Travis (supported by Kings of Leon)

I'm not exactly what you'd call a "fan" of Travis, but we went along to this gig out of interest more than anythign else as it was the first time Alexandra Palace had staged a gig. I was, I admit, more excited about seeing Kings of Leon in support, but was pleasantly surprised to chat with Rick Wakeman in the crowd as his son, Adam, is a session keyboard player with Travis.

Varsity Rugby Match (Cambridge vs. Oxford)

The first and, sadly, probably the last time I'll get to see the Varsity Match as it's always played when I'm at work. I went with Simon, Stuart and Matt and stood drinking Tetley's surrounded by huge crowds of Rugger Buggers from Cambridge. Gosh! What a bawdy lot! At the end of the day, we drew...but as we'd won the previous year we got to keep the trophy. Oh, and at half time they paraded the World Cup. Cool!

The Darkness

Carling Homecoming gigs were a serious of concerts staged at small venues hosting massive bands. Tickets were won through a competition and, although I didn't win, I also entered under Alice's name and she did! As a result we got to go along to this invite only gig of The Darkness at the Astoria and drink free beer (well, Carling) all night. To make the evening all the stranger, we had had tea at the Ritz only a couple of hours previously. My, how Cambridge! I was also able to add another collapsed-girl-carried-to-the-side to my collection.

MTV2 5th Birthday (The Darkness, The Thrills, Jane's Addiction, The Music)

I got tickets to this show primarily as I wanted to see The Darkness again, but ended up going home more impressed with The Thrills - as the number of other Thrills tickets I have would prove! We didn't bother staying for much of Jane's Addiction as it was a school night, though...

G2

I'm not a huge follower of Genesis, but Simon and Dukey from HMV are - and when they began working at the Kings Lynn store they urged me to see this tribute band. They were aurally a precise copy of the original Genesis, and provided a fantastic show - albeit to only a half full house.

Robbie Williams

I guess we went to this more to say we'd been than to actually bother seeing Robbie. However, I'm glad we did, especially as it was his first night at Knebworth and so looked truly speechless when he was on stage in front of that size of crowd. The Darkness opened, and other support came from Ash and Moby. Sadly Kelly Osbourne also played, and generally got a dreadful reception form a rather hostile crowd. Robbie himself was astounding.

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

This was the second time we went ot see BBVD, and we decided to make an evenign of it by also dining at the Jazz Cafe. While the food itself was reasonable, the main advantage of dining was the excellent view of the stage. It was also rather cool staying late after the show and mixing and mingling with the band. Sadly, I had drunk rather a lot and became somewhat crude in my conversations, resultign in a rather confuzzled swing band :)

Newmarket Nights (with Jools Holland)

As a wedding present to my mum and Graham, we took them to Newmarket Racecourse on one of their "Newmarket Nights" evenings. We had grandstand access, and after having a flutter on the horses had a good ol' boogie to Jools Holland and his band. Cool.

The Rocky Horror Show

I'm a huge Rocky fan, and having bought one of the first 50 pairs of tickets to the show's 20th anniversary show at the Queen's Theatre in the West End also got invited to the aftershow birthday party. We rubbed shoulders with such A List celebrities as Nasty Nick from Big Brother and Christine Hamilton. Oooooh!

Rick Wakeman and the English Rock Ensemble

While I was working at HMV it was difficult to travel outside Cambridge to gigs. By the time I finished at HMV it was also financially impossible. However, when Rick Wakeman played at Peterborough I really had no excuse to stay away. The band played an amazing set - opening with Catherine Parr - and afterwards I (as I always do) waited around to meet Rick and the band. Lovely guys as ever, who were quite happy to sign the stuff I'd taken along - including my ticket stub. Even better, they'd ditched their rubbish singer and had Ashley Holt back with them...a true legend of Wakeman's work from the 70s. You can't beat that!

Less Than Jake

This was the second time our little band of punkers had arranged to see Less Than Jake, but in the end only myslef and Aynar ended up going! Probably the funniest thing about the evening were the sheer numbers of mini-moshers.

Feeder

Feeder aren't exactly a band I follow, but when they played at the Corn Ex it wouldnt have been daft not to bother seeing them. Although the ticket is a balcony ticket, I was actually standing: one of the probalems at the Corn Ex is that they take tickets from you at the door and then just leave piles of them for you to collect at the end of the show if you want them, meaning you never get the ticket you bought back again. From what I remember their set was pretty cool, but by this point I think I was "gigged out" and not really enjoying the event as much as I probably should. Shame really.

Dave Spikey

Dave played to less than 100 people at the Junction on his "Living the Dream Tour" but was one of the funniest guys I'd ever seen. We went as a result of loving Phoenix Nights, and were pleasantly surprised to see Young Kenny (Justin Moorhouse) walking towards the venue as we arrived. We had a chat along the lines of "Ah, it's nice of you to support Dave", "yeh, I'm supporting", "can you sign my DVD?", "okay", "thanks! see you then." It was only when the show began that we realised Justin was ACTUALLY supporting Dave - he was his opening act!

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Alice had conspired with Norf and Aynar to keep my birthday present a secret from me, and I was absolutely thrilled to fidn that it was a trip to see the stage show of Chitty. It's probably one of the greatest kids films of all times, and the stage show was no less spectacular. Now that the show is about to close in the West End I'm tempted to go and see its "final flight"...