Love burns brighter than sunshine: Part 1

On Tuesday my hopes were aquatic. Last night they were realised. I would like to pay tribute to the night by writing something of a mini review. Perhaps you will be persuaded to sample Aqualung someday for yourself. In hopes you will, please take me with.

We arrived at Manchester Academy 2 around 8.30pm. It's a great little venue; something of a basement gig affair with it's low lighting and mildly moody atmosphere. It lends itself well to audience participation too, with a people capacity akin to a bus load or three. Audience participation it turned out, was a strong theme of the night.

The support act were a little country and western style duo; he on his guitar and her on vocals. Surprised was I to return from the little ladies room to see Mr Hales himself providing piano accompaniment. Until that point, pleasant though they were, I could have taken or left them (hence the cheeky loo stop) but with that beautiful man playing the piano with such effortless finesse he really brought their act alive. One song later however, he exited stage right. It was then that the pair did a very strange thing. They said they were going to come out and sing amongst us - a crowd of perhaps only 100 or so. I don't think I quite grasped what this meant. As they wandered off the stage and into the crowd, the woman, a petite brunette with a strange kind of beauty, was singing the lyrics as she looked purposefuly into the eyes of individuals in the crowd; like she was singing the song just to them, if only for a line or two. There were stifled giggles and confused glances between friends. How very odd they seemd, or perhaps how very british we all were. A conversation between their set and Aqualung's with some english folk who had toured with the pair, proved the latter to be true. In Brooklyn, New York, where the pair were from, apparantly it's something of the norm to be so 'out there' with your music or it's received more warmly at the very least. For me though, it made an otherwise forgettable support act, instantly rememberable - they did a very clever thing. Just don't ask me what they were called.

Okay, given that it is 11.40pm and I'm about to exit babysitting duties, it would be an appropriate point in proceedings to recline from blogging, but I will surely pick up where I left off tommorow. Prepare yee.