Proud Galleries, Camden, London

Well, what else is there to do on a Tuesday evening in London? As I work in Kings Cross, I decided to wander down, or up, to Camden to catch Aviv Geffen's so-called "solo" show at the Proud Galleries. Obviously though with Steven Wilson and the rest of the boys from the Blackfield backing him up, there was, as promised, a fair amount of Blackfield material played.

Anyway the walk there took about 30 minutes, with only one brush with a begger and two with a pusher. Not bad for this wonderful country's capital city, though I don't appreciate the London prices, nor the "Tourist Surcharge"!

This meant that we'd, that's me & Fran Tuckett, got there with plenty of time to wander around the venue and soak up the atmosphere and ambience. The place is a converted stables with the stalls still occupying half of the place. There's also still the musty aroma of sweaty horses lingering around the place.

On the way in, we were given a free t-shirt and CD so that probably covered the ticket price.

So after a two hour wait (I did say we got there early), supping cheap (£2) "Bud Ice" beers, the guys appeared on stage and launched into their first number, which was unsurprisingly something from Aviv's solo album. As was the second track - It's Alright (due to be the first single). They sounded pretty decent and probably mean I'll get hold of the full CD - produced by Trevor Horn (Yes, Buggles, Tatu) when it comes out this spring. But, as the crowd's reaction to the next song showed, most people had come to hear Blackfield songs. Miss U was greeted like a returning hero, and Fran nearly wet herself at the "pictures" line.

Another couple of solo tracks later, it's back to Blackfield, with Once and Glow. It's during the solo numbers that we noticed a problem with the crowd. It seems typically for a trendy London crowd, quite a few morons have gotten free tickets and decided to come along just so they can have a natter with their mates.

How rude!

And it did look to piss the band off too.

Another solo track was followed by Silence, released as a single via iTunes last year, which was in turn followed by Where Is My Love, Blackfield and Pain, before they finished off with Berlin, The One and Blackfield's End Of The World.

At some point during that lot, Aviv ripped off his shirt to show a torso that got the girls in the crowd salivating!

They encored with Heroes and the crowd rousing Cloudy Now. Strange how the morons managed to stop their conversations for long enought to bellow out the "We are a fucked up generation" lyric

I'd say that this was a great gig, sadly marred by a load of freeloaders.

Set list
Black & White
It's Alright
Miss U
October
Now or Never
Once
Glow
The Forest in my Heart
Silence
Where is my Love
Blackfield
Pain
Berlin
The One
End of the World

Heroes
Cloudy Now