Stereophonic-tastic

So at about 11pm last night, I realized I was in the middle of an absolute epic of a concert. It was like the Perfect Storm - everything coming together at once. There was one of my all-time favo(u)rite bands, who, having previous headlined the not so small events such as Glastonbury (100,000 people, 100,000 tons of mud), decided to grace Denver with their presence once again. You'd think they'd do Red Rocks, or at the very least the Fillmore, but no, they happened to play The Bluebird, which I think on a good day might hold 300 people (this is the bit where Neil corrects me with the precise number - I'm waiting). And it didn't even sell out.

So, there was space to stand, I could smoke whenever I wanted without moving, there was a waitress wandering around taking drink orders, and if you fancied a dance, you could get to the front with about 10 steps (as proven by Rob, Lauren and concert king Neil). I was even on the guest list thanks to my fantastic wife and her fantastic friends (although I bottled the asking to go back stage bit as I'm shy like that, and it was a school night). The band looked like they were having a blast, the sound was fantastic, and Stereophonics are one of the few bands who I've seen who continually sound better live than on their CD's.

So it got me thinking about what would I consider my best all-time concerts apart from this one. As my best man Pete kindly pointed out during his speech, we've been to a few over the years, some substantially better than others. So here's the list (not in any particular order), with a couple of reasons why it's in the list.

• INXS - Summer XS Tour, Wembley (London) - they were great, the support was great, and I made a brief appearance on the subsequent video/dvd release (if you watch with a microscope).
  
• Coldplay - Red Rocks (Denver) - it rained, we got a limo up and back, we got soaked, danced around, sang our heads off, Heidi made a DVD of it, and it was Coldplay at Red Rocks
• Deacon Blue - Various times and places - Real Gone Kid, live, with the whole crowd singing every word - need I say more?
  
• Simply Red - City Hall (Denver) - first time I realized that bands and singers could sound better live than on CD's
• Black Grape - Downstairs at the Uni (Newcastle) - small, hot, sweaty and jumping around to every single song. The only time I've ever had to ring out my t-shirt when leaving a concert.
  

That should do it for now - I'm pretty certain I've missed a few, so you never know - I could update the list at some point.

And just to prove how close we were, Neil sent me this pic. Please keep in mind the singer is actually only 3ft 2 inches tall, so we were damn close ;-)