charlierc

Well clearly if he's doing Finsbury as a solo headline act, he's going to be seen as big enough. Not least as the consequent vinyl/live film also got good reviews. These were always special hometown gigs, added to by Newcastle United having a good season meaning there was something to amp it up for the locals. But if he's already doing shows of huge capacity, I imagine that he's already being considered on merit rather than being able to do a hometown show.

As a Newcastle supporter I quite enjoyed seeing the images from it. I jokingly called it "Peak Geordie" to a friend who also supports them after the first night, only for the second night to bring out noted Geordie Brian Johnson and have both Ant & Dec in the crowd, thereby somehow making it more Geordie I appreciate it won't be for everyone but given he's sold out arenas and a lot of people went to see him at Finsbury Park or subbing on the Glastonbury Pyramid last year, I doubt it'll be that sparse for his spot. Hell Kasabian did two nights at Leicester to celebrate that time they won the Premier League (technically three as I think they also played at a victory party in a city centre park), and I don't think doing an unashamedly pro-football team concert will be that off-putting for a general crowd. Sunderland fans, perhaps, but that it's own debate largely for social media bitching.

From Middlesbrough I saw quite a lot both ways. The crowd went mad for Fluorescent, Mardy Bum and Dancefloor, but equally, the loudest singalong was for Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High and Snap Out of It (a song I didn't miss when it was dropped in 2018) was surprisingly popular. Plus obviously Do I Wanna Know is a mega-smash and R U Mine? seems to be their default closer. I would be surprised if they suddenly turned up at Glasto and just played The Car and TBHC in full but it would be very funny. One thing I'd prefer is if they played 505 the normal way. I don't particularly like the current remix they're doing for it - too fast and oddly upbeat for such a sad song. I can see that being really slagged off by the casuals who only watch the Glasto set on TV (assuming they don't pull a Reading and refuse to broadcast it). 4/5's remix was oddly good tbf.

Pretty sure that the reaction to Brown's dithering is what lead to Theresa May going all in for the 2017 snap election, which ended up being a good idea for about a week until the campaign ended up being a spectacular failure.

Stretching that out to week of the show is what I'm kinda hoping for, because as you say, there will be late drop-outs. I've not taken a "All hope is lost!" attitude just yet.

Sun Goes Down would've been more of a surprise imo. I got Ritz to the Rubble when I saw them in Madrid 5 years ago and it was awesome, and had been aware it was played a few times last year. Was more excited to get View from the Afternoon at Middlesbrough as its one of my favourites but I hadn't seen it in over 10 years.

Inter actually played pretty well tbf - had more shots, Ederson had to make more saves than Onana, and for a while Man City seemed vexed by their defensive structure. Least that was until one chink in the armour allowed Rodri to piledrive through it. It's a shame for Lukaku that a campaign already on the backfoot after he came back to the World Cup too quickly from injury ends with him accidentally blocking a strike (though I think Dias was in position to as well) and then heading one straight at Ederson when glancing it the other way would've been a certain equaliser.

Yeah. I'm hoping it's not like Reading for AM day last year when nothing came up. Still 3 weeks to show day. Guess I can always keep the faith. I once got a ticket to a sold out Muse gig on show day, so I have precedent to follow.

Well hopefully her thirst for knowledge of what Pulp are like live was suitably quenched.

I find it hard to believe Inter Milan are going to be winning tonight's game, but it would be a truly impressive performance and result if they did.

Interesting. I admire this for being a unique take for what most people assumed given the two camps of Arctics fans I recognise the most are those who love the first 2 LPs more than the rest and those who love AM the most. ... he said, being one who wants a rerun of that 2010 gig where they did Humbug and all it's B-sides in full.

It was put in earlier in the night as well. Must be a favourite trolling attempt. Setlist FM has been full of this for the whole tour.

This comes out next week, and I'm kinda bemused the various scandals that followed Ezra Miller around in 2022 didn't lead to this being canned. I know we can argue about cancel culture and separating art from an artist until the end of the world, but the sheer quantity of legal trouble he got into last year did make me think this might be held back. It's also kind of in an odd place given it looks like DC has hired James Gunn just to reboot everything anyway.

I thought it was excellent. Well-animated, good characters and vocal performances, grappled with the multi-verse concept better than the main MCU is doing. Considering a lot of comic films are getting a bit repetitive, it is good to see it as something better than those.

If that is the case that might explain the rush for Finsbury Park. Every e-mail I get for Twickets spares to Finsbury Park is gone before I can even click it. And I don't even like FP that much. Just now compensating for being unavailable to the Apollo dates.

Supermassive Black Hole

Ferrari's tyre wear was a problem in 2021 that got worse last year but this year has been really bad. They have great one lap pace in qualy (most of the time) but just can't seem to make the tyres last in a way Merc and Aston can, let alone Red Bull. It's also not a good omen both Leclerc and Sainz talk about it as a problem they don't understand. Seems to be a trait Ferrari's client team Haas have picked up given theirs in Barcelona was really bad. They would be brilliant for about 3 laps, then faded pretty much straight away and Hulk and KMag got overtaken by anyone behind them. I think the fact Verstappen is already talking about taking up things in other series like Le Mans (or indeed Andretti wants him for the Indy 500) means that we may not get dominance forever if he decides the time for a new challenge is nigh. Certainly he just suits the car so well if he can win by nearly 25 seconds and his only real threat was the team trying to get him to slow down, and after the brief flirtation that Perez might be able to challenge has gone away, it feels like title #3 will be his before long. Merc made progress but a lot more is gonna be required to reel in Max.

Apparently not officially announced but strongly hinted at if this is anything to go by: Foo Fighters "confirm they will tour the UK in 2024" | Virgin Radio UK Maybe we'll get something in a few weeks as a coinciding thing if it is indeed they who are this Churnups act that's at Glastonbury.

Middlesbrough last night was good. I thought Alex looked more engaged than he has done at a few other gigs of late, plus the crowd was quite receptive to Car material. Cornerstone as show opener made me laugh, as while I like it, it's such a random opener choice. Also caught me out as having seen Mardy Bum as show opener at multiple stadium dates, I'd expected that to be the kickstarter. I can say as well that the great crowd reaction made me think there's merit to still playing Snap Out of It and Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High as the crowd loved both. One drawback is that I'm not really a fan of the 505 remix. Just feels too upbeat for a distinctively sad song on record. In Coventry last week they did a sparse version with pretty much just the synth and some light guitar until the drop, and I think that was better.

Yeah you're right about King Power being prominent in a trade that was vulnerable to a whopping revenue shortfall when covid destroyed the international travel market in 2020/21. I think that's part of the nature where trying to mount a sustained challenge to the big six requires deep pockets, and when Leicester's coin ran out, they were in trouble. I don't see why they kept Tielemans when they needed the money and he wanted out, and will now lose him on a free, while they held on to Wesley Fofana for too long and didn't have time to re-invest the large fee Chelsea were convinced to pay for him. Plus Ward and Iversen were both major downgrades in goal and Vardy's wage is a large chunk for a play who seems now to have reached the end of the road.

They have indeed. Saw them do it at Mad Cool Festival in Madrid a few years ago. Remember it being quite good, even if I prefer The View from the Afternoon and was a little bummed to discover they played that in Lisbon the night before but not in Madrid. But as its rarer I can be happy with it's appearance. It is curious that they've been doing an 18 main plus 3 encore set since Suck it and See in 2011, with a few 17+4 or 17+3 sets in there as well. Though stadiums might get longer but clearly, still on their terms as this template being religiously followed.

Clearly Just Stop Oil decided to join in the meme judging by that first point. The Everton winner came in the 9th minute of stoppage time despite Everton having had a player sent off 15 minutes before that, so not far off tbf. Until that point, the oil protestor was perhaps the most exciting part of that match.

One thing I was gutted not to get on the 2014 AM Tour was the Knee Socks into My Propeller duo as the transition was very good. I prefer Pretty Visitors to My Propeller (indeed it's one of my favourite AM tracks full stop) but given that as an album track has been a staple for all bar a few runs here & there since its 2009 release, I can see why they'd wanna give it a rest.

Alpine getting a podium was pretty good, not least given their own CEO was trying to throw his own team under the bus with a lot of uncomplimentary comments in Miami. Hell Ocon could nearly have got pole given he was up there before Leclerc, Alonso and then Verstappen got just quicker in the zone when a red flag would've meant an instant session end, and had Ocon got pole, Monaco's tight nature meant it would've been a challenge for anyone to get past him. I think Alonso would well have won that. Max needed to do a brilliant final sector to even got pole, and then Alonso pit at what ended up being the right lap for inters only to do an ill-fated lap on another set of dries right at the point it really began to piss it down. We'll see what Barcelona brings. Mercedes might be better for their much-taunted upgrade or it might be a flash in the pan. Though it is the case that we have Aston, Mercedes and Ferrari fighting over the final bit on the podium given Max and Checo are basically in another league (assuming Checo is able to avoid a disaster like he had in Monaco Q1, that is).

They've been doing a 90 mins 18+3 setlist since Suck it and See in 2011. Feels like they're wedded to it as a flow and pattern, but agreed. They've totally got enough material to do a 2hr set. At the very least I thought they might do one with two encores.