Simply... Madness

No, it's not a rant, but a brief review of last night's magnificent concert at Wembley Arena. Toni's favourite band Madness were playing ahead of releasing a new album and single next year. They were superb - already looking forward to listening to the live CD that Toni ordered ahead of the gig. All seven original members were back together, and they're growing old gracefully. The programme notes were detailed - a nice change from some of the other sad excuses for programmes I've read - and made the point that Madness are one of those bands in one of those genres that have been ignored. The 80s is sold as some kind of awful New Romantic/power pop period, but - and I'm clearly biassed - I think it kicks the 90s and 00s into touch frankly. It was the last great period of pop and rock music in the sense that "boy bands" weren't manufactured, wrote their own songs and played their own instruments (Duran Duran and a-ha being cases in point). Of course there were dross acts, but there was a hell of a lot of good stuff too.

The irony is that until 1987 I hated modern music, and preferred the late 50s and early pre-Beatles 60s stuff...

But anyway, Madness were simply Magnificent, travel to and from the arena was stress-free from the moment we wandered into Colchester station to buy our tickets and pick the nex train. Our seat was high up, but right at the side of the stage, so we had a unique view of the band without relying on the main screen. The only down point was the selfishness and behaviour of some of the tossers around us. Thankfully Madness were so good I barely noticed them, even when one drunken idiot fell into our row from the one above - thankfully by that point the part of the row where he tumbled was empty, so he only ended up hurting himself.