The Von Bondies LIVE

I love these early finishes at my new job. It meant an easy trip into the big city, and the chance to ride on that Manchester Eye/Wheel thing. Very entertaining.

As was the pre-game meal, at Old Orleans. No blue cheese this time though.

We arrived at the Night & Day in time to catch the back end of We Fight Apes. Apparently they were late starting, which was a pity because if they'd started on time we'd have probably have missed them. It's not that they were dreadful, but they were just plain weird. Some of the lyrics were unrepeatable on a blog families can read, and those that weren't were just baffling. Not the worst support act ever I suppose but far from the best.

So then it was time for the Von Bondies. If there's one worry with going to see a loud rock band who you've never seen before it's the chance that they might just go for "loud" at the expense of anything else. Thankfully the Bondies eschewed that route; the tunes were well and truly intact.
The highlights from Pawn Shoppe Heart were all there and in a nice change of circumstances the new songs went down just as well. If their intention was to restablish themselves after a long abscence, they went a long way towards doing that. Not only was it good, but it was even better than I was hoping it would be. And who can ask for more than that?

And I swear I would have had my photo taken with the guys in the band if they'd still been around when I met the girls. Honestly...