Current mood:	happy
Current music:	Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls

Always on my mind
HOLY HELL YES. They didn't disappoint, they astounded.

My suspicions were proved right when I got to North Greenwich, I was surrounded by a lot of balding, grey, quite camp men in their 40s, with a few females who looked about the same age. No one, anywhere, looked under 30. I felt extremely young, and occasionally, they'd glance at me in confusion, as if I'd come for Kings of Leon and got the wrong day by accident. Was absolutely packed though and had to wait in a massive queue before I got in, and was about seven rows from the front though still fairly close to the stage.

It was certainly a very, very different experience to, well, every gig I've ever been to really. Compared to the hardcore techno nights of Clubland Live or Dance Nation, where you've got a million 15 year olds moshing into each other and screaming, here you had people quietly sitting on the floor while they waited, reading their London Lites. It did though make me less worried though that someone was going to steal my stuff, although saying that I prefer a noisy group of teenagers than a moaning group of pensioners.

The support act was electropop wizard Frankmusik, who was probably completely unknown to most of the crowd, although he did have a couple of extremely excited fans who was dancing like crazy to all of his songs. I'd only heard a few before but he surprised me and turned out to actually be really good. Ok, he's only had one hit and that got to something like number 22 in the charts, but he had lots of gems up his sleeve including a reworking of 'Golden Brown' by the Stranglers, and the brilliant '3 Little Words' which had him playing live keyboards. I'll be seeing him again at the Wireless Festival next month.

And then after an extremely long interval that took forever, the Pet Shop Boys arrived! Straight into their number 1 hit 'Heart', followed by a load of tracks from their new album. It encompassed a whole history of their songs, from the big singles (Always On My Mind, It's A Sin, Suburbia, all there), to even fairly obscure album tracks from the very early days, right up to today. Highlights? Well, bits that come to mind:

*A computer graphic of a wall slowly appeared as Neil sung 'Building A Wall', only for the actual physical wall to *fall down*, made up of a load of cubes). and then straight into 'Go West'!

*Chris Lowe suddenly jumping out of his pod and doing some crazy dancing halfway through the show. The crowd were going crazy, I'm presuming it's not a normal thing...

*Se A Vida E was played!! Awesome summery song about how great it is to be young and something I can really relate to, especially in the middle of June.

*Viva La Vida. Yes, Viva La Vida BY COLDPLAY. They did a Coldplay cover!! Brilliant song though and their version was just as good as the ace original, with added random snatches from 'Domino Dancing' included.

...and the rest of the show really as the whole thing was a highlight. I'd forgotten how much I loved songs like 'Left To My Own Devices', and 'Jealousy', and 'Can You Forgive Her', all over 15 years old but all were played. Their encore was of course their big break, 'West End Girls', still as brilliant as ever and a reminder of where it all began.

I left feeling very happy. The first time I'd seen them live and I had a utterly brill time, they played all the classics and will remember it for the rest of my life. They really are my NUMBER ONE favourite band IN THE WORLD and will forever remain so.

Se a vida e, I love you!