Stormy weather... with you

A rainy (but rather lovely) weekend in Paris. Normally when I am there, local French fancies of the pastry kind tend to tempt me. Until Sunday I had been rather well behaved, but mein hosts prepared a breakfast of French toast... in France. The only thing more perfect (or perhaps on a par) would have been Belgian waffles in Brussells. But I wasn't in Flanders, rather the 11ieme, and the bread, egg and maple syrup confection was too good to resist. For lunch I bought a couple of quiche Lorraines from the local boulangerie, along with a beautiful slice of tarte aux myrtilles. Perfection. However, as 1 o'clock approached, time got away from me and with a train at 2.15, I packaged all these goodies in a carrier and raced from the east of Paris to the Gare du Nord.

It was all going so well.

The person sitting next to me on the train was one of those miserable little men who seem self righteous yet are unwilling to offer anything helpful to resolve a situation. I carefully arranged myself, putting my elbow on the rest momentarily. The man sat down and gently but firmly eased my arm off the rest with his elbow. This was noted. Infuriated, I moved to battle stations. Reaching down to my feet, I grabbed my water bottle and found it had slightly leaked in the boulangerie bag. This had dissolved the paper around the tarte aux myrtilles, meaning the bag was swimming in a potent purple soup, a smear of which then inevitably found its way to my cream sweater. The unpleasant man sitting next to me looked pointedly and disapprovingly at the carrier bag, which looked like I had concealed a freshly severed body part within and pursed his lips. He was lucky he made it to St Pancras alive.

By the time I got to Earl's Court underground station I was in a vile temper. The tube had been crushed and hideous, full of Chistmas shoppers. On street level, people in my way were run down by the speed and aggression of me and my rolling suitcase, as the gentle rain fell on Old Brompton Road. I made it home. Inside my front door, it was necessary to dispose sanitarily of the deceased tarte. The quiches were salvageable, if a little purple around the edges. I warmed one and served with a few light salad leaves. My day began to improve.

An SMS arrived: are you coming to the party?

Wait? The party? I had just got in from France! What more, I also had to contemplate getting to Wembley Arena on a Sunday night. I was tired, hungry and still a little hungover from the skinful of wine I had drunk in the small hours with my main Parisian gays. It seemed like such a bad idea, But going along to the bash en route to North London turned out to be my turning point. A cameo at a busy drinks party is always a good idea, particularly if you know several of the people there fairly well. The (beautiful?!) strangers are a bonus. Straight people lingered in corners, cashmere-clad-queens chittered and chattered, nipping out for surrepticious cigarettes. I unexpectedly was told I looked great. How drunk were these people? I was ill tempered and exhausted!

Time was of the essence. Crowded House beckoned.

Oh dear. These photos make my Roísín Murphy ones look like Litchfield. In my defence, I only had my mobile phone as camera and though we were in decent seats, it was not Block A, which would have marginally improved matters.

Yet, despite all that preceded them, the New Zealanders turned my ill temper into nostalgic emotion. I may have been exhausted, but listening to their wonderful songs transported me back to being eighteen again.

Around me were many of their fellow Antipodeans. Many. Everything I have read about New Zealand suggests it's a sparsely populated country. Yet, it must be totally empty these days with so many of their people serving beer or answering telephones in call centres in London alongside the myriad South Africans and Aussies... and attending Crowded House concerts. As an English person I was in a minority. As a homosexual... well, despite initial impressions, as it turned out, I wasn't totally (Together) alone. Ba-boom. They played a lot of songs from that album actually. This is just as well as it is their great masterpiece. I still remember it getting five stars in Q magazine back in '93, which made me go out and buy it, despite not really liking Woodface. They played In my command, Black and white boy, Fingers of love, Pineapple head, Private universe and of course Distant sun. Though not, *sigh* Nails in my feet.

I had been waiting for Distant sun. It's my favourite of their songs. An unlikely one, perhaps, since Fall at your feet is their great masterpiece (he submits, humbly). Still, it's the song I love most of theirs. It's of a time, and has a simplicity and clarity that I have always liked.

Neil Finn is a man with very good taste. He's witty and bright. The show only lagged at one point, during the lengthy and somewhat tiresome performance of one of the new songs. By and large those, from Time On Earth, stood up well, though quite why they omitted to play Even a child is utterly beyond me. Still, the crowd was good natured and the band hadn't played Wembley in a decade, so a degree of indulgence was allowed. For me, it was a pleasure to hear these songs sung live. The fans agreed. They knew every word and hearing a number of the choruses resounding around the arena, as sung by the audience, is always a special thing.

The new drummer was totally brilliant. I was thinking during the performace that a band like Crowded House lives and dies by their drummer and the new recruit is a star. As natural with a drumkit as a Chinaman with chopsticks. Two encores later, they finished with Better be home... and despite a wonderful show, after my Parisian excursion, I couldn't think of anything better.

And that was my final concert of 2007. What a year it's been. It occurs to me I should write a review of my favourites. Something to pen amid the Christmas turkey digestion period, perhaps...

Crowded House Distant Sun, 2007

Comments

[xolondon]

For reasons far too complex and overly heavy, I did not see Crowded House this year. Nor did I play the CD much, which I am attempting to rectify. Good to hear they are still so moving live.

Finn is one of the best lyricists alive- he does it all, but I think he is strongest on the issue of mortality. Random thought.

This is the only man I have ever followed from show to show, as we (me and mysterious cohort) did in early 2005. Le sigh

[TRICKY]

Le sigh indeed.

The album is a bit flappy in places, but is actually very good, and *about* something. He really got the whole ecological tension thing without ever resorting to shiteous cliché. He writes beautifully, you're quite right.