Been busy as ever recently....I seem to always be busy, but I like it. On Sunday I jumped on a train to Nottingham to see Linchpin. They are a rock band hailing from London, all aged 15. A friend of mine is managing them and asked me to check out their gig and meet with them with a view to doing some web work with them. I arrived at Rock City just as they were loading in (great timing!), so I helped with the load in and watched the soundcheck. I was really impressed, without sounding too age-ist, they were really good for a bunch of 15 year old kids. I was playing drums at that age and their drummer kicks my arse now, nevermind when I was 15! Soundcheck finished and we had our meeting, Myself, Johnny (their manager), the band and another guy called Matt who've I've met before and had done some cool photos for a band I worked with. The meeting went well and we got some good ideas going, so I'm looking forward to this project. After the meeting the boys played and they were really on the money. The crowd stayed pretty interested, which is always a good sign, especially when the place is like some kind of under-age rock disco with chavs and goths exchanging glares across the dance floor. Very weird! I made my way home from Nottingham (almost getting lost on route to the train station) and got a few hours sleep before heading down to London the next day... I had the *pleasure* of spending nearly 2 hours sitting in the blazing sun on an old-style Virgin train, with no air con. Cheers Branson! I got to London and jumped on the tube down to The Bedford in Balham where Miss Imogen Heap was about to play her first show in a LONG time....the first of the campaign for her new album no less. I arrived and called Immi & her manager to see where they were, they were running late, so I sat in the pub with a drink watching England celebrate their ashes win. Before long Imogen and Mark (her manager/my-kind-of-boss) turned up and we loaded in. I've never know one person have so much gear for a gig! The biggest/heaviest/space-age-ist keyboard stand ever, ('Stand' is an understatement), electric piano, keyboard, racks of effects, compressors, samplers, a 16 channel mixing desk, more keyboards, powerbook, fairy lights, a huge flightcase with the mmmmbira (a new musical instrument invented by Immi's friend), several more cases full of cables and lead, stage outfit, make up and other personal belonging. All this for one person doing a 6/7 song set! Luckily Immi knew how to wire everything up pretty quickly and did so for soundcheck. There was enough cable to go around the earth at least 3 times I reckon. After soundcheck people started arriving and I met up with Anna, Ruth & Holly and bumped into various other people I knew. The first support band called 'Airman' were pretty cool. Kind of a European Jeff Buckley meets...uh...some kind of classic rock, but not cock rock. I liked them and they went down pretty well. The next band were called 'Papas In Love'. They were pretty good at what they did, but it wasn't really my thing. Kind of a Brand New Heavies meets Jamaroqui (sp?) type vibe. It got old pretty quick. Around 10pm Immi finally took to the stage. The place was absolutely packed and EVERYONE went berserk when she came on. It would seem the majority of people were there to see her, which was great. This being the first show of the campaign, there had to be a few gremlins in the works. A couple of technical errors got in the way, but Immi handled it very well and managed to overcome them. When she was playing everyone was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I've never been to a gig where the audience was so quite during a performance, everyone was captivated! And when the technology wasn't playing ball she just went back to playing piano and singing - something the majority of the people I've spoken to thought was the highlight of the set! All in all it was a really good gig. And her shows will only get better from here on in. I can't wait to see her once she's back from a month long tour of the US! I'd highly recommend the venue too - it's called 'The Bedford' and is in Balham....it's a really good smallish venue, in the style of an old roundhouse theatre. I'm now going to retire to bed, because I'm knackered and have been trying to shake a headache for 48 hours. Oh, Chloe is back soon...she should be back already I think, but in typical Chloe style she locked her iPod & Phone in her Uncle's (empty) house as she left for the airport! So she changed her flight to a day later. Classic!