles CA and play rocky/bluesy/souly type stuff, rather well actually. Their debut album The Bomb Shelter Sessions features 10 blinding tracks from the infectious upbeat bounce of opener "Blues Hand Me Down" to the mellow shuffle of "Nancy Lee" and the soulful Stax sound of "Not Alright By Me". The album sends you on an roller-coaster of a ride that doesn't stop pounding your emotions until the final notes of "Run Outta You" which as a set closer is quite spectacular, with the band leaving the stage one at a time until only the drummer is left. An old trick but still effective.

Five Finger Death Punch - American Capitalist

Fuck me, this band snuck under the Magoo radar for far too long. Their third album, released in October this year, is an absolute blinder. Crunchy riffs in a Pantera style and growly vocals that are not too aggressive to make you not want to listen any more. The title song has a catchy chorus that will have any metal head shouting along at a festival, "Under and Over It" has an almost rapping style to it but not quite giving it an instant pull on the ear. Token ballad "Remember Everything" is not too sentimental to make it redundant on this album but still has enough saccharin in it that you can squeeze your best gal or guy and not look a cock. For fans of Slipknot and Avenged, definitely, but Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance fans may also be sucked into the FFDP family.

Black Stone Cherry - Between The Devil & The Deep Blue Sea

Third official album by Kentucky's finest (The Live At The Astoria album was strictly Ltd edition from Concert Live so doesn't really count). It has been two years since "Folklore & Superstition" and the boys needed to really impress for the difficult third album. And boy did they. Album openers "White Trash Millionaire" and "Killing Floor" are both dirty southern rockers. Won't Let You Go" could be pure Skynrd and the so-popular live favourite "Blame It On The Boom Boom" has every member of the audience shouting at the top of their voices in the chorus. The band played The Waterfront in Norwich earlier this year and ripped the place a new one. An impressive feat when the support bands were The Treatment and The Black Spiders, both of whom have albums in this top ten.

The Treatment - This Might Hurt

Bringing back "traditional" Heavy Metal to the UK. The Treatment's debut album, that has been released twice this year, is a stonking heads down metal album and that is metal spelt METAAAALLLLLL!!! Tracks like "Departed" and "The Doctor" get your fists in the air giving it large just like you did to Saxon or Maiden in 1982. They have an element of Kiss to their swagger but without the make up or extreme capitalist attitude. There isn't really a ballad on this album so your better half better have their rocking boots on, "Just tell Me Why" gets the closest but if you are looking for that Bon Jovi - lighter in the air moment, get the hell outta here and grow a pair. "Nothing To Lose But Our Minds" will be an anthem in the future or there is no justice in the world. This band are here to Rock your socks off... They will be bigger in 2012.

A special mention to The Adrenaline Mob's debut EP and to Mad Dog's Album Sampler that did make me listen and salivate about what is to come when the full albums come out this year.

Also I would like to have included Blast Tyrent by Clutch and the deluxe edition of the Slash album but they are reissues.

There are far more albums that could have made the top ten if only I'd actually listened to them more:

King Blues - Punk n Poetry

Machine Head - Unto The Locust

Mastodon - The Hunter

Rival Sons - Pressure & Time

Within Temptation - The Unforgiving

Social Distortion - Hard Times & Nursery Rhymes

So for 2012 I am going to make an effort to listen to more music that I have not listened to that much. Next year you may even get two lists: A list of best albums released in 2012 and a list of albums most listened to in 2012.

All the best for the new year

Eams

Happy Birthday Heavy Metal

Well folks it was 40 years ago last Saturday (13^th Feb) that the world was first introduced to the debut album by a bunch of noisy oiks from the black country. Yes Black Sabbath’s debut album was unleashed on the world on 13^th of Feb 1970 and in my humble opinion was the first ever heavy metal album. Yes Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin had albums out by Feb 13^th 1970 but Zeppelin were really a blues band and Purple were really a pop band in Feb 1970.

If you have never heard the original Black Sabbath album then where have you been? It is definitely the first heavy metal album Doom laden lyrics about Death, the Devil and Evil Women. It has riffs that are heavier than the Statue Of Liberty after a cake binge and Ozzy’s trademark brummie vocals all culminated in 7 slices of damn fine heavy metal. Sabbath, much like the genre they inspired, have been through some rough patches (spandex anyone) but if you own the album dig it out and bung it on, if you have Lastfm or Spotify accounts give it a listen and if you are old school get off your arse and buy it, your ears will say thank you (once they’ve recovered that is).

Music music MUSIC

So I am doing some compilation Cd's for my local drinking establishment and am constantly being surprised by what is on my hard drive to put on them.
Tonight I am sifting through the sixties; easy I hear you say. Well yes but I am avoiding the big guns of this decade of music for the moment. So there are No Beatles (nearly) No Stones, Kinks, The Who or The Hollies (definitely) even the Small Faces, one of the most underrated bands of the 60's are being put on the back burner for the moment that is. These prominent exponents of great music from that decade will come later. For now I am trying to find some hidden gems, and boy am I getting them, so I thought I'd share five of them with you. Here are some songs recorded (I believe between 1960 to 1969 and that you may have not heard of before, or if you have heard of them you've forgotten them, or if you remembered them you didn't know they were from between 1960 and 1969 or............

1. Creation - Makin' Time
Now this song sounds so much like The Who should have recorded it is scary. A fantastic mod classic.

2. The Easybeats - Friday On My Mind
This song may ring bells with people but I am including it because it is bloody good and also because The Easybeats were an Australian band that featured George Young on vocals who also happens to be the older sibling to Messrs Malcolm and Angus of AC/DC.

3. The Sorrows - A Little Heart
Now I know pretty much nothing about this band or this song but it is on at least two compilations I have of the sixties and features a groovy (see I can be hip) drum intro that introduces a nice little bass line run that then builds into some staccato guitar with some nice 60's "inspired" lyrics over it that forms a fantastic little song.
(edit: I have just found out that the lead singer of The Sorrows was Don Fardon who had a hit with "Indian Reservation" that was also covered by the punk band 999 and is one of my favourite songs from my youth)

4. Episode Six - Love Hate Revenge
This song was not a hit in the UK only in New Zealand and not even by this band. A local NZ band called The Avengers took it into the charts there. So why should we care about this then? Well Episode Six featured Mr Ian Gillan and Mr Roger Glover who went on to join Deep Purple in 1969 when the band split up (Episode Six, not Deep Purple) and helped move Deep Purple's move from 60's psychedelia to 70's Hard Rock.

5. The Smoke - My Friend Jack
He eats sugarlumps apparently. A great example of dumb sixties pop lyrics over a simple, but catchy, beat. The Smoke were from York but seemed to only have "hits" in Germany. My Friend Jack was covered by Boney M as well: The highest form of tribute in late 1970's Germany apparently :-)


I was going to include Jonathan King's "Everyone's Gone To The Moon" as it has some great early psychedelic lyrics in it but he is a fat dirty paedo fucker and can drown in a bath of rancid crocodile shit for all I care.

So not necessarily the best of the sixties but 5 songs that may not be that well known these days, unless Mr Tarantino or Rodriguez get them into one of their films, but maybe deserve to be.

Til next time
Be Seeing You.

A Week Of Ipod Roulette

last week I played Ipod Roulette,. In which whatever album cover is displayed on the front screen of my Ipod (I have a 160Gb Ipod classic) when I turned it on got played.

Here are the results
Monday
Olias Of Sunhillow - Jon Anderson
The short warbly one from Yes's first solo effort is a massively over complicated concept album. However, if you ignore all of that and just listen to the music and not try and follow the story then it is a pretty good effort.
Electric Ladyland - Jimi Hendrix
Jimi's last studio album before his untimely death shows him experimenting more so than his previous two albums but still retaining his blues roots
Tuesday
The Colour & The Shape - Foo Fighters
Man Dave Grohl and co's second album is a blast. I haven't listened to this in an age and had forgotten how good it was a real "Pow - Right in the kisser" moment.
Framing Armageddon - Iced Earth
Iced Earth are an American heavy metal band. that is all there is to describe them really but they do heavy metal and they do it damn well. This is the first of their Something Wicked series.
Out Of Myself - Riverside
Riverside? I hear you say. A Polish Prog band? you titter under your breath. Well yes, but if you like porcupine tree or any of the neo-prog bands of the last ten years then this is a band you must listen to. This is their first album and is part one of their Reality Dream trilogy. You just gotta love Prog for the pomp :-)
Wednesday
The Who By Numbers - The Who
Not regarded as one of their better albums, it is sandwiched between the superb Quadrophenia and the average Who Are You ..By Numbers contains some of Townsend's most personal songs dealing with problems such as his alcoholism and increasing paranoia with fame.
Live Cream Volume II - Cream
6 tracks from messrs Clapton, Bruce and Baker recorded in California in 1968. I had never listened to this and was surprised by how heavy they sounded. A great album that will get a more frequent outing, along with volume 1, in the future
Thursday
The Works By Queen
The last great Queen album. the Miracle and Innuendo were a bit patchy to say the least. Everyone knows the singles (Radio GaGa, Hard Life, I Want to Break Free and Hammer To Fall) but there are other gems on this album (tear It Up and Man On The Prowl especially) that make this THE Queen album worth listening to from their 80's output.
Genesis by Genesis
Released immediately prior to their Invisible Touch and We Can't Dance albums (which were RUBBISH) this is not a bad album but it's no Wind and the Wuthering or Selling England by the Pound.
Friday
Electric Warrior - T-Rex
If their previous album, T Rex, introduced the world to a Marc Bolan with electricity running through his veins then Electric Warrior taught the world how to sing. This album contained the massive hit singles Jeepster and Get It On as well as Cosmic Dancer that Billy Elliot would twinkle his toes to many years later.
Issue 30 CD - Fish
Now, I was going to exclude live albums and compilations but this fan club only Fish CD recorded live in his home town of Haddington has possibly the best version of A Plague Of Ghosts ever committed to digital tape therefore it is in and i love it.

An eclectic mix of albums that barely scratched the surface of the collection on the Ipod. Some albums I had not heard in a very long time and one that I had never heard made for an interesting week.

now what to do next.........

fame at last

Click here link to Wall

From Swedish Death Metal to texas Blues in one easy step.

A bit like six degrees of separation only completely different I have found myself attending 4 gigs in the last week, all with relatively different musical styles.
The first was Black Stone Cherry at the Norwich UEA: BSC are a southern rock band that sound a bit like Lynyrd Skynyrd with Motorhead shoved up their arses. The support band for them was Duff McKagan's Loaded. They were quite punky and not anything like Mr Duff's other bands GnR and Velvet Revolver. I liked them but Mrs M did not. BSC came on and did rock the house; they did feel the need to spoil their set with an effing drum solo that went on for about 10 - 15 mins that knocks them down a few notches in my book, and the singers mic was too low in the mix making it difficult to hear his between song banter.
On Saturday we went to Londinium to see the mighty Green Day. After a very traumatic journey down where we listened to the traffic news and avoided so called accident blackspots. Letting Eddie Izzard and his stupid tom tom voice desperately try and get us back on the roads we were avoiding we finally got to London, called the hotel to get directions to be told by the receptionist to "get back on the main road and turn left instead of right" now in London this may be considered a little vague.
We did find the hotel, and very nice it was too but we had no time to basque in it's splendor as we had to get to the O2. A quick (expensive) boat trip up the Thames and we were there. We met up with our good friends Jay & Christine and wandered into the auditorium at about ten to eight as we had heard they would be on at eight.
True to the rumour Green Day appeared at about 8:15 and played for about 2hrs 45mins cramming most of the stuff that you would expect from them. A great set from a band that always put on a damn good show.
On Tuesday I then popped off to the Waterfront to see a band called Amon Amarth who are Swedish and play "melodic viking death metal" apparently. well what ever you call it it was pretty good and only a little growly for my tastes.
Wednesday was the big one. ZZ Top at Wembley Arena, these Tres Hombres play good old fashioned dirty blues and no mistake. 90 mins of a "best of" set that had me singing till I was sore. lubrication in the bar afterwards had me drinking till I was sore as well :-) Upon leaving the venue I and my Friend Chris were accosted by a chap with a camera to say a few words about the gig. My cringe-worthy effort is posted on this site for you to all laugh at me but If you wish to see more visit www.winkball.com

So that's about it a week of gigs all different and all bloody good and back to reality now, well until Magnum at the waterfront that is.

TTFN

Nothing to add

Seoul Tripper

Up at the crack of dawn to get to the airport for a relatively early flight (09.30). It was interesting to see Sydney wake up, the odd cross over of early workers and retiring hookers made for an eclectic picture. The airport hopper we were on seemed to take an age getting to the actual airport, this was possibly because half of the pick-ups were not at their hotels when the bus arrived and the Eastern European driver then decided to go back and check for them before actually heading off out to the airport. We took breakfast in Sydney airport so you can imagine how healthy that was.
Sydney also has an amazing choice of duty free, including a massive 4.5 litre bottle of Jack Daniels that comes with it's own cradle to sit in and two fantastic "jugs" of Jim Beam (one black and one regular) that would have looked cool in my house.
Unfortunately Asiana / Korean authorities, I'm not sure which, deem that even if you are transferring airplanes you still can not take more than 100ml of liquids onto the planes. We saw some people have to give up their perfumes on the way over. We left the delights of the duty free and boarded our flight, another 10hr flight that was pretty normal and boring, and later we touched down in S Korea.

It was cold in Seoul. Very cold. We caught the bus into the city as Incheon airport is about 50km outside the city. It is a vast sprawling city that has a massive 24 million people in it now that it has absorbed some of the outlying suburbs (10 million people live in the "old" city itself) and took us about an hour to get to where we needed to get off the bus. It then took another 10 minutes to get the driver to actually agree to stop the bus so we were at least another stop down the road. This would be the first of our first of numerous language barriers that we would face in the capital of South Korea.

We finally got off the bus and decided to walk back to the stop we were supposed to alight from to get our bearings. The lady at the airport had basically said "get off the bus when you hear this word and the hotel is 5 minutes from the stop", now which direction was not specified and she had lost interest in us by that point and moved on to someone she could communicate with. So there we are stood in the middle of the "business" district of Seoul at about 19.30 at night with no one understanding a word we were saying or being able to read anything we put under their noses. Now, my friends, here is a tip for you: If you decide to go to a South East Asian country or more specifically, city that does not speak your native tongue, try if you can to take vital pieces of information (Your hotel name. The address of your hotel. A note that says "I am a poor traveller who is not worth killing, robbing and dumping in the river" type of thing) actually written in both English and the local language as most Asians, especially in Korea it seems, can not read English at all. Nor should they need to really but in hindsight this would have helped us find the hotel a lot quicker.
I digress though. So, as I said there we are stood like two beacons of helplessness in the middle of the business district - this is local business though not international "I can speak English" business - if we wanted a big assed bag of dried fish or some puppy kebabs we would have been as happy as little Fido right up to the point the pot is put in front of him. We asked in a jewellers but they did not understand a word and then saw a beacon of western decadence, a Starbucks, now they must have someone that speaks English as everyone that works in Starbucks is a student. In we go and order two coffees (well one coffee and one tea as Paula had not learned from Japan and Thailand that tea is not the same out here but she will learn - eventually) and asked very slowly and calmly "do you know where this hotel is?" Not a glimmer of understanding but a bit of hand gesturing and our very helpful host running off to the Internet in the back and we had a little map with lines drawn on it that had the word hotel written in a Korean/English hybrid but that did not matter it was apparently only 3 minutes walk away and off we went.

Well it turned out to be the wrong hotel but the 'vertically challenged' chap that came out and his equally strange chappie companion seemed to know where the hotel was and would take us there, brilliant, sort of. Off we went following this chap who spoke very little English. He took us down this little alleyway that was not looking like it would lead anywhere but to a trip to the bottom of the river. He tried to calm us by pointing to a sign of our hotel and it did indeed look close but also unattainable. Well round the next corner we went and there it was. Hurrah! A big thank you to Starbucks boy, Crazy Dwarf man and our guide as we would never have reached the hotel without them.

The next morning we rose, went to breakfast and hit the streets of Seoul all by 08.15 (OK so I got the time wrong and was an hour out but we only had one day in the place). We became very touristy visiting the royal palace, the traditional village and basically walked the length and breadth of Seoul looking at everything and anything that looked interesting, punctuated by lots of visits to coffee shops as it was still very cold. Pictures will hopefully follow in the next few days as I haven't sorted them out at the moment.

We finally got back to the hotel after a pretty long day and watched the news of a Turkish Airlines jet crashing at Schipol(sp!) airport, not the sort of thing I wanted to see just prior to a 12hr flight. Paula then fell asleep and I watched Enter The Dragon which was good and Catwoman which was not.

A nice leisurely train ride to Incheon airport taking in the sights and we are off to the plane. Airports are quite boring so there was nothing much to add here except that there was a heavily tattooed man in the lounge drinking and being far too loud for my liking - my fears were proved right later on. We sat on the plane and looked around the cabin as we were sitting on a row of three which was full and half of the cabin was empty. A quick word in the Stewies shell like and we were moved into an empty row. Take off completed and a quick whisky and coke (or three) later and I was happily dozing listening to Cream (the Eric Clapton fronted 60’s band not the dance pap). A couple more and I really needed a pee so off I go and when I get back said tattooed Italian is lying on the cabin floor with stewards and passengers lying on him. It turns out that this chappie had “befriended” an English bloke and they had been drinking steadily/heavily from Australia and had had a bit of a disagreement that resulted in a couple of punches being thrown and the Englishman departing to the back of the cabin whilst the Italian (who was by far the more aggressive) needing to be restrained in a seat. This caused mucho chaos in the cabin as people had to be moved so that the prick could be restricted in a clear area. The captain came up to try and reason with the belligerent man and when he would not cooperate basically thumped him to calm him down. Once he had been cuffed and tied, a wishy washy, do-gooder, social worker, stick my nose in where it is not wanted came up from the back of the plane asking why the man was being restrained and that she (in her "expert" opinion) didn’t think he needed to be tied up. It was explained to her by the captain and some passengers that her opinion was not needed and she could promptly fuck off. The next two hours, this had taken about 1.5 – 2hrs to get this far by the way, were a constant barrage of obscenities aimed equally at 1) the English chap whose name was Byron apparently, 2) the Korean crew and 3) other passengers that just happened to be on the plane. Therefore for a full 12hr flight I managed to get NO sleep at all with maybe 20 mins dozing at the start. Once we landed at Heathrow we had to then wait for the police to escort our annoying little friend off of the plane.

So landed, back in blighty and off to the hotel to meet a couple of Paula’s friends and then a good nights sleep.

Holiday over and all back to normal again.

Rock This Town

So we spent the last day in Sydney wandering around the suburbs and then caught the train up to Newtown for the Stray Cats, I was a little wary on our way up there as there were no hoards of rockabilly cats on the train and even when we got off the train there was not the mass of 50's style outfits that I am used to when seeing Mr Setzer and co. We hit a pub, the second as the first did not take CC's for food only beer (Crazy assed Ausies)! We had a nice meal and I partook of some dark "old" ale - this is different from the old we have in the UK but was still palatable. My Setzer 2005 Nashvillians tour shirt stirred a bit of interest with a few people, amongst them a lady who had seen them six times in Oz on this tour but was still jealous and interested in someone who had seen previous tours.

We wandered over to the theatre and picked up the tickets, I must say I was very impressed that they were there as they were booked about a year ago and I had visions of "Sorry sir you needed to pick them up six months ago" We entered the theatre and I performed my usual ritual of "queueing for merch". We passed on into the main hall, it was an old theatre that had a very 1950's feel to it, which was perfect for the type of music that was going to be performed tonight. The band came on and proceeded to rip the place up. The set list was pretty much what they played in London in September with a few minor changes and Mr Slim Jim kept well away from the edge of the stage at the end of the show :-) So we left for home I was happy that I had seen them but was disappointed that I would be leaving Oz tomorrow and on the last leg of our journey.

last call for Sydney

So it is our final day in Sydney and tonight we are off to see the Stray Cats (I am well excited about this - Paula is not as excited as me!)

Yesterday we went up the Sydney Sky Tower that gave us some fantastic views over the city and the harbour. We then caught a ferry over to Watsons Bay that was truly spectacular. The ferry gave us a great view of the Opera House and, to be honest, it looks a lot better in the sunlight. At Watsons Bay we ate some "world famous" fish and chips (what makes them that world famous I did not know and no one seemed to want to tell me - they were pretty good though). We then took the boat back to the main ferry terminal through the very crowded Sydney Harbour and took a walk back to the hotel. We did not do much in the evening as Paula wanted to get up at 2.00am to watch Everton play Newcastle United. The game was a bit dull (BIT!!!) and poor old Arteta being sent off is not good for them. Neither is Liverpool not defeating Man City either. I really think that United have the upper hand now and will win the title....Bastards :-)

Today we have walked for miles, again, and been to the Powerhouse museum which, apart from having a cool Star Wars Exhibition, contains a history of the modernisation of Australia. It was not too bad but I have been to better engineering museums in the UK. I did design a fountain though that was 'formidable' according to the virtual designer on the screen so I rule at designing as well.

There have been a couple of things that I have forgotten to mention in the blog so here goes: On our first night in Sydney we were walking through Hyde Park (I kid you not) and we looked up to see swarms of bats that live in the park flying around, it was way cool and looked just like something out of a Batman film. Now Sydney was not founded by Anthony Edward "Tony" Stark or anyone else with a cool name (Arthur Phillip may disagree and think his name is mighty cool but I would have to say NO) but to have bats flying around the centre is pretty cool. Oh, did I mention that the area of Sydney we are staying in is pretty gay, that means there are lots of bars that I have not been in and also "specialist" shops that Paula won't let me go in, this is a shame as there is one with a discount on all leather wear and I think I would look quite snazzy in lederhosen :-)

Well ta ta for now kiddie winkies - I shall hope to blog in Seoul and tell you all about the Stray Cats.