Well - when Stuart David was in the chatroom last week he told us the Manchester gigs were going to be "crap" - to which we agreed in the anti-sychophantic way you do - but - well was he half right? Susannah's dead right - Saturday was a bit of a shambles, but with sparkles of transfixing beauty that didn't for this sour old trout quite make up for it. Right now I'm kicking myself everytime I read a Sunday review. Any more glowing reports and you all get removed from the list and me and Splat use it to talk catfood. Except I want to hear. For those who weren't there all I can say is from outside the vicinity of the two stages the sound was just very confused and I suspect the band got screwed up by reflections off the huge (and frighteningly beautiful) ceiling. I'm wondering how they got it together for Sunday. The band's pesky antics were as charming as ever but didn't mix so well when the frustration got too high; but the new songs shone and sparkled. Isobel's song was gorgeous (and yes, we were transfixed). But I did leave with a slightly empty feeling as if I hadn't quite been to a B&S gig. I suspect it might have been very different between the two stages, but I was too tired to fight my way in. The meeting before in the Square Albert was the highlight for me - I discovered I *do* want to have all your babies! You're all such a nice bunch I suspect you're employed by the National Health to keep me happy. It was such an amazing experience to meet so many people I'd met here: Keith, Susannah, Pam, David, Katrina, Soozy, Sarah, Tag, Dave, Stuart, John (thanks for the choccie santa), Risso and all the rest of you - well *I* wasn't disappointed! It was a very incomplete experience actually as I wanted to drag you all off and talk about life - maybe we'll do it properly sometime. Three of us made Tag's aftershow for about 30 mins but my pacemaker was running out (joke) so we left and met everyone I wanted to meet on the stairs. I gather we missed half the band a little later and my chance to become a groupie - oh well. Poor D&K though - can I beg anyone in Manchester to do some undercover detective work to find some of this merchandise - D&K - if there's anything 400 people can do here just ask. Oh yes, and it *is* 400 - we just passed the mark yesterday! Welcome to everyone new and erm... pull up a chair and put your feet up with a nice cuppa. Finally - well I'm doing a lot of sitting around just now but I'll reply to emails, requests for tapes etc. SOOOOOON. Hey and did I miss anyone I promised a tape to at the gig - if so mail me. And could someone beam me back to Sunday please? Honey xxx ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister@majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------