Richard Ashcroft, last night at Derby Assembly Rooms. I got pretty last minute tickets (the gig sold out very very quickly) so we were stuck on the balcony looking mainly at the side of the stage. My view was also nicely blocked by a mass of cables, excellent. That aside, Richard was in fine form. His voice sounded good, could tell a word when he was talking to the auidence between songs, but hey. How many guitar strings did that guy get through, though? The amount of guitar changes mid-song was incredible!

To be honest (probably like 95%) of the people in there last night, I'm really there for The Verve stuff. Don't get me wrong, he solo material is good, very underrated and his new album is fantastic. But the response to his Verve songs was twice the response to his solo songs. Of his solo songs New York was fantastic and Break The Night With Colours was a crowd pleaser. From his Verve selection we got a nice acoustic rendition of History. A 'show and sockless' Bittersweet Symphony sent everyone crazy, a perfect end to any gig.