Who is there who can top a 2 and 3/4 hour set from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band? They may have taken a while to get going, but when they did it was amazing. Sometimes after a gig you can feel you’ve played out an artist but I’ve been delving back into the back collection ever since. Here’s a wee snippet from the gig. I’m not even going to try to put it into words. Check him out yourself…
Some of the clips on youtube of Bruce playing with u2 and REM are well worth checking out.
After all the excitement of Thursday night, the soapbox ventured out to the *insert energy drink brand* soapbox races at Stormont. On a sunny afternoon Stormont is a great venue, a lush green oasis in Belfast’s suburban sprawl. Unfortunately this soapbox wasn’t racing but some of the racing was pretty funny. Some of the competitors appeared to have forgotten to road test their machines, some had clearly spent far too much time in their garages! Interesting afternoon out but they maybe did string it out too long as the crowd drifted off with not even Colin Murray’s not quite suited to a family day out humour struggled to keep people there.
What better way to end a day like that with frisbee at seapark…
Last night i was at a gig by Martyn Joseph – a Welsh singer songwiter, who has been plying his trade for a couple of decades. He’s no chart topper, but then he’s still around unlike a lot of today’s manufactured pop. How old do I sound? Over the course of 3 hours (with a break in the middle), he played songs and answered questions about his music and life. At times he was a stand up comedian, a master storyteller gripping us with his stories, at times he was the angry prophet railing against closure of welsh mines, of senseless loss of life, celebrity and politicians, at times he had us singing along to Elvis, and at other times the beauty and tenderness of his songs brought tears to our eyes. His songs are in many ways simple – about life and what he sees, whether in the news or an old lady in the post-office. He has that gift of involving us in the songs, of bringing melody and lyrics to express that which often we find difficult to express. I long for more musicians like him – the storytellers and prophets not afraid to write raw honest songs, who aren’t at the mercy of the record company or swayed by the whims of the buying public..
After all the excitement of Thursday night, the soapbox ventured out to the *insert energy drink brand* soapbox races at Stormont. On a sunny afternoon Stormont is a great venue, a lush green oasis in Belfast’s suburban sprawl. Unfortunately this soapbox wasn’t racing but some of the racing was pretty funny. Some of the competitors appeared to have forgotten to road test their machines, some had clearly spent far too much time in their garages! Interesting afternoon out but they maybe did string it out too long as the crowd drifted off with not even Colin Murray’s not quite suited to a family day out humour struggled to keep people there.
the soapbox 