Dave Matthews - Birmingham - 13/05/06

I had no idea.

No idea just how enthusiastic and adoring the fans are. No idea of the insane distances they’d travel to see him. And no idea just how damn good Dave Matthews is live.

The evening began like many others. We drove to Birmingham, parked the car, and walked over to the venue. Despite the fact that we’d arrived an hour before the doors opened, the line of people queuing to get in stretched further than the eye could see. Despondent, we started to make our way to the end of the line and noticed prominently placed “Jump The Queue” signs. These suggested that if you enter Bar Academy - a diminutive little bar which sits alongside Birmingham Academy, our venue for the night - and buy a drink, they’ll stamp your pass and let you jump the queues. The queue for Bar Academy was approximately one tenth of the length of the main queue and there was a drink at the end of this one. No contest.

We soon entered the bar. The lone barmaid didn’t look terribly happy about the assembled hordes of Dave Matthews fans clamouring for a drink, but I squeezed myself into the crowd in an attempt to get her attention. The bar seemed to be entirely filled with Americans which took me by surprise; it’s not very often you get that when you go to see a band in Birmingham. Indeed, you don’t get that a lot in the UK. While I waited, I did a deal with a couple of local chaps who were at the side of me. “See,” one said to the other, “I told you we weren’t the only people in the UK liked Dave Matthews”. The deal was, whoever gets the attention of the bar staff first buys the other’s drinks and gets their tickets stamped. As luck would have it, I reached the bar first. 5 bottles of water later we had 5 stamped tickets and hurtled into the venue.

I thought we’d done quite well; the main queue hadn’t moved much at all whilst we were getting our tickets stamped, but there were already a significant number of people around the stage. I would later learn that said main queue had formed roughly four hours prior to the doors opening, so in hindsight, I don’t think we did too badly.

Sisters Of Mercy - Nottingham

Let's just get one thing straight from the start: I love the Sisters Of Mercy. They're an important band for me - the soundtrack for some fond memories from my childhood is provided by Andrew Eldritch and co. One such memory involves the first paper-based role-playing game I ever acquired (Nightlife, thanks for asking) and the track playing in the background as we rolled our first characters was "Vision Thing".

And I've continued to love them. Despite my wandering preferences, and lack of enthusiasm or tolerance for some of the bands I favoured back "then", I've continued to listen to, and enjoy, "Vision Thing" and "Floodland" in recent years. And so, it was with much excitement that I made my way to Nottingham to see them perform at Rock City. Little did I know that discovering a new car park would be the most exciting event of the evening…

It doesn't start well. The support act, The Ivories, give an uninspiring performance full of jangly, haunted-house guitars and screeching vocals. Their front-woman's painful lack of charisma renders the whole performance deeply tiresome after the first few songs. Credit where it's due: The drummer does a nice job, and her backing vocals are far better than the lead's.

During the relative calm of the post-support interval, I pick my way through the assembled crowd (one of the largest I've seen at Rock City) to the bar. After much dodging and weaving I arrive and wait keenly, elbows perched on the bar, for a member of staff to catch my gaze. My eyes wander to the full-length mirrors behind the bar and I realise with some amusement how bizarre I look. I'd made a half hearted attempt at "goth" for the night; an old Vampire:The Masquerade t-shirt had been dusted off and pulled out of the wardrobe. This proved too small (I'm sure it must have shrunk in the wash or something), and so I switched to my faithful grey Bullseye t-shirt. As a result, my reflection in the mirrors makes me look like a darts fan at an Addams Family convention, surrounded as I am by frilly white shirts, black sequined dresses, and large amounts of leather. 

John Martyn - Wolverhampton - May 3rd

Many years ago, when I was significantly younger (not to mention smaller) than I am now, my Dad would play John Martyn cassettes in the car. There's no doubt that my Dad has been and continues to be a massive influence on my musical tastes (as all fathers should be), but back then I didn't think I liked the music very much, couldn't understand a word of it, and was bemused by my Dad's enthusiasm for it; to me, this seemed like nothing more than a shouty incomprehensible man. It must have left an impression though as a few years ago during a flight to Barcelona, I was scrolling through the vast array of music on my iPod. As I reached the Js (and just why is it that I have so many artists beginning with J on my iPod?) I came across Solid Air. And so began my musical re-evaluation of John Martyn. He's not incomprehensible, I discovered; you just have to pay attention. And this is music that's well worth paying attention to.

Flash forward a few years to the present day, specifically Wednesday the 3rd of May 2006. My father, my uncle and I (a trio who regularly go to gigs around the Midlands area of Britain) travelled to Wolverhampton to see John Martyn perform at the Robin 2. My father had seen him perform before (and has the t-shirt to prove it), I hadn't. As a result, I didn't know quite what to expect.

The last time I visited the Robin (to see an entertaining performance by Nils Lofgren) it was being renovated. The renovations are now complete and the venue is perhaps one of the finest I've been to. The ceiling slopes down on one side of the hall, an architectural feature which I suspect enhances the acoustics significantly. It's not too big, not too small, and has a good sized, raised stage to provide the audience with a better view of their performer. Future acts at the Robin include Jeff Healey, and The Blue Oyster Cult.