I remember just two songs that stood out. One was Wild Wild Thing by the Escape Club. The video was weird. My niece seemed to like it but she was only about 2 anyway. The other was Sweet Child of Mine by Guns’n'Roses. When I got back home, none of my friends had heard of this band, even the so called metalhead. I couldn’t understand why the song wasn’t a huge hit. I can’t remember clearly, but the song had to be released a couple of times before it got adequate airplay to chart and it’s possible that it depended on festival appearances at the time. I didn’t do festivals when I was 15 or 16.

My brother didn’t think too much of Sweet Child of Mine, but when Welcome to the Jungle came along, he went nuts for Guns’n'Roses. For his short life, apart from Bad Religion, Axel Rose was it. He even got my mother interested. We sort of lost interest in Guns’n'Roses at home sometime after the Use Your Illusion albums, so except for the fact that one of my friends was interested in going, I probably wouldn’t have bothered going to the O2 tonight. Or last night. Not sure which as it’s after midnight now.

The support act was some dude from Canada called Danco Jones or something like that. He came on and played for something like an hour. I can’t say we liked him too much to be honest. Maybe I’m too old. Maybe I drew the line at songs about oral sex and wanting to fuck girls you really like. I don’t know. Not heartbroken when he went off, despite his huge eulogy about how he loved Thin Lizzy and how Thin Lizzy inspired his band so much. I wasn’t such a fan of TL – maybe a little young for that – but I know enough of their music to feel the inspiration was somewhat filtered by time. Either way, I’ve lived in Dublin for 10 years, and while some dude from Toronto might think I’m amazingly lucky to walk the same streets that were walked by Phil Lynott, I can’t say it has ever weighed too heavily on my mind.

We then waited for over an hour for Guns’n'Roses to appear.

I’m not used to this to be honest. I gather the band has a rep but pretty typically in the O2 gigs start and end on time. They have a regular curfew of around 11pm although I’ve been in club gigs there until well after 1. So they can arrange exceptions on occasion. That club gig, however, started on time where the support played 2 hours and the headliner played for 4. So I didn’t worry about the curfew so much. It was clear, however, the crowd were getting more than antsy. Up in the balcony we had well more than enough time to get bored with Mexican waves and down on the floor, they were starting to boo. Quite vocally as it happens. Twitter started to light up with comments along the lines of “no sign of the band yet”, and “no one is sure quite when Axel Rose is going to turn up on stage”. The people you’d get talking to were increasingly frustrated. I knew that they’d been late on stage the previous night in Belfast, but apart from that had only heard that they played two hours. I assumed it had been a late but great gig. I could possibly have lived with this.

When the band eventually arrived on stage, it was after half past ten. They were not greeted with much by way of adoration. The chorus of boos just got louder and louder and louder and the band didn’t really open with anything that would have set the gig on fire at that stage.

A couple of plastic bottles flew and Axel immediately said one more bottle and they were off stage. To be honest, at that stage, I probably wouldn’t have cared. We were at the venue at 7ish, had sat through a woeful support act, and the highlight of the evening had been the trip up the Dublin Wheel which was quite nice. Great view over the port. Plan to do it with a camera some evening. I never saw the bottle that finished his patience – but it came just 22 minutes after they went on stage.

The tickets cost 75E and Axel Rose, who was nearly 90 ,minutes late for his concert anyway lost patience with the crowd after 22 minutes and walked off the stage. Am inclined to think that those waiting 90 minutes are slightly more entitled to a little anger and frustration. But then, since I was one of them, you can make of that what you will.

It’s fair to say the crowd were unimpressed. I can’t condone the flinging of plastic bottles on the stage; however, I have zero time for a band who troop on stage almost an hour and a half late and there is no way the flinging of bottles would be happening if they showed up when they were expected to by the majority of the crowd. Someone came on stage to tell us they had technical problems. No one really believed that they were technical problems of the nature that a fuse might be gone in the firework display.

I watched the twitter stream about the gig on my phone for about a half an hour. We were basically waiting for someone to come back and say whether the gig was going to end at 22 minutes or what…they did admit they were trying to persuade Axl Rose to come back on stage.

I felt sorry for them. When I say the crowd was fractious, this is not an exaggeration. Every movement on stage was greeted with an increasing chorus of boos. I’ve been going to concerts regularly since I was 17, some big, small, good bad, a few indifferent. But I’ve never seen a crowd react like this to a gig,. They were furious they’d been forced to wait; they were furious about the walk off. They were furious that no one was actually saying anything.

We waited until about 20 past 11. I don’t think we really believed the band were going to come back on; just kinda wanted it said officially. When we gave up and went to the loo, somehow, someone had persuaded Axel to get himself back on stage. Who knows how. He opened up with Live and Let Die I think. Do I care? Not really. The first 20 minutes hadn’t set my heart on fire; the band didn’t have the support of the crowd; quite the opposite actually. We missed his arrival but I’ve heard he dismissed the fans who hadn’t walked out as being pathetic. I’d like to hope that wasn’t true but…oh well. They played for about 90 minutes nonstop, and yes, they did play Sweet Child of Mine. At some point, they played Paradise City. There seemed to be rather a lot of solo instrumental pieces, one on the piano that sounded somewhat not unlike elevator music and the Pink Panther Theme on the guitars. I’d probably have loved that last one if it had turned up in the middle of a regular concert, and not in the middle of one that was running 2 or 3 hours late, had consisted of the band blaming the crowd for the mess – the mess which could be traced back to the band showing up nearly an hour and a half late for their own gig, but in truth all I felt was that this was just like filler sound.

Only about two thirds of the crowd hung around to hear the rest of the gig. I don’t think they came on board really for it; I thought it was flat. I played with my phone quite a lot; watched the twitter feed. I’d almost have liked to hear the calls to the Adrian Kennedy Phone show on FM104, a station I hardly ever find on the radio dial. At some point they stopped for about 30 seconds and came straight back on. I honestly think they didn’t even dare try to challenge the crowd to demand an encore and anyway, the boos were still echoing around the O2. When they eventually finished, everyone in the auditorium pretty much just left. No major cheering, no major applause. No one seemed to really care all that much. By the time we got out of the building, a car with darkened windows was leaving the O2. The parting crowd assumed it was Axel and voiced their displeasure pretty clearly. I can’t say I really blame them.

Anyone who had to travel from outside Dublin for this gig; I feel a bit gutted for them. It’s clear to me that for some people, Axl Rose is some sort of hero and something like what happened to night has to be somewhat disillusioning. Do I care that Slash wasn’t there? Not really. I’ll be interested to see what MCD have to say tomorrow. A lot of people are going to be looking for money back I suspect.

1. Rain (Acoustic)  – Samantha James
2. Come Through (Acoustic) Samantha James
3. Divinere – Ludovico Einaudi
4. Mad about You – Hooverphonic
5. Club Montepulciano – Hooverphonic
6. Breathe (PC Synergy’s Mellifluous Mix) – Crystal Stafford
7. Innocente – Delerium/Leigh Nashs
8. Love Show – Skye
9. Habla Con Hella – Alberto Iglesias

It’s all kind of downtempo/glass of red wine in front of the fire type music.

Anyone want to add suggestions? Obviously having picked up a Suzanne Vega album last night I’ll throw in Left of Centre as well.

The weather is sort of funny at the moment – it’s been really warm, last night, meaning I couldn’t sleep, and really cold now, meaning I wish I was asleep. It’s been close and not close, wet, sunny and grey, sometimes all at the same time. It leaves me feeling slightly jaded.

This music leaves me feelign a lot better though; I don’t know why. I came across Didier Squiban when he was accompanying Yann Fanch Kemener, Brittany’s answer to Iarla O Lionaird and something about his playing got to me so when I saw a solo album in FNAC in Brussels about 12 years ago, I bought it; no argument. I’ve loved it since. Not all of his things appeal to me – he has a tendency to experimental jazz – but the trilogy of Molene/Porz Gwen and one other album the name of which escapes me is absolutely gorgeous, and sometimes…it’s just what I need. Like today with its psycho season adjusting weather.

So, during the week I decided to go see Tiesto at the O2. Tiesto is completely out of my zone and frankly if he is in the zone of too many of my classical music and alt-rock loving and trad loving friends, they’ve kept rightly quiet about it. Anyway, tickets were hard to come by because Tiesto sold out the O2. For someone not one of my friends has ever heard of, that’s quite an achievement. This means I was a bit surprised too.

I’m not sure whether you call this a concert or what. Being old fashioned, I like to see musical instruments at concerts, or see some semblance of a singer. You don’t get this at a DJ gig. They stand on a stage, and they mix stuff. It’s really way out of my normal experience, so anyone who is really into their dance music will have to bear in mind that I’m a slight bit out of my depth here. For simplicity’s sake I will say that Tiesto played a concert and leave it at that. It will be a useful way to cop the live music scene one anyway. Doors opened at 6. I’m not sure what time Virtual Vault, the warm-up stepped on stage, but he was already playing at 7 when I arrived post bag check, and age check and he played for at least another hour. I think he finally stopped around 8.15 and 2 minutes later Tiesto turned up on stage. This is where I get to show my naiveté. I assumed he’d play a 2 hour set.

He didn’t. When I eventually wilted at 12.50 Tiesto was still playing. I was somewhat totally stunned by this. I realise your average rockband will get tired in around an hour and a half but frankly I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rockband work as hard as either of those two DJs did last night. And the overwhelming feeling I got from the stage was that they were really getting a kick out of what they do.

I don’t listen to a whole lot of trance music so I hadn’t heard of Virtual Vault before last night. I do think he did a great set however, and I doubt any of his records will live up to it to be honest. I do listen to some of Tiesto’s stuff and I like his podcast which arrives once a week at the moment – it’s a very decent mix of accessible dance stuff. I can imagine some purists might find it a litte too populist; in the way I think that Kila desecrate trad music and Sinead O’Connor should never have been allowed release Sean Nos Nua when there are people like Lunasa, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh and Cara Dillon around, but for someone completely from outside that scene, I absolutely adore what he does. Plus, he did a remix for Mylene Farmer of C’est Dans L’Air which I didn’t expect to hear last night (but did) [here incidentally is the extended club remix of same.

Show wise, it was one of the best I’ve ever seen. All out on the lasers, on background screen stuff, whatever. It really stuffed what Massive Attack did in the Olympia a few months ago (in fact all told the gig was 1000 times better than the MA gig). And everyone in the O2 seemed to be enjoying it.

One of the reasons I like some of the Tiesto stuff is that he seems to really, really enjoy what he’s doing. You can see it in every video clip of him mixing on Youtube for example.

Last night was a blast. In a lot of ways very surreal – jaysus you should have seen some of the outfits – and totally out of normal for me. And it’s not like I really knew what to expect either. What I will say is that it was one hell of a gig and if and when either of this pair were to turn up again in Dublin, if I heard about it, I’d go there.

When I say I used to play the piano a lot, it’s worth noting that those days ended 10 years ago. Now, I just type a lot. My fingers are fluent in querty but not in CDEFGABC. Which in a way is heartbreaking. Today, I knew I was going to be doing alot of improvising, and the odd bit of playing – you oughta hear my version of The Foggy Dew (it’s special) followed by my version of Newborn by Muse (it’s terrible. I played bits by Evanescence, Ashley MacIsaac and Keane as well, and ended up with lots of bits by Winds And Breezes (c).

My fingers hurt after the exercise. The hammer action on the piano was a bit heavier than I’m used to – it’s a German piano and in very decent nick which is always useful in a piano room, but it’s not my piano and it’ll never be my piano and I woudln’t have chosen to buy one were I buying a piano in the morning. I want to buy a piano, I just have nowhere to put it.

I don’t know what I want to play any more. When I was 17 years old, I only wanted to play Grieg and Rachmaninov. I’ve a pile of piano music, lots by Chopin, some by Beethoven, Saint Saens, and the aforementioned boys Grieg and Rach. I have loved Rachmaninov II since I was pretty small although Saint-Saens V is my current favourite piano concerto. I’ve a book of music by Didier Squiban as well which I suspect I could learn to play in short order if I only played the piano more regularly. But I like some of the rock stuff as well – I reckon with a little confidence and a bit more competence I could shake the foundations of a building with Newborn, with Bring Me to Life. I still wouldn’t mind being able to play some Astor Piazolla. But unlike how things were when I was a teenager, the lines of communication between my ears, my mind and my fingers are somewhat broken.

I used to have a college lecturer who voiced the fact that a concert pianist could play some crazy sequence of keys in a given period of time, and that it depended on muscle memory. I don’t have too much of that muscle memory left. The odd sequence of chords that is useful if you’re playing traditional Irish music. Megafail if you’re not. I didn’t even risk the classical party pieces, the one Mozart sonata and Beethoven stuckchen because frankly they weren’t going to be there.

I’d love to have a piano of my own, and you know, I could probably afford one if I wanted to. But I’ve nowhere to put it and question the wisdom of buying the long yarned for Kawaii baby grand when I just can’t really play any more.

So to the Academy. I remember it when it was called HQ. I don’t think I once set foot in it while it was called Spirit, but I have to say it doesn’t look too different now to how it looked the last time I was in there; an awfully long time ago. Still has one hell of a sound system and the occasional concert gem by the looks of things.

Xavier Rudd is an Australian dude who does the odd bit of blues, and the odd bit of reggae. Last night, I have to say, he was more in reggae mode than blues mode and for me, this was slightly disappointing because I prefer – by some distance – his blues stuff to his reggae stuff. With one or two exceptions, he didn’t play so much of a set that I knew or preferred.

You can’t argue with his talent though – he’s one hell of a guitarist, and he’d a very talented band with him. And the reaction he got from the crowd was pretty exceptional. I don’t often see anything like it in any concert.

Key song for me last night was Messages about half way through the set. He didn’t play GBA which is still my favourite of his output.

Gig was well worth going to for all that.

This was not a wise move. I don’t know who is on post 5pm on 2FM but I don’t want to know either. They were discussing the fact that they were going to be doing a powerballad special. I’ n not sure what it meant but they played some clip with some dude who inspired them to do this. I almost puked.

Look. I get powerballads. I even own a few. Stuff that I was forced to listen to when I was working in a typing pool in London at the weekends when I was a student. Anyone who hears Unbreak my Heart by Tony Braxton more than 4 million times in 9 months is either going to do bad things that I couldn’t possibly imagine or wind up liking the thing. I bought it to remind me of those happy weekends in the typing pool where I discovered what class division really was. Them. And Us.

Still, it paid for college. And living in London. Which was kinda pricey.

However, that’s not the point. The point is this. Even I wouldn’t want to listen to power ballads at 5pm on a Monday evening. What in the name of Christ were 2FM thinking of? Who’s idea was this? Do we really want to listen to Celine Dion and Jennifer Rush and Maria McKee when we are stuck in traffic? In the name of all that’s holy why would we want to?

I thought 2Fm was supposed to be the youth station. Surely to Christ if you were going to dream up a powerballad for the youth of Ireland you’d at least dig out Beautiful by Christina Aguilera and stuff by that other wan who probably has a powerballad or two stashed on an album. Jesus Beyoncé surely has stuff worth playing if you want the big romantic heartbreakers.

I hopped over to Phantom FM. They were playing “There is a light that never goes out” by the Smiths. Somehow it was far better than the memory swapping about great powerballads on 2FM. I can’t help feeling that if the country has a future, the youth of today would prefer the Smiths over powerballads, in general.

This turned up while I was exploring imeem this evening. I came across Bliss because I occasionally listen to Radio IO but the ads drive me up the wall and occasionally the songs do as well. This is one of the good songs along with stuff by – for example – the utterly brilliant Home Video. I also know about Bliss because they did what I consider to be a great remix of Bring me to Life by Evanescence but that’s not really indicative of their stuff; just better than the single release of the song. It came as an extra track on the CD single by the way. It’s also thanks to online radio that I know about stuff like Letting the Cables Sleep by Bush and other miscellaneous stuff which scares my family as they thought they had me figured musically now.

Anyway, this – that bit above blew my mind so off I tootled to iTunes and bought the album it came from. See, the music industry really needs to understand that online sales could be the crack cocaine of their industry. I remember when I heard Crucify by Tori Amos on Europe 2 (yeah I listen to the weirdest international radio stations) and went and bought it immediately without having to wait 16 hours to get to an open CD shop. I bought it THERE AND THEN. They really need to realise just how potent that is. It’s probably worse than online gambling. I wouldn’t know. I don’t do online gambling. I do buy music though….and I like the idea of lots of things.

But the music industry isn’t interested in the possibilities, it seems to me. It hasn’t really gone global either – the industry is too tied up in the past and what it needs to prevent happening than what it can create happening. They fought tooth and nail against the free advertising that Youtube effectively is until one of them broke ranks. They have been fighting illegal file sharers by targeting legitimate buyers.

I’m looking at – eventually – getting a subscription to last.fm because I’m ham strung by how they limited radio last year. I’m experimenting with imeem at the moment. I’ve played with BlipFm in the past as well. Of all of them, Last.FM has the most user friendly interface. Imeem has a slightly wider range of music (so far – I may find its limitations over the time to come). All of these have the impact of making me buy more music…not less…and this is something that the music industry needs to wake up to.

Meanwhile, back with the song above, it’s pure Friday night music to me. Candles in the living room, pure chillout. I like things like this.

Rachmaninov – Piano Concerto II in C Minor

Grieg – Piano Concert in Am

Schumann – Piano Concerto in Am

Brahms – Piano Concert II

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto I

Rachmaninov – Rhapsody on a Theme of Paginini

Bach – all the keyboard concertos which are fantastic

Mozart – Piano Concerts 20 and 21

Saint-Saens – Piano Concerts 2, 4 and especially 5.

Saint-Saens – Africa Fantasy

Is that not enough to be starting with?

I have at least two friends who are Massive Attack fans who have never heard of this. I guess best of/collected albums are good for a few things.

Fallen by Sarah McLachlan

Piano Concert No 2, First Movement, Camille Saint-Saens

Say it one more time – Home Video. Can’t find a youtube link for that