Press (cold) play, sit back and enjoy...

Last night we went out to Earls Court, to see a band we are relatively recent converts to, Coldplay. I use the term "convert" loosely as they will never be one of our favourite bands, but will always pump out serviceable albums with great riffs and loops that will keep us interested and keep us buying their albums.

We couldn't get seats together so had to sit apart. For those who haven't been to Earls Court, it is one of the biggest indoor arenas in London (~15,000) and it was packed to the rafters, with tickets selling out to all 3 shows in around 15 mins. Coldplay are probably the second biggest band in the UK (after U2). But going on last night, U2 have nothing to worry about.

I'll start with one of the upsides of the night. I was pleasantly surprised to find Richard Ashcroft (The Verve) was the support act. He was very good, with obviously the biggest applause saved for the Verve trio of songs "Sonnet", "Drugs Don't Work" and "Bittersweet Symphony". The latter was his final song and caused some issues when he was told his time was off and asked to finish up. Rather than submit, he simply leant towards the microphone and putting on his jacket said, "This is what happened to rock n roll. They make me come on at 7.20 and sorry, but they're making me get off now. This means I won't be able to play a song called .....Bittersweet Symphony." Oh how politicians must yearn for this power, as of course when he mentioned what we were to miss, everyone went nuts and demanded he play it. To which he nodded to the guitarist and with the backstage staff goin crazy, he played on. The audience responded (as they had the whole set) to him and the atmosphere was fantastic. He was very polished and had the crowd entirely behind him. Little did we know it was probably the most atmosphere we would get for the night.

Coldplay came on, and like they'd pressed play on the CD player, played track 1 from X&Y, "Square One". They borrowed from most of their albums and played serviceably. Chris Martin was vying for the Gumby of the Year award with some acrobatics that would make a Chinese gymnast stand up and applaud. He was most at home behind the piano and played energetically and skilfully.

The crowd were...well...how can I describe the crowd? Let me start with a stereotype: middle-class, not much in the way of music fans "but I like Coldplay", and not keen to stray from what they hear on radio (including Coldplay tracks not released as singles it appeared). Any song not played on XFM (/Fox FM) in the last 6 months, was met with stone-faced stares like Coldplay were covering some vague Bahrainian folk ditty written centuries ago. This included songs like "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face" and their second best performance of the night "The Scientist". But they loved "Yellow" and "In My Place" as well as the highlight of the night, "Clocks". I know it's a cliched song yada yada yada. It is a brilliant song however, and Chris Martin went sick on the piano, including having a pace-off with the drummer to see who could play quicker. It really didn't matter, they're both incredibly fast.

The two disappointing things for me were:
1. The sterility: not helped at all by the fact that after each song, Martin rarely interacted with the audience and when he did, it was to say something inspirational and special like, "Thanks for comin out tonight, you've been great". I was waiting for the "try the veal" line! The other low point here was that between each song, the stadium went black for 30 secs while they rearranged the set. Seamless...
2. The acoustic set: in the middle they did a set of 4 or 5 songs acoustic with the band at the front (a'la how U2 does with Sunday Bloody Sunday and Stay). Put simply: it died. The audience didn't respond, there was no intimacy and frankly, it was boring. Luckily they later redeemed themselves when they picked up the beat but good bands (and bands you pay $100 to see) don't stuff up like that half way through a tour.

So I have been a tad harsh on the band. They were very good, tight, polished etc. But they were a bit sterile and after seeing Ben Lee, The Waifs and U2 in the last few months (the first 2 costing less than half a Coldplay ticket), they were up against it. I didn't expect them to be brilliant, and they weren't. But they were serviceable and hey their music is good and that counts most I reckon. I also need to remember that it's not rock'n'roll, it's pop. People call it rock but a good measure of rock is how an audience responds to the music and I'm sorry but clapping along (what was it, church?) and 'jigging' (no other word) is not what rock inspires you to do. I do concede for a pop band, they do have a lot of talent, particularly Martin whose voice was brilliant no matter what shape he contorted his body to.

Richard Ashcroft, however, I would pay to see and would love to see him in his own gig in a little club, which is probably the kind of thing he does weekly around London. There are positives to living in this city...

Christmas in the city that never sleeps, New Years on the Emerald Isle

Well in addition to the two new blogs from Jane on Frankfurt and Budapest, I thought you may be interested to know how things generally in London are going. For all you naysayers who don't like London weather or light, the weather is cold but has been generally fine. However, you hit the light-thing on the head: sunset is at 3.52pm today. What's the point of it even coming up really?

The big news is that Jane has only a week left of teaching in the UK. This is great news as most of you would know she has not enjoyed the experience much at all. She will be changing tack somewhat and taking up a job with an organisation called Oasis (www.oasistrust.org), in a house they run called Foyer (pronounced Foy-ay…they're not posh, it started in France unfortunately). The house has about 20 or 25 girls who are staying there as temporary accommodation, waiting for permanent government housing. Jane's role will be as a key worker with 3-4 girls which entails building relationships with them and helping them in getting their housing, general affairs, employment and just life stuff in order. So basically skilling and helping the girls get up and running. It will also involve a couple of nights a week away from home.

The downside is that it is located on the dark side. That's right, the house is SOUTH OF THE RIVER (cue Star Wars dark side music)! This will mean that it no longer makes sense for us to live with Kate Moss, Hugh Grant and the entire cast of The Bill in North Central London and we are planning to move when our lease is up in January. This is also when Tim and Charis will head home so it makes a lot of sense. It would need to.
My work is extremely busy with a huge workload and a lot of deals to finish before Christmas. The property industry in London is booming at the moment particularly on the new development side and that is keeping me in a job, though also keeping me in the office for longish hours. But I'm loving it and getting great experience too.

With Tim and Charis going home in Jan, almost every Aussie we knew when we came over will have left including Mark (Jane's bro) and Steve (Tim and Charis' cousin). So could be an interesting time. We're hoping to have a few visitors towards mid-next year in Erin, Brett, Andrew and Jenni and possibly Dave and Carly. If you're thinking of coming over, anytime between Jan and June will mean you will be pampered and have our undivided attention. I did get to catch up with Hany (my good mate from church and NAB) at Heathrow for a few hours when he was in the middle of a kamikaze series of flights around the world for the bank and that was great.

So looking ahead, we leave for New York Sunday week and will be joined by Tim and Charis a day or two later. We will have a week there, then following our last mouthful of Christmas turkey on Christmas Day will board the plane for Ireland, where we will then spend a week, including New Years in Limerick. We then have no trips planned until we leave here sometime around mid-year before travelling for 4-5 months before landing in Melbourne. Somewhere in there I hope to watch the Aussie football team at the World Cup too (go you good things!). We have also been invited to a wedding in January south of London. Maddie and John who I worked with at Churchill Insurance are getting married and we feel very privileged to have got an invite to their small wedding.

So that is pretty much the wrap-up. There's other stuff obviously too, but I thought I'd give the notable news before Christmas. If we don't speak to you in some way, shape or form before Christmas, have a great one and make the most of having your family and friends around.

Merry Christmas and we will see you in 2006.

Chris and Jane

Frankfurt Christmas markets

Frankfurt was a fairytale weekend of snow, food and Christmas. And did I mention food? I (Jane) had an unforgettable time and I think having the family with us made it all the more memorable. Mum was over for a visit and Mark came along with us too.

Another shocking flight landed us in a snowy Frankfurt late Friday night. The snow on the ground stuck around for the remainder of the weekend and it did manage to snow some more on the Sunday. The reason we decided on Frankfurt was for its Christmas markets which are supposed to be one of the best in Europe. There are all these temporary ‘cottage’ style markets set up that sell all sorts of Christmas gifts and decorations. The highlight for us was the food. An incredible array of flavored nuts, gingerbread, German sausages, mulled wine (warm wine and not “mould wine” like Chris thought it was) Kartofelpoofers (surprisingly good given the name) and Green Lemon Becks Beer. We didn’t stop eating the whole weekend. Heaven! We bought some little Christmas gifts and decorations and just enjoyed the atmosphere. It really was beautiful, particularly in the evening with all the fairylights and the great atmosphere. There were surprisingly few tourists so just lots of English-deficient Germans around which we enjoyed.

We stayed in a beautiful hotel but decided not to go for their breakfast option so we thoroughly enjoyed our trips to the German bake houses on Saturday and Sunday morning. We just hung around the markets the whole weekend and only ventured out of the area to go on a very cheap tram ride around the city for €5 which included pretzels and mulled wine and incredibly bad German music. We still enjoyed it with Chris and Mark coming up with some classic German lines that left me in hysterics.

If you ever get the chance to visit a European city for the Christmas markets, do it. They are the stereotypical snow-covered village markets with little hand-made wooden toys and so much atmosphere.
As per usual, feel free to jump on our photo site http://photos.yahoo.com/csmoyle

Budapest, Hungary

Although a number of weeks have passed since we were there, we thought we would update our news with our little weekend jaunt to Budapest. It was a relaxing weekend for a change as there wasn’t heaps to see but it was a lovely city.

We had a horrid flight over as the fog was so thick that we could only see the run way about 20 metres (or 3 seconds) before landing. The fog stayed for the whole weekend which surprisingly made it very cold. It was really our first cold snap of which we have had heaps since.

Budapest is divided into two parts; Buda on one side of the river and Pest on the other. We stayed in Pest and wandered over to Buda on the Saturday. Buda is on a large hill that we climbed to see Hungary’s Statue of Liberty which was quite impressive. We then wandered through the richly coloured autumn leaves before arriving in the old town. The palace looked beautiful but the highlight up on the hill was the goulash soup in a funky café that had 5 pages of dessert and only 2 of main meals. We also enjoyed visiting a very traditional Hungarian market where Chris had a beer and a deep fried bread type thing for about £1.50. Bargain! We enjoyed a great dinner before retiring to our overheated 1960’s style apartment.

On the Sunday, we visited the main park where part of it had been covered for ice-skating. There were so many families with their ice skates having a great time on the ice. We then visited the Hungarian History Museum where we were immersed in the volatile history of Hungary. The World War 2 information was amazing. Hungary only came out of communist rule in 1991 so there are definitely signs of the regime still around. We saw photographs from 1944 of the main bridge that connects Buda and Pest totally destroyed from WWII bombings. Incredible stuff. You can see plenty of photos in the Chris-style “night shots” on the photo site http://photos.yahoo.com/csmoyle.

So in summary, Budapest was a great little place for a weekend visit. Fine family fun all round!

Year 2005 in music

After reading Simon's blog (http://inspiral.org.au/WordPress) where he did a 2005 compilation album, I decided I would give it a go. As a fan of High Fidelity (the Nick Hornby book and movie with John Cusack), it was something that should have taken a lot of time and care. It didn't, but here it is all the same.

In brackets is either a line that sticks with me or why it's so memorable. For what it's worth, the musical class of 2005:

1. Mr Brightside - The Killers (I'm doing what the Killers should've done, and put this driving song as track one of the album)

2. City Of Blinding Lights - U2 ("Oh you look so beautiful tonight, in the city of blinding lights". Almost every weekend away I get this in my head as we walk the blindingly-lit streets of some of the most beautiful cities in the world)

3. Light at the End of the Tunnel - Something for Kate (Had to squeeze the boys in somewhere while I wait for a new album)

4 .Gamble Everything for Love - Ben Lee ("Make a list of things you need, leave it empty, 'cept for number 1, write love, gamble everything". This album is my number for 2005. See my Awake is the New Sleep post [http://moylesinlondon.blogspot.com/2005/09/awake-is-new-sleep.html] for the wrap-up of the concert he played at the 100 Club on Oxford Street)

5. London Still - The Waifs ("I took the tube over to Camden just to wander around, bought some funky records with that old Motown sound". Ok so I don't buy funky records with or without Motown sound but I am Aussie and have taken the tube over to Camden [as well as the bus and overland train] a number of times and this place is awsome! Saw the Waifs a few months ago too and they were very good live)

6. Smile Like You Mean It - The Killers (another goodie off the Hot Fuss album)

7. Bless My Soul - Powderfinger ("Cover me in the red and gold". Bernard wrote this when they were in Spain so I had it in my head through Spain in March)

8. Holiday in Spain - Counting Crows ("Or we could simply pack our bags and catch a train to Barcelona cos this city's a drag". Completes the double on Spain, for the same reason as Bless My Soul. If you don't own the Hard Candy album, shame on you)

9. Nightminds - Missy Higgins (Jane would kill me if Missy wasn't in there. Great remix on MoS Chillout Sessions by her brother Dave too)

10. Fix You - Coldplay ("Lights will guide you home, and ignite your soul". This was no. 1 in the UK for a while, but I like it all the same...)

11. Catch My Disease - Ben Lee ("My head is a box full of nothing". Deep. I can relate to it nonetheless)

12. A Sort of Homecoming - U2 ("For tonight, at lastI am coming home". To say I think of home from time to time would be an understatement. Actually, it sprung back to mind when Chris Martin [lead singer of Coldplay] said he sings his baby to sleep with this song every night)

13. Swallowed in the Sea - Coldplay ("And I could write a song a hundred miles long, well, that's where I belong, and you belong with me")

14. Miracle Drug - U2 (What a song: absolutely brilliantly performed at the concert we saw at Twickenham in June)

Hidden Track: We're all in this Together - Ben Lee ("Every 12 seconds, someone remembers, that we're all in this together". Ben played this at the end of the concert after he'd started to walk off stage. Instead of leaving, by popular demand he unplugged his guitar, stood at the edge of the crowd and sang this, with everyone singing along. Great moment and great outro to my 2005 annual)

It's only been while we're over here that we've realised just how much we love Australian music, so we can't wait to get stuck into it when we get back again. The great thing is that you can go and see some of the better (or maybe just bigger) Aussies in small venues for an affordable price a'la Ben Lee at the 100 Club on Oxford Street when we got Claire Danes' mobile number and Ben complemented Jane on her smile. Bring on 2006.