Kate Nash LIVE

Well all praise my new job. Five minutes after driving off the work car park I was on the motorway. Compare that to the at least 30 minute run from my previous workplace (which lest you people don't realise was only about half a mile further away from the motorway than my current position) and we're already onto a winner.

That said, it led to a problem eventually. After a few games of golf (and having to lend some money to Gee who had spent all his money at the weekend going out with his future wife) and a kebab we headed to Academy One ridiculously early. I did attempt to suggest Kro Bar for a drink, but we pressed on regardless, eager to check out the new and improved venue.

Well basically it was shit. It might just have been the five deep queue for the bar and the irredeemably shit support band (think the Klaxons doing a piss poor Kraftwerk impersonation and you're not even half way to how bad they were) but somehow I doubt it. Unless the venue has something up its sleeve for the final stretch of "improvements" one of my favourite gig-going venue seems to have shot itself in the foot.

As for the concert itself, which is kind of the point, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand it wasn't as captivating as Nash's earlier gigs this year at Night & Day, although at least in a bigger venue it was easier to avoid being stood next to pretentious wankers. The problems I have with Made Of Bricks are well known by now and I have to say that Nash is better when uncluttered by superfluous musical arrangements (read that as a "live band").

That said, despite a feeling of disappointment when the evening was over, I've been singing We Get on ever since the concert. And I dare say that not one of the teenage girls who left the concert into the cold night Manchester air thought that the concert was anything less than one of the best nights out they've ever had.