Webbing and curfews and rain

Although they didn’t open with it, their set ironically included the track ‘Good Time’ in which the pineapple haired Adam sings “I just wanna have a good time, just like everybody else”. I hate to tell you Adam, but this was my overwhelming thought at a gig, that I suspect might have just been a bit of a trip for you.

Last year I booked tickets to see the Counting Crows at Wembley, tickets booked in July for a gig in December. Already this is some unprecedented forward planning on my behalf. The gig was then postponed to May this year, which, my friends, is 2 months short of a year and 5 radishes short of a spring salad. Nevertheless, excitement builds unbound and May eventually swings its grey head around the door. Wembley Arena (not stadium) is pretty packed with fans and their unsuspecting friends along for what their expectant little faces anticipate to be a night of musical joyousness. How wrong you are!

The first and last time I saw Adam Duritz and his musical entourage was in 2004, and they were fucking splendid. As much as I love and revel in new music, I very much resented the fact that they opened their Wembley set with two very obscure, manic depressive ballads. Now, Adam, I am not asking you to bust out Mr Jones for the millionth time in your merry dreadlocked life, but please, give me something I can work with. A little later we managed to get a slight groove going, and a few cheers emerged barely drowned by a half hearted applause, as we dreamt of Michaelango and took a quick trip to Miami. Not a minute too soon and they were ferried offstage for the obligatory, ‘applause till your hands are raw and maybe we’ll give you an encore’ session, at which point we made a run for the door.

The train journey was a little more interesting, a few hardcore disappointed fans harping on about the good old days and sell by dates. An interesting crowd of lads and their loony friend drew some curious looks, after the loony chap decided that his t-shirt which was originally inside out, was better inside-off. He then proceeded to show his belly to the world, or at least to those of us on the Jubilee line heading slowly south from Wembley. It was a merry old journey, and almost the most fun we’d had all night. However that would be doing a disservice to the electric shoe polisher we found in the Indian Restaurant before the gig. In fact it would do a disservice to the whole experience at the Indian restaurant which was nothing short of confusing and awkward hilarity.