Never too old for music .....

My lovely sister had kindly invited me to the Concert Hall tonight to hear Big Country in concert. You may or may not remember them from their heyday in the 80's, when they were absolutely stonking. Sadly, Stuart Adamson their lead singer, died years ago so the band touring today is not the original line-up. However, the singer who was doing lead vocals tonight was really good and as a bonus Derek Faulds from Simple Minds was providing bass guitar.

Me and Marion managed to get right to the front of the stage for the final couple of numbers, which made me laugh. Back in the day what would we have given to get down there?

The warm-up band were a young foursome from Edinburgh called Holy Ghost, who were brilliant if a little confused as to where on the musical spectrum they actually sat! They called on the audience to support live music, and boycott 'sh**e' programming like X-Factor! And so say all of us. I bought their CD at the end of the night, and listened to it in the car on the way home. Crackin'.

It's been amazing having the Concert Hall in Perth. Admittedly we don't get the same huge names there that you do in Glasgow and Edinburgh, but we do okay especially in May and July when the festivals are on. And even if we don't usually get top-class acts first time round, we get them when they are trying to restart touring or when they have become more interested in playing to smaller audiences. And because it is so near home, only a 20 minute drive home after any event, it is absolutely worthwhile taking a punt on some unknown band who may turn out to be really good.

Anyway, tonight was smashing, and we felt really rock'n'roll listening to all the old stuff while scoffing our way through a bag of Fried Eggs (jelly sweeties) and drinking Ginger Beer!

To seriously misquote Ian Dury, it was 'Sweets, 'n Pop, 'n Rock'nRoll'! Good enough for me.