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We arrived a little late at CYHSY, it being the last day of a tiring week and us not relishing standing for hours before actually seeing anything worth seeing. As it turned out, to my complete and pleasant surprise, I had bought sitting tickets, so that was fine! Hurrah.

The first act - Elvis Perkins (?!) - were already in full swing as we carefully chose our seats (for strategic likelihood of remaining a good seat as the venue began to fill up). They were mad people capering about the stage with big instruments and generally having a ball in a sort of American Country-and-Western style, but in a good way. It very entertaining and listenable and such, but I don't remember much more than that. Nevertheless it was already the best support act we'd seen in ages.

However they (and we) were unexpectedly blown away by the next band: Cold War Kids. Part of the reason they were so good had to be that I expecting the usual tripe, not a bunch of accomplished musicians flown in from the states on their own tours. The band where really into the music, moving around a lot, and it felt like the lead singer was pouring his soul into everything. I really loved the hints of funk here and there, like the isolated stutter of a word ("I'm burning like the whites w-whites of your eyes" GENIUS!). We were totally impressed, and I'd recommend them live to anyone. I was so sold on them that I went out on got the album a couple of days later - and though it's pretty good and I've 4-starred a few songs off it - they are simply much better live.

After Cold War Kids? fantasticness I was a little worried that CYHSY would be overshadowed somewhat, and when they finally appeared it looked like I might have been right. While I'm assured that the band were all very together and what not, and their interweaving was obviously very nice and stuff, they kinda didn?t move. At all. The only one who said anything was the lead singer dude Alec Ounsworth, who was a creepy little man with the charisma of a wet lettuce. And possibly the voice of one too. Though it was difficult to tell as he was more droning than singing. So anyway they started pretty slow but their songs carried them in spite everything, which is appropriate as really do have some majorly emotive, heaving, swelling, monoliths of songs - though it helped if you knew the words. Coz buggered if Alec was going to let you know what they were. The crowed totally loved it; moshing around and and singing and enunciating way more clearly than Alec did. If only he could have been persuaded to sing more than one syllable per word. One for the fans I think.

The grand redesign is turning out more difficult than I'd hoped. The more I know the more I realise I don't know: At the moment it's turning into as much of an exploration of Photoshop and design-in-general as it is a task with an concrete end point.

Since the mock-up I posted a little while ago I've tweaked and prodded and shuffled to get to here, and then I prodded and tweaked some more and am now here. Looking through them now I feel like I've gone backwards as much as forwards, but I'll have to leave it for a while now before I can come back with a fresh eye and see why, and where to go next. And I still have no idea what the navigation is going to look like!

Anyways, while I sleep on it, what d'yall think? Are there any bits that make you want to gouge out your eyes? (Or mine.) Anything genius there? Any changes make question my sanity? All comments are gratefully received.

I hadn't heard much Scott Matthews before the day I saw him at Shepherd's Bush Empire, but I having listened to his album 4 or 5 times on the day I considered myself passably prepared. In true support act tradition Emmy the Great were pretty ropey and uncomfortable, though Emmy herself was pretty good. You just had to try and block out the violin. And it's probably best to just pretend their duet-based finale never happened.

Scott and co we good, particularly after after Emmy's lot: his band dripped professionalism and cool in comparison. Though he had a few snappy numbers his stronger songs (at least live) were the fey ones, softer, quieter and more interesting… Which was pretty unfortunate really as I think he had the chattiest audience ever. I could scarce believe how many people just talked right through the whole thing. There were a few times when Scott's music was almost drowned out by the dull hubub of rude, selfish, unappreciative, philistine wankers chatting to their brainless mates about utter shite. Perhaps they had mistaken the venue for the Walkabout pub next door? Bastards.

Of all the gigs in this live-music spate I was probably looking forward to seeing Metric the most; their Album "Old World Underground" has been part of my life-soundtrack since some Canadian dude suggest I check them out 2 or 3 years ago. As they're not so big over here and having no new album to promote they were playing Dingwalls in Camden, a divey smallish place that reminded me a bit of a student union; the layout was interesting and the beer plentiful, but the sound wasn't great.

After standing around for two hours - and enduring support act Fields' uncomfortable attempts to beat us into submission by playing a dozen instruments at the same time really, really loud - Metric were definitely worth the wait. As the venue was "intimate" we had an excellent view from the front of a step, though it was a little unnerving being the same eye-level and directly in-front-of Emily Haines as she looked out to the crowd. Anyways, she was great, with real energy and brilliant banter, after what seemed like a grumpy start. Having her sing the line "the best haircuts are taken" (my screen name for a time a while back) repeatedly was actually quite effecting. Being a fan, the fact I loved the songs probably goes saying, but in case it doesn't; they were great! If you don't know Metric you really should.

In a nutshell Metric's confident and engaging performance more than made up for the amateurish venue and the forgettable support act; they're definitely recommended. Dingwalls: not so much.

So despite being tagged in this meme ages ago (thanks Simon :P) I didn't want to do it 'til actually I thought of 5 things that people might not know, so here we go:

1 My inner monologue has an echo. This can get very annoying at times.

2 My ears aren't properly attatched to my head, due to years of taking off too-tight jumpers with reckless haste.

3 I have a birthmark on my hip and it used to be on my knee.

4 My left leg is longer than my right leg. Only real upshot of this is that I wear out shoes at different speeds. It would be great if you could swap left and right and get another few months out of them, but alas.

5 I had a younger sister but she died three days before my 2nd birthday. My younger brother was born on the same day, one year later.

And I'm not tagging anyone! Hah!

So for anyone that doesn't already know I got my hair cut on Sunday morning for the first time in a year. A momentous occasion as it was the longest it's ever been, and now it's… Well, not.

Unflattering pictures can be found on Simon's Flickr of Before and After.

Mika was playing at Popstarz, a big gay indie night every Friday at the Scala in London. He had just hit number one in the singles charts which Grace Kelly and the hype had just exploded, so the place was rammed. By the time Mika actually came on at about 1am I was rather far gone, but my impression that he was "omfgbrilliant" has been corroborated by others more sober than myself so it's all good. His bouncing around the stage made me think he could fill a much larger one with ease, and it didn't stop him hitting every (very VERY) high note. It was a shame the set was so short but we made the best of it and spent the rest of the night ripping up the dance floor old skool. Or something. Tal even played some Metric, which was great.

If there's any justice Mika is bound for greatness, but then people have been saying that since last year, and with him having come top on the BBC's "Sound of 2007" new music list in January and still being at the top of the UK singles charts now, I guess things are looking pretty good.

Imogen Heap was playing at a posh theater in Oxford, a fair train-ride away, but red wine and good company made it pretty enjoyable way to spend a Sunday evening. It was the first gig I've been to where everyone sat rather than stood, which was definitely an improvement as far as I'm concerned, and certainly a sign that I'm getting old and lazy. She mostly used a few keyboard-things and some insane computer wizardry to manipulate her own voice into the most amazing cascading sounds which she then layered over one another to create the songs. To watch the spend the first 30 seconds of each song building it up layer by layer was really interesting, and the music-geek techy-types I went with assured me this was very technically difficult and were appropriately impressed. The between-song banter featured a great deal of her muttering to herself endearingly as she prepared the equipment, and then apologising for doing so. It was so cheery and guileless that in retrospect it almost feels as though I met her. In short Imogen was impressive and adorable. I'd go again tomorrow, if it were nearer.

…Although I'd be sure to turn up late because her supporting act Nemo were so bad as to be almost traumatic. Perhaps it was made worse by the fact that they sound a bit like my FOTM band The Faint (only RUBBISH). It wasn't that the band members were bad (which they weren't) or that the songs were dull and formulaic (which they were), it was the basically down to the manic rawk-star leaping-about of the 30-something lead singer that induced a horrible combination of pity and shame… The fact he was clearly having a GREAT time just makes it a bit unfair that we all had to suffer so. Though 'nuff respect to the guy for doing what he loves and getting paid for it, even if he must look and sound so godawful doing it.

It's been slightly on the nippy side in my office lately so I've taken to wearing a scarf at my desk more often than not. I'm slightly concerned that my co-workers might think it's supposed to be some sort of fashion thing, but I swear I'm just cold!

So anyways, I'll blog properly in the weekend, promise.