h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

last weekend & I took the Gruesome Twosome to watch a Pink Floyd tribute band.

Well, I'm a bit sceptical about paying €75 per ticket to see a "proper" band - so €17 per person was ok for this. The girls are quite familiar with the Floyd, particularly Wish You Were Here.

the show was in the auditorium of a local school, and the average age of the audience was around 50. After some people who looked to be in their late 30s, the Gruesomes were the youngest by a long way - apart from a lad about #2's age (who was SO checking her out as she was dancing)

And, judging by comments we overheard, we are now "cool parents" wooooooo hoooooooooooo

so, the stage show was great - Pink Floyd have this huge circular screen on stage, with a lighting rig round it - this band had a much smaller version - and the films they showed were obviously done by them (but equally obscure and mad as anything the Floyd ever did)

They opened by doing a huge set from Dark Side of the Moon (fab, the gruesomes especially liked Money and Great Gig in the Sky) and then went on to a few more newer things (including the awful Division Bell) before doing a fair bit from the wall - the highlight of the evening for me was a storming version of my favourite Floyd track Comfortably Numb. Then a bit more stuff - then off. That was after just over two and a half hours

then back on for the final set from the Wish You Were Here album: Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Welcome to the Machine, Have a Cigar and as the last song Wish You Were Here. The people round us spent equal times looking at the Gruesomes singing along to that,and the band.

all in all quite a good night out! We got back just before midnight, and as the gruesomes were hungry, we all ate bacon butties and drank hot chocolate before going to bed.

Now they have seen an ABBA tribute band, a Floyd tribute band. We're going to see a Geman Robbie Williams tribute band next.

Can I swap the Gruesomes for Alex, she's into McFly and Busted and all those boybands

At my age, you're glad to have the kids to give you an excuse to get to decent gigs. Mind don't mind me going with them, thank goodness. They have such a mix of tastes that I could join them at such diverse gigs as hip-hop, dance hall, mainstream or blues, nearly all classical directions, folk, folk-rock, punk-folk-rock - everything but jazz.

There's a brilliant Led Zeppelin cover band came our way. erm... look for "Mad Zeppelin". They come from Mainz, but don't seem to come as far North as you are. Very entertaining, though!

Robbie Williams covers abound. There's one does the circuits round here who has acquired quite high acclaim. They don't take themselves too seriously, so you really get your money's worth for under 20 euros.

I'm hanging on to the Gruesomes, if you don't mind, Reefgirl.
Although they have recently expressed an ernest and disturbing desire for the latest Take That album (which I like so far, so it's on the way)

We were in Holland (Sittard) shopping on Saturday afternoon. There was this chappie busking, and as they usually like to watch, we stopped to listen. #1 got out 50ct from her purse and chucked it into the guy's hat. "Not bad," she said to the guy "it's Daddys's favourite Neil Young song"

was swelling with pride, and I'm wondering if they do any homework in the afternoons, or if they all sit around on the floor listening to The Needle and the Damage Done


I must admit that I'm looking forward to going to see live music with them. I'm up for most live things, and we've brung 'em up ok so far!

Mine don't mind ....

It sounds like it was a fabulous time for both generations. Yay and whoo-hoo to having sprogs that actually share time and interests with you.

And Yay and Woohoo to having parents who will take you to decent shows...

My mom once was so kind as to buy me a ticket to a Bruce Springsteen show - under the condition that I take her with. We had a good time together at the concert. By myself, I would not have been able to afford the ticket; by herself, she would not have gone to the concert.

And just one and a half years back, dad and I went to see a jazz concert (Til Brönner, for those in the know). When I told my at-the-time wife-to-be, she expressed her jealousy about me having parents that go to decent concerts - her dad would only listen to Schlager... for those in the know

Well, the times they are a-changing, and that wife-to-be now is just my wife. We had had the idea of going to see either Depeche Mode or Metallica (both without our parents, though) to celebrate our white wedding, but money was too tight to mention, so instead we got to enjoy the silence, and nothing else mattered.

Y.

Saying that about Alex, after PHSL over the Last Ever TOTP she did ask me to put Starman and Let Me Entertain You on her Mp3 player

see, she's not a lost cause!

#1 currently has: Elvis, The Eagles, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, John Mellencamp and Michelle Shocked on her mp3 player. Shortly to be followed by Snow Patrol and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers (I'm worried about their language!). She really really likes Dido and James Blunt too - I'm hoping Dido will come round again soon.

Going to see Bruce Springsteen with your mum is and I went with my mum (*waves to mum* she's got broadband now and will be around a bit more I guess) and some of her daft mates in... oh,it would have been 1988. The same year I went with her, but not , and her daft mates to see Jean Michel Jarre in the Docklands. Which was not long after she, I and ... yep, the daft mates (actually, just one of them) saw Pink Floyd (the real ones complete with massive glitter ball and giant inflatable pig) at Maine Road (8th August 1988)

which was shortly after she gave me and my brother tickets for the Iron Maiden monsters of Rock at Donnington - we went with some of her daft mates, one of the daft mates' sister and one of the daft mates' sister's daughters (the other one liked music the mum hated and therefore didn't get to go anywhere )

I was brought up on a diet of classical (lots & lots of it) and whatever grabbed my mum's fancy (so The Beatles, the Stones, The Enid, Deep Purple)... when I was a teenager I had a daft mate of mine over to stay for the holidays and was most embarassed that my mum insisted on playing her new favourite record - a Jon & Vangelis one (hmmmmm which one? the one with State of Independence on it)

Of course, usually I'd have loved to hear it, but I thought my daft mate would think it uncool. But my desire to hear it won, I'm glad to say.

I'm very glad to say I have a really mum - if I can be half as good as her the Gruesomes should be well pleased.

Speaking of Bruce.

I was HUGELY disappointed, still not over it, in fact, that he did a bloomin' accoustic version of Born to Run that night (it was the Tunnel of Love tour)

That's just not right

oh, and do you think I did enough creeping to my mum in the last but one message to get a summer's worth of baby-sitting the Gruesomes?

The show sounds really great! I saw a Beatles tribute band last year and loved them.

there is a Beatles tribute band on here soon. I'm thinking about it.

Maybe the big names will learn their lesson and stop asking such horrendous prices when they notice that people prefer going to smaller gigs with lesser-known, but equally entertaining bands.

Not that the groups themselves actually set the prices - it's obviously done by the management. But as long as we suckers are prepared to pay nearly 100 Euros for a ticket, they'll carry on asking for it.

Who needs 10 articulated lorries and speakers the size of the Empire State Building?

Europe's biggest pop festival, The annual DonauInsel Fest in Vienna (Wien) Austria lasts 3 or 4 days, features a 100 or so bands live on about 7 or 8 stages, attracts about 2 million people, and is entirely FREE! Of course you have to pay for your beer
and schnitzel or whatever. Google it! Go for it!

Every so often alex will here something playing on my computer and ask me to put it on my Mp3 player, the strangest request (for her I thought) was Enya's version of Marble Halls, she can sing it quite well too

oh, nice!

#1 likes Clannad too. And I got home to find them "playing" badminton in the garden ( had already gone to work - we're experimenting doing without a childminder) with Radio3 blasting out.

"mummy! mummy! can I get this on my mp3 player?"
it was Mars (Holst) and now I have to find it on CD, since I only have a record.

As to the prices of gigs

I used to go to the Rock am Ring every year. But now it's priced too high for me so I'm looking at smaller festivals to introduce the Gruesomes to the joys of spending a weekend in tent listening to music.

oh and nice tagline, Reefgirl! We don't need no educashon indeed!

It was playing on my media player and I thought it needed to be spread around, it was sung with gusto when I was at school