Declan McKenna

For a while, last year, Dan was massively into Declan McKenna. And since, in my experience, most teenagers seem to think that you'd prefer to listen to their music than your own - a crime of which I was certainly guilty once upon a time - so I listened to McKenna's debut album. A lot. And, actually, although it wasn't quite my cup of tea, the songwriting was good, as were the performances, and lyrics.

A couple of months ago, the Minx noticed the McKenna was playing at one of our favourite venues, the Brudenell Social Club, she picked up some tickets. Thus, thus evening, we drove across along with the miniMinx and one of her pals. 

The car park was pretty crowded when we arrived, taken up with a long queue of teenagers. Which made it quite surreal to walk through into the bar and find it almost completely deserted and the staff falling over themselves to serve some drinks. 

The gig itself was fairly enjoyable - as I said, it's not the sort of music I'd normally listen to - but from our position at the bar I was able to enjoy his rhythm section, who were not only good but seemed to grow more interesting as the evening went on. It was almost as if the songs on which they did the most were loaded to the back of the set list.

And the gig was also of a decent length - in this case I mean not too long - and I think there was only one encore, a new song that suggested McKenna has been listening to Elton John, Roxy Music, and early Bowie. 

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Reading: Finished book 16, ‘The Janissary Tree’ by Jason Goodwin. A detective thriller set in nineteenth century Istanbul. It’s a great read to the point that I left the last pages until I could enjoy them over a coffee, this morning. To be honest, there were a few sequences that could have been better edited - such as the scene under the tanning cauldrons: what was going on there? - but I’d heartily recommend this nonetheless.
Next: Not sure; I need to check the book pile!