1 Season in 1 Day

After a morning planning with HQ leaders up at Women's Division Leader Caroline Joyce's (SGI-UK can feel like the civil service for numbers of meetings, hoffenlich we are moving society forward in a better direction faster, that has to be the hope) caught up with Kerri (who'd bought tickets as a New Year present) in King Street and spent a jolly hour on a number 9 bus from Hammersmith to Hyde Park corner.

So yes, whilst Glastonbury was like the third battle of Ypres with casualties aplenty up to their chins in Somerset mud I, with the bold elan of Alan Partridge donned a literal Crowded House T-shirt, to, er see Crowded House play Hyde Park.

And rather pleasant it was too in a feelgood unabashedly corporate rocky way in the company of Diane and her brother William. Fortified by a high street picnic of those rather good M&S jumbo sized drumsticks (surely the foundation of their recent revival?) mini scotch eggs and other comestibles the afternoon proceeded with refreshing bouts of
Tuborg (lager of choice normally only found in Denmark or African airports).

Of the support acts, The Ghosts's set was driven with a sense of easeful gusto which even the ADD afflicted support guitarist couldn't quite deflect.

The Feeling were dressed for the big stage as a white or black combination eerily suggesting 'Modern Romance' fronting Smash Hits circa 1982. But they were natty all the same and in Dan Gillespie Sells have a front man of matinee era looks, think Errol Flynn in the Adventures of Robin Hood. Musically very adept and wearing it well, they bring to mind Terry Pratchett's asservation from a few years back that any cassette tape left in a British car would by a process of magical osmosis eventually become 'Queen Greatest Hits Volume I'. Less musical inspiration than cognitive musical therapy but as mentioned they dressed smartly and put on a strong show.

A reformed Crowded House appeared just when it seemed that the hubristic challenge that we were dry and they were wet and muddy could reap no Nemesis. Neil Finn's timing was such that inevitably the sun broke through refulgently only once the call and response to 'Weather With You' was at its peak. After a trawl through the back catalogue and a new song the inevitable downpour did its worst with Neil rushing for an acoustic guitar to belt out Mary Hopkins' 'Those Were The Days My Friend' as roadies lashed the stage with bin liners to prevent electrocution.




And so home to Hammersmith by way of a taxi driver aware that we were too sodden to care he was taking the long way round to warm house, hot food and an escape from headline act Peter Gabriel and whatever beard/hair combination he's confronting the world with.