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!