Is it just me, or are there a lot of dead celebrities at the moment?

If nothing else, 2016 is shaping up as a bumper year for dead celebrities. At the moment, it feels like you can't listen to the radio or turn on the television without hearing of the death of some luminary. It probably started with Bowie. Unexpected both because of his relatively slight age (69) as well as his then-recent album release. But since then a litany of famous figures have popped their clogs. Earlier this week, we had a double whammy, with Ronnie Corbett and Zaha Hadid joining the choir invisible on the same day.

So, is this a real thing? Or is it just my perception and bad memory that make it feel like there are a lot more famous dead people right about now? And leaving aside this first order question by assuming the affirmative, what could explain the seeming upswing in reported mortality of musicians, artists, comedians, architects, and so on?

There is obviously a sensible, analytical route to the answer based on careful study of media reporting of expired stars in previous years. But I'm too lazy for that, so am going to stick to baseless speculation and armchair argument. To wit, I'm assuming that I'm right about the numbers - and why wouldn't I do that? - and focusing instead on what's behind it all. Or what could be behind it all if I'm honest.

The simplest explanation is that, as time passes, we should expect to hear of more celebrity deaths simply because the human population of Earth - and, presumably, that of human celebrities (we don't know any alien ones yet) - is still very much on the up.

A more conspiratorial explanation is that the contrasting costs of proper journalism and lazy, echo chamber journalism, mean that when filling a news schedule, the temptation is focus on easily-assembled items on dead famous people. Go to the clips archive, ring a few of their upset friends, job done. However, I'm going to discount this one since - being a BBC fanboy - I'm pretty sure that this can't cover all the bases (although I'm still suspicious of how the media picks topics to cover).

A further explanation - and my favourite - is that the dominant factor is that we now have many more celebrities per head of population than we did in the past, and that we should expect this to occur. Essentially, with the advents of mass publishing, radio, cinema, television and now the internet, there are now far more routes by which everyday people can be elevated to the realms of celebrity. That is, to have some sort of following beyond that of the people they know and interact with (let's not get sniffy about "celebrity"). And then, ipso facto, the population of people in the public consciousness - and that of their obituaries - will inevitably rise.

In essence, this is a corollary of Andy Warhol's famous / infamous statement concerning "15 minutes of fame".

Of course, all of this is wholly based on idle speculation on my part, and I certainly won't be following it up to work out how wrong I am - and why would I do that? But I am still interesting in knowing if this really is "a thing", or if it really is "just me".

No feet of clay

Finally caught up with another of my long-term musical heroes last night. Previously I've seen R.E.M. and David Byrne (ex- of Talking Heads), and this time it was the turn of Suzanne Vega.


I've been following her since I first got a taste back in 1992 while I was working out at Occidental College in Los Angeles. She released her album 99.9F° in early autumn that year, but in the run-up to this a couple of tracks made it onto the rotation of KROQ, our lab's favoured radio station that summer. Now, an alarming 20 years later - but only 3 more albums later - I finally got a chance to hear what she's like live.

On which point, I have to say that, going in, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. She's a bit of an odd artist in that she comes out of a somewhat folky place, but has also at times embraced - after being embraced by - an almost industrial aesthetic. I arrived on the scene when she first took the plunge with a more production-heavy style, so have always quite liked it. But I'm also aware that she still tends to folky, and has even begun a project in the last couple of years to re-record many of her songs in more pared-back arrangements. As such, I did wonder how songs that I've loved for years might turn out.


Fortunately, I needn't have worried in the least. Though she performed with only a single accompanying musician, and occasionally did numbers solo, she still managed to pull a pretty impressive range from her songs. In the main, the arrangements were unsurprisingly pared down, but they didn't suffer for it in the least. Even my (probably) favourite song, the infectiously upbeat if surprisingly short When Heroes Go Down, came off brilliantly. Only one or two songs suffered from being (to my mind) pared back a bit too much, and even then it was still enjoyable to hear new interpretations. And with one song, Blood Makes Noise, the arrangement was actually amped-up (via a pedal-based sequencer?) to something almost more industrial than the original.

On this point about arrangements, one particularly interesting choice was how Vega chose to handle one of her most famous songs, Tom's Diner. This was originally an a cappella song when it was recorded back in the early 1980s, but it's probably more famous now for a 1990s remix that reworked it almost into a dance track. I've even got a cover version of the song by R.E.M. that covers this remix rather than the original. Anyway, last night Vega herself travelled this same route, and performed the song in its remix flavour rather than in its more stripped-back original flavour. I guess that she now prefers this version too, or must at least prefer performing it this way - certainly it went down well with the audience.

Leaving aside her old familiars, Vega introduced a number of new (to me) songs. Most were actually from a play that she co-wrote recently on the life of the US writer Carson McCullers. When she introduced these, my first reaction was to get rather apprehensive because of this stage source, but, again, I needn't have gotten concerned. They were a little too, well, factual compared to her usual, more everyman-ish work, but they were still really good. And quite funny too. Curiously, she mentioned an imminent and wholly new album in passing, but I don't think we got anything from it. That'll have to wait.

Anyway, overall another personal icon survives intact. I should be getting used to this by now, but I can't seem to get over an instinctive "shields-up" response to ward off potential - but unfulfilled - disappointment. What was also pleasing was Vega's manner and her chatting with the crowd. She was easy, amusing and even apologised mid-song when she got a lyric wrong at one point (we'd never have noticed - it was Blood Makes Noise!). So it was nice to have my 20 year crush validated. ;-)

It's only a model

Out last night to (finally) catch Spamalot, Eric Idle's reboot of the 1975 Monty Python film, at the Mayflower theatre. I say "finally" because the (presumably unexpected) success of the show in London led to its run being prolonged there (that cash isn't going to rake itself in), and to the cancellation of the Southampton portion of its national tour. Much to our annoyance. Anyway, after being prompted by an e-mail flyer last week, which also offered 1/2 price tickets (a feature of many a Mayflower visit for us), we've finally caught, done and dusted the show.

So, any good? Definitely. But I couldn't shake the feeling that, fundamentally, it's a somewhat unnecessary affair that, while certainly entertaining for Monty Python fans (so we were happy), mostly serves to keep Monty Python alive for the "youth of today". That said, that's still a much better rationale for existence than many other shows have, so I shan't complain further. As it happens, and contrary to what I expected going in, the best parts of the show are actually the new bits that Idle et al. have added. These include a series of big musical numbers that very effectively pastiche and satirise the clichéd and overwrought songs of mainstream musicals (e.g. Act 2's "Whatever Happened To My Part?"). Largely sung by the semi-token female character, the Lady of the Lake, these were right on the money, and certainly the highlight of the show for me.

Overall: recommended. But don't go in expecting something to trump the film. That was excellently silly enough without extended musical numbers. And, I should add, the film has the benefit of the Bridge of Death scene.

Desert Island Discs

In spite of the recent receipt of some scandalous information, we've still been sufficiently intrigued by Desert Island Discs' listener survey to establish the nation's Desert Island Discs to have a go ourselves (not least because I've touched on this before).

Given that my list of musical favourites fluctuates every time I think about it, my approach was to brainstorm a long list, then thin to a shorter one. Having my iPod to hand, I was able to quickly run through the list of tracks I've listened to most times ...

• Electrolite OR Near Wild Heaven, R.E.M.
• Dear Hearts and Gentle People, Bob Crosby and the Bobcats
• Pornographer’s Dream OR It Makes Me Wonder OR When Heroes Go Down, Suzanne Vega
• Road To Nowhere OR (Nothing But) Flowers, Talking Heads
• Wish You Were Here OR Great Gig In The Sky, Pink Floyd
• Up On The Roof, The Drifters
• Kanada’s Death, Pt. 2, John Murphy
• Hey Ya!, OutKast
• Avril 14th, Aphex Twin
• The Other Side, Michael Nyman
• Candy Everybody Wants, 10000 Maniacs
• God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters, Moby
• Hoppipolla, Sigur Ros
• Sunday Morning, Velvet Underground
• Sinnerman, Nina Simone
• Learning To Fly, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
• Waiting For The Great Leap Forward, Billy Bragg
• Like A Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan
• Waking Up, Elastica
• Heaven Sent, INXS
• Parklife OR Coffee And TV OR Trimm Trabb, Blur
• Warriors Of The Wasteland, FGTH
• Is It Like Today?, World Party
• Modern Love, David Bowie
• You Got The Love, Candi Staton
• Spring (Allegro), Antonio Vivaldi [Gil Shaham & Orpheus]
• Moonlight Sonata, Ludwig van Beethoven

Thinning down was easy at first, but got progressively more difficult as I needed three, then two, then one final track. Worse, I found myself almost subconsciously juggling priority to ensure a balance of old and new, trendy and obscure, throwaway and worthy. So in the end, I more or less brainstormed the brainstormed list, and tried to think as little as possible about each track. Doubtless the list will change by, say, tomorrow, but it's a bit more honest that what my subconscious was secretly fashioning ...

1. Electrolite, REM
2. When Heroes Go Down, Suzanne Vega
3. Road To Nowhere, Talking Heads
4. Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd
5. Like A Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan
6. Spring (Allegro), Antonio Vivaldi [Gil Shaham & Orpheus]
7. Waiting For The Great Leap Forward, Billy Bragg
8. God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters, Moby

Meanwhile, I put C on the spot, and whittled a list out of her in just a few short minutes. The first four came easy, and while the latter ones required a bit more thought, she still got there much faster than I did. And, I suspect, much more honestly (it's certainly more interesting). One thing that we did think about was how much the resulting list should reflect musical preference, and how much the choices should reflect memories. I plumped for about 50:50, and used this to leverage C's final tracks out of her ...

1. My Girl, The Temptations
2. Brown Eyed Girl, Van Morrison
3. Your Song, Billy Paul
4. Midnight Train To Georgia, Gladys Knight and the Pips
5. Canon in D, Johann Pachebel
6. See My Baby Jive, Wizzard
7. Stand Down Margaret, The Beat
8. Don't Stop Me Know, Queen

Anyway, the survey closes tomorrow, and a special programme on the nation's choices is planned for the 11th June. So we'll soon know what the Venn diagram linking the lists above to that general public's looks like. I'm not expecting much overlap. Nessun Dorma is bound to be on it, Bohemian Rhapsody might well make it, and I live in mortal fear of Imagine making a highly-rated appearance. The horror.

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P.S. Deditos - looking forwards to reading the well-crafted DID list that you alluded to previously ...

Desert Island Scandal

Scandalised. That's the only word for it. Via a complicated chain of contacts, I read an e-mail today that's shaken my faith in Radio 4 to the core. Responding to a reference to Desert Island Discs, C was informed, I kid you not, that ...

Ah well, my [redacted]'s friend was on a couple of weeks ago ([redacted]), and was telling my [redacted] that you initially choose 20 records - but the final choice is made by the programmers, not you. When it comes to recording, you are essentially given a 'script' just before hand - so it may be that significance you placed on one record, which doesn't make the final cut, may then be given to another of your choices...

I ask you, is nothing sacred? Sure, I figured that the programme makers might advise against certain pieces of music on grounds of duration or decency (jazz springs to mind on both counts). And, obviously, they'd edit guests down to slip neatly into the 45 minute slot. But to so comprehensively vet musical selections, and to carefully craft a faux interview? It's unconscionable is what it is. I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to listen to the programme in quite the same way ever again.

Thea Gilmore

Thanks to the sharp eyes and organisational efforts of JA, I was out Wednesday night to catch the rock/folk musician Thea Gilmore in the Southampton venue The Brook. I only got acquainted with her music courtesy of a birthday present last year (from JA and AM), and that was a very enjoyably aberrant Christmas album. Given that it's now April, songs from this album were unlikely to make the night's set list, so did the rest of her work live up to this?

In a word: easily. The night was a great mix of rock/folk drawn from (as I gathered) her various albums, along with the occasional eclectic cover version. I'm usually a little twitchy about folk, because of its worthy, sandal-wearing roots, but Gilmore's nothing like a purist on this score, and any fears I had were quickly dispelled (there was even a gag at folk's expense when guitar-tuning was described as "good enough for folk"). As for the band, it was a four (sometimes just two) person affair, with Gilmore, her husband-collaborator Nigel Stonier, and two additional tour musicians, Tracey Browne and someone on drums whose name I've forgotten (sorry). That said, it certainly felt more like a long-established troupe of players familiar with one another (though I'm obviously no music pro).

Of Gilmore's own material, the main things I'd say was that it was diverse, polished and really made the most of her best asset: her voice. With this, she's got charm, control and range, and is perfectly capable of joyously belting out one number only to follow up with a more delicate song from the opposite end of the spectrum. As such, we got slow ballads, upbeat raunchier numbers and tracks such as Icarus Wind, which were more sparing musically, but really let Gilmore's singing shine. And she finished the evening with a solo, music-less lament that used only her voice. Re: the cover versions, we got a bit of Dylan, Dolly Parton (the Archers-pertinent Jolene) and, bizarrely but brilliantly, Guns N'Roses (via a great folk version of Sweet Child o' Mine). In introducing the first of these, Gilmore revealed that: (a) for her next project, she has re-recorded Dylan's album John Wesley Harding in celebration of the singer's (Dylan's) 70th birthday; and (b) she can do a mean Bob Dylan impersonation!

Overall, it was a really enjoyable gig. Made all the more so by Gilmore's humourous engagement with the audience - she's no shrinking violet or tortured, introverted artist. I'll definitely be looking out for her again in the future (or, more likely, JA will, and he'll tell me about her).

I should add that the support act, Jo Long (+ friend), half of the local band The Pure Drop, were a good match for Gilmore. While narrower in terms of the range of material they performed, presumably in part because they had a smaller slot, they held up well in comparison. Their set was perhaps a little too heavy on more folky ballads for my taste, but I was still impressed. And somewhat surprised too, since the last time that I saw Jo (not that I know her at all), she was pulling pints in NOC's local, The Platform. I haven't seen her there for a while, but she's clearly been making good use of her time by the sounds of things.

The Hold Steady

Out on Friday to the students union to see The Hold Steady, a US band much favoured by my co-attendee, JA. Although my iPod actually already holds some of their work (courtesy of a transfusion in 2010 from JA), I went in not knowing a single one of their songs. Partly because I'd just not gotten around to listening, but also because I was curious about what it would be like to attend the concert of a group whose canon I knew diddly squat about.

The most overwhelming impression of the band was: "loud". Even today, I've still got a rather obvious ringing in my ears. I had thought the support act, Wintersleep, were cranked up a little high, but The Hold Steady clarified exactly where 11 was on the sound system. But, permanent hearing damage aside, it was pleasurably satisfying to soak up music that you could both hear and feel.

As for the music itself, well, it was good, boisterous rock from both the main act and the support. The elevated sound level didn't, I think, let it shine to the best degree, but I got the idea. In fact, the band's most obvious asset, its lead singer, did get a bit short-changed by the volume. He was clearly the focus on the stage, but his singing did get reduced to a few obviously enunciated catchwords plus choruses. Which, as I now understand from the AV Club, is a bit of a pity as he can definitely write, even if there was something of a hint of the messianic in the lead's on-stage miming.

Anyway, did the evening convince me to finally track down the band on my iPod? Definitely. I might just wait until the buzzing stops.

Crazy Heart

It's not uncommon for a terrible film to be heralded by a great trailer. Phantom Menace is, I think, king in this department, with a trailer that presents a fantastic rush of images and swells with evocative music, but which is transmogrified into a full-length morass that's simultaneously (and paradoxically) ponderous and all action-without-meaning at the same time.

This evening's DVD, Crazy Heart, achieved something a little similar but with an interesting difference: in a patchwork of just a few minutes, its trailer, which we caught a number of times at the cinema (hence this rental), presented the distilled essence of a story that the film, which contains all the same material and more, couldn't. The film looks great, is played well by its leads, and has the right scenes, but it somehow mangles them, such that the narrative fall-and-rise that's played out masterfully in the trailer, zigzags around, is repeatedly miscued and doesn't make for anything approaching a coherent emotional arc.

It's annoying because, while Phantom Menace really was an empty spectacle with a trailer that was pure salesperson's pitch, Crazy Heart, as both the trailer and film illustrate, had all the right ingredients for success. There was always the risk of disappearing into clichéd, self-destructive-musician tropes, but I think employing a narrative-blind editor was where the wheels really fell off. It's not a good day when the hatchet man from marketing brought into make the trailer has a better grip on the story than the film-makers.

Fifteen in Fifteen

Prompted by Dave, the biggest music-lover I know, I cobbled together my fifteen most memorable albums in fifteen minutes for a facebook challenge he sent around. Rather than let it disappear under the ever-rising tide of facebook posts, I thought I'd reproduce it here. In part so that I can check up from time to time on whether I'd still concur with it. Anyway, it's organised here chronologically to avoid an agonising bubble sort that would take me far outside the required fifteen minute time-frame.

• Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles, 1967
  
• Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd, 1973
  
• Welcome to the Pleasuredome, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, 1984
  
• Graceland, Paul Simon, 1986
  
• Life's Rich Pageant, R.E.M., 1986
  
• The Raw and the Cooked, Fine Young Cannibals, 1989
  
• The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses, 1989
  
• Into the Great Wide Open, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 1991
  
• 99.9F°, Suzanne Vega, 1992
  
• Welcome to Wherever You Are, INXS, 1992
  
• Parklife, Blur, 1994
  
• Different Class, Pulp, 1995
  
• Disgraceful, Dubstar, 1995
  
• The Boy with the Arab Strap, Belle and Sebastian, 1998
  
• Bachelor No. 2, Aimee Mann, 2000

Major omissions are Talking Heads and David Bowie, both of whom, hand on heart, I couldn't really pick out a favourite (non-compilation) album for. They both may have written some of my favourite songs, but consistency over the length of an album isn't one of their strengths.

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Blurred

A bit of a break with traditional reading patterns this time: a biography - indeed, an autobiography. For reasons I can't entirely pin down, I've never been interested in reading anything beyond fiction or popular treatments of science, etc. Although I've enjoyed the occasional biographical asides in the latter, and the veiled hint that the former are partially biography, I've not felt the need to read formal biography. Unsurprisingly then, I'm only coming to it now because of a birthday present from C. Knowing of my great love for the UK band Blur, she bought me the autobiography of its bassist, Alex James.

That said, I suspect it's not the most typical of introductions to the literary genre for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's written (rather than ghostwritten) by someone with an atypical job relative to most public figures who come to my attention, namely one in popular music. Secondly, although the subject is an artist, the book contains practically nothing about his art. This came as something of a surprise, and I suspect some readers might feel a bit cheated to find the book's pages bereft of anything about their favourite music beyond vague, passing remarks.

This latter point certainly undercut my expectations for this book. I'd expected, probably hoped, to find out interesting points about particular songs and albums, but the book stays well away from this sort of dissection. To the extent that it's at times difficult to work out when the author is talking about since he doesn't even use his band's discography for temporal stratigraphy.

Instead, the book is a rambling overview of James' childhood and his life during the Blur years, that finishes up with him settling down with a wife (and, inexplicably, a pig farm). He skips the music to focus instead on the everyday, and increasingly less-everyday, aspects of his rock star life. Large quantities of drugs are consumed, wall-to-wall sexual adventures are passingly alluded to, but the book does find time to fill in some unexpected details.

These include a walk-on part for the artist Damien Hirst who, contrary to my expectations, comes off as a talented and entertaining friend to James. Also, James waxes lyrical about his infatuation with astronomy, which ultimately led to the (ultimately) unsuccessful Beagle 2 mission to Mars. And, along the way, James becomes a qualified pilot, and gets quite poetic about his flying around Europe and Africa.

So, though it has a near-total lack of any backstory or discussion of Blur's hits, the book does make for an interesting read. But it's safe to say that James is not the most natural or fluid of writers. His prose frequently reads like conversation, with a repetitive patter that works in speech but less in print. And he has something of a bad habit of being overenthusiastic about everything. The reader is breathlessly introduced to some arbitrary subject (flying, touring, cheese shops) that is then described as James' favourite and the best-ever. Although it would have distorted his style, I did often think that James' editor could have stepped in and earned their keep more (or perhaps they did!).

One uneasy aspect to the book is James' treatment of his long-term girlfriend, Justine. She never really features much in the book, despite playing an ostensibly significant part for a long stretch (although this could be said about most of James' friends and family). Furthermore, although constantly apologetic towards her in his writing, James really didn't treat her very well during his ride with Blur. As success kicks in, tours quickly become an opportunity for (multiple) infidelity, and though James appears regretful about this, he still strung her along for a considerable period of time. And while it's difficult to be sure given the book's rather fluid chronology, it reads like she left him because of his lack of commitment, only for him to commit to his current wife in pretty short order.

Anyway, overall it's an interesting peek into contemporary rock star life, one that does contain a few nice surprises, but I can't say that it's won me over to biography as a form. It's doubtless far from the best introduction, but I'm still not particularly convinced that I want to take such a specific interest in the detail of the lives of others. I'm going to stick to novels.

A night with David Byrne

Much belated, and further to an earlier post, I caught a David Byrne concert last month in Southampton's Guildhall.

Though I've loved the music of Talking Heads for years (well, decades), they've been defunct for almost the whole time; split into David Byrne and everyone else. As reconciliation seems extremely unlikely, at least judging from press items, seeing Byrne solo seemed to afford the best chance of catching some of my favourite songs.

Though Talking Heads have been out of commission since the early 1990s, Byrne has kept himself pretty busy with his own solo work plus a series of art and film/theatre projects. He's also continued to tour intermittently, and his current tour is centred around his joint album with Brian Eno, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. Eno is absent on the tour, and instead Byrne is touring with a small company (about 11 in total) of musicians, singers and dancers. The latter initially provoked confusion / consternation when they appeared on stage, but by the end they seemed a natural part of the show.

Anyhow, perhaps not surprisingly, Byrne played a mix of his own material and that of Talking Heads, with the latter occurring later in the show. Also not surprisingly, the Talking Heads material was much better received by the audience (of which my friend AM and I were easily in the lower quartile in demographic terms). His own material was pretty good, primarily in the "world music" genre, but unfortunately for Byrne, his Talking Heads back-catalogue just has too many hits in it. His own stuff, unless spectacular, is always going to come off as slightly inferior (though I do write as a Talking Heads fan). I have to say that it was pretty upbeat and danceable (not that I really "got down"; unlike a seemingly stiff suit in front of us who really did). Just not as evocative (or from-my-past?) as the Talking Heads material. Though I didn't get the songs I'd hoped for, it was quite a thrill hearing the opening bars of the likes of Once in a Lifetime and Road to Nowhere. Perhaps it's just because I'm a climate-related scientist, but I love the apocalyptic undercurrents of the latter song.

As for the performance, Byrne wasn't the most talkative of hosts, but he was pretty wry at times, and his enthusiasm was infectious. I particularly liked his choice of white tutus to finish the evening off - the sight of the whole troupe in those was pretty cool. Byrne's backing group were up to the job and, far from being the anonymous musicians that I originally took them to be, they're all pretty accomplished judging from their web bios. I've already made a mention of the dancers, but they're worth another one. When they first appeared (two women and a man) they just seemed a distraction to offset an otherwise plain set of props, but as things went on made a lot of the material. And one of them even did a bit of crowd surfing at the end, in defiance of the venue's prohibitions on the subject. The acoustics of the venue seemed a bit ropey at first, but I got used to them as the evening wore on. Or perhaps, as evidenced by the next morning, my hearing was just gradually impaired in a beneficial way during the concert? Probably as good as one can expect from a dusty old civic centre venue.

Anyhow, it was a pretty good night out. Great to finally see, in the flesh, someone I've listened to for years and years. Especially as Byrne made the evening so much fun - even after four (yes, count them) encores. And, as ever, it was a joy to be reacquainted with songs my iPod (with its ~7000 tracks) only occasionally shuffles to the top.

Trailer for a Talking Head

C got me tickets to see David Byrne at Southampton's Guildhall in just over a week's time. She's not going to be around that night to see him, but I've persuaded AM to join me. I'm not entirely sure what to expect. I guess he might play some Talking Heads by way of crowd-pleasing, but he's got a large solo back-catalogue to draw on as well. It's probably a forlorn hope, but I'd like to hear (Nothing But) Flowers and Dream Operator, but I'm sure I'll lap up whatever's on offer.

Even operas need sequels

In these days of increasingly high-numbered sequels to books, films and videogames, it's tempting to think that the temptation to revisit familiar characters is a singularly modern malaise to afflict the arts (videogames having a long and noble tradition, of course). However, there are lots of historical precedents, and last night we went to see one of them at the Mayflower Theatre.

Way back in the late 18th century, playwright Pierre Beaumarchais wrote a trilogy (OK, so the numbers didn't get too high in those days) of plays featuring the wily and comic character of Figaro (plus his sometime employer, Lord Almaviva, and Almaviva's wife, Rosine), the most famous of which are the The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro. As they were satires on the establishment, the plays were initially censored, then uproariously successful and then, in fairly short order, they were converted into operas.

Courtesy of C, I saw The Barber of Seville by composer Rossini (1816; actually a "remake", an earlier version having been done in 1782) a number of years ago. That was a brilliant, knock-about production by the Welsh National Opera, and my introduction to opera-as-farce. That was a really vivacious performance which, opera-novice that I am, made me think of a Shakespeare comedy set to music. But with laughs. Anyway, last night we took in the sequel, The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart (1786; so, actually, something of a "prequel" to Rossini).

In terms of plot, it picks up some years after the events of The Barber of Seville, focusing this time on Figaro's imminent marriage to Susanna, Rosine's maid. The crux of the play is that although Lord Almaviva has renounced his title's claim to the (purported) historical feudal tradition of droit de seigneur (the right to sleep with a bride on the night of her marriage), he'd like to make an exception for Susanna, much to the obvious opposition of both Figaro and Rosine. Much of the narrative takes the form of the plots that Figaro, Rosine and Susanna hatch to either distract Almaviva, or publicly expose his (hoped for) infidelity. There are, of course, a number of misunderstandings and strange subplots along the way that complicate these plans. But plot isn't really what's important at an opera (just as well in this case).

As a musical spectacle, TMoF was a lot of fun in parts. There are a number of rousing setpieces in the opera, although unlike TBoS I thought this one sagged a bit between these numbers. This surprised me a bit, since I tend to view Mozart as a bit more exciting as a composer, certainly for his orchestral work. I did think this might be because he didn't major in opera, but a quick check of WP suggests that he was far more than a dabbler. One advantage that Rossini's TBoS had over this opera was that it was written several decades later, so perhaps Rossini was able to learn a bit from Mozart's sagging. Or perhaps I'm just a musical ignoramous who can't recognise musical genius even when it's dangled right in front of me?

Continuing to be somewhat rude about TMoF, it's also a good 30 minutes too long - the third act finishes on the wedding, but there's a whole fourth act after that which could either be dispensed with (musically it's not all that exciting) or somehow distilled down to a coda to the wedding. Three hours and twenty minutes (plus interval) is pretty long for any seated event, and when things are sagging it can feel even longer. I can't, for instance, recall seeing a film of this length in a long time - cinema is frequently judged as overlong whenever it breaches the two hour barrier, let alone three hours.

In passing, although also performed by the Welsh National Opera, this production was immediately distinguished from the former by its use of late 19th/early 20th century (I think) costumes and settings. Given that the play centres itself around a (purported) Medieval aristocratic privilege, this seems a little incongruous.

Anyway, it was a great night out, but I was a little disappointed given that it was: (a) Mozart, and I expected a little better from him; and (b) coming after a great TBoS performance by the same company. Still, judged from the perspective of an infrequent opera-goer, it did the business. Perhaps just twenty minutes or so too much business.

#remsouthampton

After following them for more than 17 years (since 1991's Out of Time), I finally went to see R.E.M. in concert in the Southampton Rose Bowl on Wednesday 27th August, accompanied by C, Dr. Morris and his new (to us) girlfriend, Sarah.

For most of these 17 years, I've been a big fan of R.E.M., but since their first post-Bill Berry album, Up, I've gradually drifted from them, and I've not (yet) bought their most recent album, Accelerate. It probably reflects both a change in my musical tastes, and their weakening as a musical force. Their latter albums, while not at all bad, have lacked quite as many stand-out tracks as their earlier efforts, and there has been something of a change to their music, in part down to compensations made for Berry's absence.

Anyway, all that said, I've always heard that R.E.M. are at their best live, so there was part of me that was keen to hear them before, presumably, I wrote them off for the longer term.

Just as well that Dr. Morris prompted me about their tour.

While my Faith was wavering going into the concert, it was thoroughly restored during it, and I left completely buoyed up with R.E.M. again. They got off to a winning start for me, with their off-album single Bad Day. It's a brilliant and energetic track to begin, well, anything with, and given my wavering Faith, it was something of an electrifying start. Seconds away, and I was already singing along with them.

Wisely, while they followed this up with a new (and short) track, they kept to old favourites for the next few tracks. With What's The Frequency, Kenneth?, I was reminded again that their much maligned album Monster, is actually a secret (if belated) success, and they returned to it later with Let Me In.

They also visited my favourite album, Lifes Rich Pageant, a number of times, again reminding me why it is my favourite. Other albums, most noticeably Murmur, got surprisingly short shrift, although generally there was pretty good, and at times surprising, coverage of their back catalogue. But they weren't dwelling too much on past successes, and they performed six tracks from their latest album by the end. While I shouldn't really have been surprised, these were all pretty good, and I'll doubtless add the album on my next Amazon spree.

Two particular highlights for me were Ignoreland and Electrolite. The former is an angrily political song that stems from the ring-wing control of America from 1979 through 1992. It's rather bombastic, but I'd almost forgotten how much I love its self-recognised venom. The latter is difficult to categorise, but it's a lovely, almost existential song. A great closer for its parent album New Adventures in Hi-Fi, but an even better concert song. Although it was only the twelfth song, it was so good I could have left then and been satisfied.

In introducing the political Ignoreland, Michael Stipe gave the first of several short diatribes about the current US administration. A bit of a soft-sell at a R.E.M. concert in Europe, but still good, and entertaining, to hear R.E.M.'s views. It certainly got a lot of applause from the Rose Bowl.

After a few quirky choices, including 7 Chinese Brothers and Auctioneer (Another Engine), the band finished their main set with the excellent Orange Crush and It's The End Of The World As We Know It. Just. Brilliant.

The encore had us guessing the song that they'd finish on, Man On The Moon, and I think Sarah picked that one out. We'd also been expecting, and were rewarded with, Losing My Religion, which (unsurprisingly given its success back in 1991) was the first song of R.E.M.'s that I ever knowingly heard.

Anyway, a fantastic night out. My Faith in R.E.M. has been restored. And the whole evening was topped off nicely with a surprisingly easy return journey home.

---

While I was only able to reconstruct those parts of the set list that I recognised (pretty much everything bar the last two albums), the full set list is available from a number of websites and was ...

1. Bad Day
2. Living Well Is The Best Revenge
3. What's The Frequency, Kenneth?
4. Fall On Me
5. Drive
6. Man Sized Wreath
7. Begin The Begin
8. Hollow Man
9. The Great Beyond
10. Ignoreland
11. Animal
12. Electrolite
13. I'm Gonna DJ
14. Pretty Persuation
15. The One I Love
16. 7 Chinese Brothers
17. Nightswimming
18. Let Me In
19. Auctioneer (Another Engine)
20. Horse To Water
21. Orange Crush
22. It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
23. Supernatural Superserious (Encore)
24. Losing My Religion (Encore)
25. Imitation of life (Encore)
26. Man On The Moon (Encore)

In passing, the support acts were Guillemots and Editors. Both pretty good, although the latter, with a very Joy Division and Smiths influenced sound, were definitely the better of the two.

#remsouthampton