Paul Goodwin

We'd rather be pleasantly surprised than expectedly let down

Published on Sat 8 Dec 2012

I've been into London four times in the last 4 weeks to see gigs, which is pretty good going I reckon. I've talked about the first 2 already, but the third was Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo at Union Chapel. We got there about halfway through Chris T-T's support set (having missed Johnny Kearney and Lucy Farrell entirely, sadly, though I suspect they're a bit folk for me) and saw a couple of songs from his charming A.A. Milne album, the genius "What If My Heart Never Heals" and a new song that was absolutely brilliant. I'm very much looking forward to the next album.

I've seen Emily play a lot over the years, as I'm sure I've mentioned here many times before. I've always been a little confused when people I've known do well, as if success is something that happens in a different world you can only see on TV. Not sure it's an attitude that's helped me much in life. Anyway, it was really nice to see her selling out such a big and prestigious venue. They'd roped in a rhythm section and extra guitar player (I think it was the guy from Clayhill) I guess to make a bigger sound for the bigger venue, but I'm not sure they added a great deal, other than to make the songs without them really shine. The highlights for me were, like they have been most times I've seen them, "This Is How It's Meant To Be" and "Home". Lovely. Frank Turner made a little cameo too. I hope he and or they come back to Cambridge soon.

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As good as that was, Dan Mangan at The Scala was a different level. Bizarrely I ran into my brother there - I didn't even know he'd heard of him. I don't see my brother all that much but every time I run into him in an unlikely place (Glastonbury, The Ben and Jerry's Festival, my wedding) it feels surprisingly unsurprising. Support act, Jason Collett did an OK line in not especially clever but alright Dylany songs but didn't really hold my attention. People seemed to like it.

Dan Mangan seems to be getting more and more experimental as time goes on, which is the opposite to what normally seems to happen to people. I've never been a fan of the jazz odyssey, and like "Nice, Nice, Very Nice" best of his albums, but the newer stuff is pretty intense. The band had gone through some changes since the Bush Hall gig earlier in the year (there was a violin and a different bass player) but I guess that's bound to happen when everyone in the band is in about a million other projects.

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 My highlight was (and there seems to be a pattern emerging) "Basket" which was the solo song and was worth the ticket price and hassle of going to London all on its own. It was all pretty great though. His guitar player is ridiculously good at both playing and shape throwing. The encore was "so much for everything" which involved him coming into the audience and standing on a chair while leading us all in choral harmonies. Pretty special. Despite the bored looking girl in blue.

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On the way out I got handed a flier for chess boxing, which is apparently alternating rounds of speed chess and boxing - winner decided by knockout or checkmate. Surely that must've started as a joke. I've heard since that it's quite the spectacle. Maybe Spain vs The World should be a thing that happens in football too...

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We went to Paris for my birthday (35... It really is all over now...) and because Eurostar were doing cheap, cheap tickets. The apartment had a top 10 things to do in Paris list, but they'd all been crossed off years ago so most of the time was spent wandering round looking at chocolate shops, trying to visit things that were closed, eating crepes, drinking really good coffee and generally being reminded what a nice place it is to be. I also got to look out across the city from in front of Sacre Coeur, which might be my favourite view in the world. Certainly of a city. There was an incident not unlike the one that happened the first time I visited Jason. I'm getting better at turning off my higher brain functions at times like that. And in general. The one new thing I saw was the 15 foot high statue of Zidane headbutting Materazzi that's been put in front of the Pompidou Centre as a "monument to failure". I might get a 15 foot model of the cover of Scars for outside the house.

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I also had my first French macarons (not to be confused with macaroons) from the fancy floor of Printemps. They're ok but I  prefer my chocolate (and any sweet) more chocolatey. So pretty though!

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