Edgbaston and on...

Three tests, three thrashings, England lead the series 2-1 that's the very good news.  
The dark cloud is an injury to Jimmy that will see him miss the next match at least.  
Finn played and had his best match for England.  He looked superb and should be a confident new ball partner for Broad at Trent Bridge, this could be the making of him.
Mark Wood seems the obvious choice to slip back in as the third seamer with Plunkett and Footit added to the squad.  If this the kind of wicket we used to expect at Trent Bridge then I'm confident England can take twenty wickets even without Anderson in the side.
Bell's move up to three proved a success in this match, Root continues to be in the form of his life and Ali scored vital runs with the tail again.  
Adam Lyth is not contributing with the bat but has been retained for the next test.  If he fails it could be his last for a while.  Buttler is having a lean time too but his keeping has been solid and we know he'll come good with the bat.

Australia are the team with problems, the middle order is non existent, if the top three don't get the runs (like they did at Lords) they don't look capable of getting a score in English conditions.  The Aussies of the nineties knew how to play in England as the likes of Hayden, Langer, Hussey and both Waughs all played a lot of county cricket.  International cricketers rarely play in their own domestic leagues nowadays, let alone over seas.  The one exception is Chris Rodgers, say no more.
The lauded strike bowlers are erratic, in hindsight injury to Ryan Harris was a massive loss, surely Peter Siddle would have bowled well at Edgbaston?  Worst of all the captain Michael Clarke is in dire form and nothing is going right for him.  There is little chatter from him these days either, no 'broken arm' threats this time around.

Australia haven't won an Ashes series here since 2001 and in those 14 years only India, Sri Lanka and South Africa (twice) have managed to win in England.  This Aussie team is not as good as those that have lost here on the last three tours.  If we have a typical Trent Bridge wicket and England bowl it in the right place we will win the ashes next week.


A book.

I first read "To Kill a Mockingbird" at high school in the early eighties.  I began reading it because I had no choice and little enthusiasm but it hooked me up and moved me.  I've just finished reading it again, thirty years on it is even more addictive, more beautiful, more moving and at times very funny.  I absolutely loved it second time around and urge anyone to get a copy, if you haven't read it, why not?  If you have, read it again.

"Where were you while we were getting high?" Latitude 2015

But first a bit of cricket...

I was out of reach of both TV and Radio last weekend so thankfully managed to avoid the second test in which Australia totally thrashed England.  I think it’s fair to say the Aussies were all on top form and we crumbled with only Cook, Stokes and Broad coming out with much to shout about.  In fact the match was a complete reversal of the first test.  The next match begins next Wednesday and is being played at Edgbaston where there will be partisan home support.  Will this lift England to another good display or is this the beginning of another Aussie steamroller?  The smart money would probably be on the latter but we hope…  The selectors have wielded the axe and Gary Ballance has been sent back to his county, replaced by the inform Bairstow.  This may seem a shrewd move but the out of form Bell has been shoved up to three and Root to four.  I think for England to have a chance in this series they must win this match.

So for the third year in a row I missed the Lords test match which would be a big disappointment but I was actually doing something I enjoy even more than cricket.  The annual Latitude Festival had rolled around for another year and this is an event the Purple Princess and I will not miss.  Four days of relaxation, refreshment, laughter, music and dancing in a beautiful setting.  At the risk of sounding smug we know what to expect and how to last the distance of a four day festival (well almost).  This we have learnt through experience both good and bad.

By mid-afternoon on Thursday we had pitched our large tent in a rapidly filling field and were sat chilling in the sun with a brew.  I have to confess to a little pre festival trepidation.  There was a slight fear that this year might not live up to the high expectations we have for what has become our favourite weekend of the year.  2014 had been a blinding festival where we had been spoilt with great music; the bill looked a bit leaner this year.  That evening we entered the arena and reacquainted ourselves with the site, taking in DJ’s at the Disco shed and the woods.  We briefly also saw some tap dancing/flamenco and a water borne ballet thing called “Un mondo pieno sogni” which apparently means ‘a world full of dreams’.  Mad stuff, women on stilts waving, a giant seahorse (I wanted it to be a prawn so I could eat it), women poking their upper halves through a giant illuminated tit which looked like one of those knitted things posh people hid their bog roll in in the seventies…  I’m always intrigued by these Thursday evening performances but I don’t get them, I haven’t a clue what I should be impressed by.

We saw a bit of comedy on the Friday.  First Elis James was OK and he was followed by a favourite of ours; Alan Davies who was pretty good with his interpretations of everyday life.  A lot of this set was about the calamities and catastrophes of parenthood told how only AD can.  After that we gave the Comedy tent a miss for the rest of the festival, It’s OK if you want to invest half a day there in the hope of seeing a couple of good acts but it just isn’t big enough to cope with the crowds of people who just want to dip in and out.  Our main motivation for going to latitude is the music.

I can’t be arsed to run through the whole festival blow by blow so here’s an attempt to go through what we saw in brief.  I am a music fan not a music critic, my assessment of any gig is based purely on how it makes me feel, there is no kind of technical criteria involved, just emotion.

At some point on Friday we saw a bit of Soak in the big tent & Beach baby on the lake stage.  Both were pretty good. 

On the main stage Nitin Sawhney and Femi Kuti & Positive Force, again both were OK. 

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (I may have my izards in the wrong order) performed in the I arena.  Great psychedelic guitars, great foot tapping rhythm and loads of energy. This was the first band of the weekend that really got my feet moving but PP wasn’t so sure. The big crowd appeared to be agreeing with me.  We managed to meet Mr & Mrs Green + kids here too and happily our paths crossed many times over the weekend.

Back to the main stage for Santigold who had come recommended.  Nice voice, nice sound, bright performance but not enough to hold us there. The kids in the front were really enjoying it but the truth was we were knackered and needed to take the weight off our feet for a bit.

Public Service Broadcasting had also been recommended and their early evening set in the big tent went down very well.  This lot are hard to describe, they dress like lecturers and make a mostly electronic dancy trancy sound but throw in some raw guitar too.  A horn section popped up a couple of times too!  However you describe it PSB make music that moves your feet and sound better even live than they do on CD.  Unfortunately the PP was still crashed out so missed the show and I missed my dance partner which gives us an excuse to go see them again sometime.  I’d like that and I’m sure she would too.

The Purple Princess re-joined me for Caribou who were pretty good and got us moving a little.

We saw the start of Alt J headlining the Obelisk and they sounded good but they just aren’t my cup of tea.  From the four or five songs we saw I really liked “Left hand free” Alt J sound great when they play hard but that arty chanty stuff doesn’t move me in any direction.

Last gig of the night was Jon Hopkins in the Radio6 (Big) tent.  More trancy than PSB but not quite as dancy.  Started slowly & built… & built.  It was really loud too!  The Purple Princess announced her dancing feet had arrived at the festival at last, this show got me moving too but not into top gear.

We tried to go dancing but the donuts were crap some of the DJ’s were not able to grab us and a couple of stages were off limits due to crowd congestion caused by the secret acts we knew nothing about.  In hindsight it’s great having these secret, surprise stars (in this case, Thom Yorke, Ed Sheeran and someone I’ve forgotten) but in future they need to be in bigger arenas.  Keep the big tent open please Latitude people!!  We ended up saving our legs and headed back to the tent but on the way we took a look in the Alcove and came face to face with Stone Foundation playing first class Northern Soul and tearing the place up.  They were excellent, as good as anything I saw all day.  Keith Allen got on the stage and swore a bit as you’d expect then we wandered off and ended up crashing out about 0100.

First band of Saturday was at the main stage, Badly drawn boy (who Mr Green immediately christened Badly born boy), playing his “Hour of bewilderbeast” album.  I do remember quite liking this the first time around (fifteen years ago apparently) and I think the fella is a good song writer.  As a live performance it didn’t grab me and barely moved me.  Mr Gough didn’t appear to be enjoying himself, time for a new hat too.

Next up was Jose Gonzalez playing Latin style acoustic guitar and singing quite nicely which was all very pleasant and agreeable but nothing exceptional then he did a version of Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrops’ and it was absolutely blinding!  A great moment for me bur Mr Green didn’t notice!  He finished off with another slow dreamy tune which I recognised and enjoyed.

We then moved to the big tent for one of my favourite live bands, The Charlatans.  I love them, they are great live and this could be the potential highlight of the weekend.  They started with “Then” and moved through a load of hits including “North Country boy” and “Weirdo”.  Tim Burgess commanded the crowd as always and the Hammond organ hooked me.  They played three tracks from the latest album and finished with a belter “Only one”.  Then the time was up and they were gone.  Surely they’d come back for “Sproston Green”?  They didn’t, I was left wanting more.  A very, very good performance from the Charlatans but the sound wasn’t quite right and for me they weren’t at their very best but I’m being picky.

The Purple Princess and I had decided tonight was party night so imbibed in extra refreshment throughout the Saturday evening which began on the main stage for Portishead.  I have the 90’s album which I think is called Dummy and I quite liked it at the time but would they hold me for the whole show?  They sounded great and the visuals were very good.  I really enjoyed the tunes I knew but they weren’t moving the dancing feet.  I liked what I was seeing and hearing but it just wasn’t enough.

We’d seen The Vaccines in 2011 and enjoyed them enough to check out the CD’s.  The first was really good, the next OK but not so good.  PP had the latest for her birthday and it seemed like they were back on form.  The big tent was packed which was fitting because the Vaccines were superb!  They make short, punchy singalong punky tunes and you find yourself dancing and shouting every word.  They played for an hour and packed absolutely loads in picked from all three albums.  Highlights included “Wet suit” and others I can’t remember and can’t be arsed to check because the disc is in the car.  They went down a storm and appreciated the audience and the reception they received.  They deserved an encore but we weren’t allowed.

After that we had more refreshment followed by tea and slightly better donuts then head off to dance.  Tom Ravenscroft was DJing on the lake stage and he hooked us up and kept us dancing for a long, long time.  We wandered off for a bit and bopped in the woods for a while but our attempt to get into the I arena for DJ EZ was thwarted by crowds once again.  So it was back to the lake stage until the close when we had no option but to wander slowly back to the tent.

Sunday late morning came around and we headed, foggy headed back down to the Obelisk where we parked for most of the day.

The first thing we saw was Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens which was quite nice but a bit of a surprise to see the vocalist wheeled out in a chair.

Next up was a band the Purple Princess really looked forward to seeing, (as did Mr Green).  A band that come from way back to our school days when we first met.  I liked the Boomtown Rats first time around but was sceptical about the ability to bridge the years.  It was a good fun show with all the hits and plenty of swearing from Geldof who told us we looked like cunts in our “crap tee shirts and weekend shorts” while at least he had made an effort.  They appeared to be sending themselves up at times but like I said it was fun.  My favourite was “Rat trap” and for me they just about carried it off 30+ years on.  PP and Mr Green were much more enthusiastic and both gave a big Thumbs up.

You have to love Seasick Steve and it’s hard not to love his boogie bluesy musical stories.  We missed him on this stage four years ago but there was no way we were going to miss him again.  The set meandered along at Steve’s pace and he demonstrated his array of guitars, some unique and homemade.  Steve is a simple, no bullshit man who makes simple no bullshit music and he connects with the audience on every level, he gets our feet moving too!  Highlights were ‘Dog House Boogie’ and ‘Walkin’ man’ when he made a young girls day by leading her on stage and singing to her.  Seasick Steve shows genuine joy that he is up there performing and that joy washes over the audience, he deservedly went down a storm on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

We missed the start of the Manic Street Preachers but soon got into it.  They got a good reception from the crowd as they played a ‘greatest hits’ type set.  I’ve seen them before (coincidently supporting Oasis in 1996) and they’ve made some good music over the years but have never been a great favourite of mine.  For me this gig kind of reflected that, they were good but not great, maybe just going through the motions?  The closing song “Design for Life” was a belter and the show ended on a high.

Opinions were divided ahead of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, there was a fear he might not fill the headlining slot adequately.  I had no doubts.  The new album is pretty good, full of the first class pop/rock songs Gallagher has been producing for twenty years.  A few songs in and all the doubters were converted, the band sounded great and the new tunes were moving people’s feet.  We danced the whole way through.  It was hard to hear Noel’s banter with the crowd but he did seem to be slagging off Guardian readers amongst many others.  His solo stuff went down well but the Oasis songs were given the best reception in particular ‘Champagne Supernova’, we couldn’t help singing along “Where were you while we were getting high?”  He finished with ‘Don’t look back in anger’ and for some reason that was it, no encore.  It was like watching Oasis but without the dickhead little brother and a great way to finish the festival.

The live music was over for the weekend but PP and I were determined to keep on dancing.  We tried but ultimately failed.  The DJ’s couldn’t keep us hooked for one but our legs and feet were totally knackered on this final night of the festival.  We chilled out on a bench for a while, chatting to young party people before finally giving in and staggering back to our tent.

Other festival thoughts…

The late night crowds around the ‘I arena’ & ‘In the Woods’ were a nightmare.  Whatever the organisers had planned didn’t work, a re think is needed here.

The Late night DJ’s weren’t great this year, either that or we didn’t manage to be in the right place at the right time.  The crowds mentioned above may not have helped.  A lot of what we heard played was, well, cheese…

The Food available was slightly better than 2014 and we did have a couple of good meals, (a Chinese and an Indian).  The Donuts we had this year were crap and for the second time in three years we had a Fish & Chips that was virtually inedible.  The stall virtually bang smack in the middle of the arenas, (opposite the Poetry tent) was the culprit.

Encores. Are they going out of fashion?  I didn’t see one all weekend, not on any stage.  They are a charade and we all know it so why bother?

The weather was almost perfect for a festival, four long, clear sunny days.  It was hot but not too hot during the days but a little stuffy in the tent first thing in the morning.  With no rain to dampen down the soil we had to contend with breathing in loads of dust at the busiest parts of the arena.  Glastonbury has its mud, Latitude has dust.

People watching is always an interesting diversion while soothing aching limbs or waiting between acts.  On the first couple of nights it’s amusing to watch the groups of teenage festival virgins getting smashed and suffering the consequences, we’ve all done it…  Note for young lads that are too cool to wear a hat.  That bandana across the forehead doesn’t work.  You are not in ‘Nam, you look like a prick.  As usual for Latitude there were loads of well to do yah yah’s of all ages strutting around like they owned the world.  You know the type, pressed clothes and a cricket jumper draped over the shoulders, strutting around with an air of ignorant entitlement.  Also there are people from all kinds of backgrounds that haven’t learnt any consideration for others, thankfully there didn’t seem to be any camped near us this year.  I also worry about the growing group of people that seems to live their lives through their mobile phones.  These people go round the festival looking at stuff through their viewfinders and screens stopping only to post a cool photo on social media.  This doesn’t strike me as being the best way to enjoy a festival or anything else for that matter.  Of course my friends and I get everything right all the time, or not.

Beards hide a multitude of sins but are trendy nowadays which is enough to put any thoughts of growing one out of my mind.  There were thousands of beards at Latitude, mostly on males and all styles were on display.  People who grow a big shaggy beard then go to the trouble to wax & twist the ‘tache should make up their minds; Are you scruffy or not?  Either way you are a twat.  Equally amusing are those desperately trying to grow a trendy beard but lack either the years or bristles to actually make it work.  A modern equivalent of the bum fluff nose liners sported by young males in the eighties and just as ridiculous but often very funny.

It struck me as ironic that there is a list of things that are not allowed in the festival which quite rightly includes “any item which may reasonably be considered for use as a weapon”.  However once inside the arena vendors attempt to sell things to children that could quite easily be used as a weapon.  I didn’t see any diablo damage this year but at least a couple of near misses.

It occurred to me that having seen Keith Allen, Bob Geldof and Noel Gallagher I had witnessed three of the great swearers of our time express themselves with typically inspirational profanity.

Best acts of the Festival.  Noel Gallagher, Charlatans & best of all The Vaccines.

Also well worth a mention, Seasick Steve, Public Service Broadcasting, Jon Hopkins, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Stone Foundation.

Musically not as good as 2014 but still a very good weekend with loads of special memories and yes we’ll be back!

PS  My daughter Maddie loves music too, here is a link to her blog;

http://maddionette.blogspot.co.uk/

Cardiff

13/07/15

Wow!  Nobody saw that coming!  England’s entire team contributed to a comfortable England within four days.  Australia out played in all departments.  Wow!  England edged the first two days then dominated the last two for an emphatic win.  Australia have a rude awakening, Just like England did in November 2013…

Or on the other hand, England won the first test well in 1997 but were battered thereafter.  Could this Australian team do they same?  Well I think they will certainly get better and be a challenge but at the moment Australia don’t have anyone to match the skill of Warne or McGrath, nor the batting depth of that era.

I spent Saturday in Norfolk catching fish from my boat with TMS on the radio.  Even with Warner going well I was sure the game was ours.  That spell of wickets around lunch was a magic, punching the air and giving the signal as they fell.  Brought back memories of 2005, Zander fishing in the fens when Steve Harmison bowled Clarke with the slow one, magic!

Lords next.  Australia can’t be that bad again, can they?  If England win and go 2-0 up this series might not even be close.  If.  

De Hashes...

08/07/15

Despite the big build up the Ashes opening day has been and gone.  (Or ‘de hashes’ as my West Indian friends refer to it).  Over the years England have almost always had poor first days of Ashes series, from that viewpoint this must rank as one of our better starts.  At 43-3 we were on the brink of disaster but Joe Root demonstrated that he is a great player in the making and salvaged something for England.  At 343-7 at the close we still don’t know how good or bad day one will prove to have been.

I’m a bit late for a series prediction but bollocks I’ll do it anyway.  In 2009 I thought Australia were much better than us and would win comfortably.  A few months ago I saw this series in the same way.  I was wrong in 2009, England managed to nick it and this time around I think the sides are more closely matched.  This first match is crucial and if England can come out of it undefeated I think England have a chance in this series and if we play well we can beat Australia.

Ashes series really are special; all the thrills, nerves and expectations of test cricket are ramped up a little bit more.  The full range of emotions will be shown over the rest of this summer and we could end up that a heaven or hell situation known as a tense, close series.  Fantastic if we win but terrible if we lose.  We wouldn’t have it any other way.

Glastonbury from the armchair

I’ve never been to Glastonbury.  I keep saying “one day” but the sheer size of the thing puts me off to be honest.  Most years I spend a sizeable part of the last weekend in June drinking beer and watching the spectacle from the comfort of my armchair and this was no exception.

Friday saw Florence and the Machine headline, what little I saw of this was pretty good.  I’m not a fan but Flo has loads of energy and put on a good show.  Motorhead were on earlier in the day, I saw them at a festival back in the 80’s and they sounded the same as they always have.  Lemmy looks terrible but what else would you expect?  I caught a bit of proper R&B soul from a fella called Leon Bridges and really enjoyed it.  Mary J. Blige also played but fell into the trap of performing vocal gymnastics while her backing vocalists sang her songs, piss poor show.  I also enjoyed clips from The Vaccines, Libertines, Mark Ronson, Rudimental (always good live), SBTRKT and a tiny bit of Hot Chip.  By the end of the night I’d over indulged in Adnams Broadside.

There was lots of good stuff on Saturday too.  George Clinton’s Funkadelic show looked great fun.  I’m warming to the shouty anarchy of Sleaford Mods, collaborating with Leftfield has to be good.  Burt Bacharach played on the Pyramid stage.  “Who?” asked the family but within minutes we were all singing along.  Paloma Faith is a great performer with a powerful voice and put on a good show.  Pharrel Williams is a great producer but a bit of a knob, the show was fun though.  Headliner was Kanye West.  I like some of his early music but I’m put off by his arrogant persona.  I watched his show with an open mind, hoping to be converted but I wasn’t; more about this in a bit. 

On Sunday evening we watched one of my daughter’s current favourites but Charli XCX didn’t really impress any of us.  A tiny bit of Lionel Ritchie was more than enough.  A couple of songs from Alt J was one too many. Leanne La Havas was OK.  We saw Paul Weller at Latitude a few years ago and he was bloody good too.  Tonight he showed energy, passion and power, proper soulful rock music played by a legend of British music.  My 15 year old Maddie commented; “That old bloke was pretty good dad…” KW take note.  The headliner on Sunday was another group of British musical legends, The Who.  A gig from a band celebrating its fiftieth anniversary could go either way but this one didn’t disappoint.  The band belted out hit after hit, sounded superb and were worthy headliners at Worthy farm.  Highlight for me was ‘Baba O’Reilly which saw the purple princess and I dancing in the living room.  The Adnams Ghost ship was slipping down nicely and our armchair festival finished on a high.

Finally a few more words about the Saturday night headliner, Kanye West.  It’s hard to find the words to describe how I felt about this performance, he was embarrassingly bad.  It started with a low lighting rig making the stage seem small and claustrophobic and KW scowling, no sign of any band.  I thought it would get better, it didn’t.  By the end of the show I was watching only to see how bad it could get.  My Facebook was unanimous, KW was crap.  One friend described watching the show as “like driving past a car crash”.  I’m not a hip hop hater, I have plenty of rap music in my collection and I was blown away watching Jay-Z on the same stage a few years ago. 

KW has seriously lost the plot.  He believes his own hype and really thinks he’s something special.  He doesn’t live in the real world but dwells in one of obscene wealth, alongside his talentless reality star wife, surrounded by people blowing smoke up their backsides.  Kanye West you are an over rated, arrogant, narcissistic wanker.  Take your fake, plastic, fat arsed wife and fuck off due West back across the Atlantic forever. 

And breathe… It’s good to rant. 

ODI is interesting at last

England and New Zealand have just completed an ODI series that may well go down in cricketing history as one of the best ever.  In the first match England scored a record 408 and bowled NZ out easily to record a comfortable win.  In the next the Kiwis scored 399 and England almost chased it down, in fact if it wasn’t for rain and Duckworth/Lewis I’m sure we would have won.  England scored 300+ again in the third match but NZ completed a comfortable win to go 2-1 ahead.  When they set England 350 to win in the fourth they may have thought they had the series wrapped up but England completed their highest ever run chase to win by 7 wickets.  This squared the series and set up a ‘Final’ for the fifth match at Durham.  This match didn’t have the high scores of the previous four but New Zealand’s 283 would have seemed competitive in a ‘normal’ series.  Once again rain and Duckworth/Lewis intervened making England’s target even tougher but they managed to get over the line to win by three wickets and take the series.

From an England supporter’s point of view the series win was pleasing but far more important was the way we played.  NZ were world cup runners up and are a very good ODI team yet we were able to beat them at their own game with attacking cricket.  At last England have caught up with the rest of the world and are playing the way we should have played in the world cup.  Batsmen dominated this series and Eoin Morgan, Alex Hales, Joe Root, Joss Buttler and in the final match Johnny Bairstow were all superb.  The bowlers suffered but Stephen Finn, Mark Wood and Adil Rashid can hold their heads up.

It may only be ODI but this series has given English cricket a vital lift ahead of the tough Ashes series to come.  Being able to play this way successfully will give England belief that they can do the same against the Aussies.  Time will tell…

“The Overlook” is another in the ‘Harry Bosch’ series of novels by Michael Connelly.  Bosch gets the call to a murder scene but the FBI are right behind him as this case appears to have terrorist links.  The whole story is set in one twenty four hour period and despite all the twists and turns we’ve come to expect, Bosch solves the case.  As Connelly’s books go this is not one of his best but even so it’s still a damn good read!

Leftfield, Worth the wait

I’m lucky that over the years I’ve managed to see nearly all my favourite bands or musicians in concert at some time.  There are a couple of very notable exceptions but those boxes will now never be ticked.  I never saw Bob Marley but I did see the Wailers.  Never saw Led Zeppelin but I saw Jimmy Page on stage with Aerosmith at a festival.  One of my favourite albums of the 90’s was “Leftism” by Leftfield, dance music at its very best!  Despite seeing many big names in this genre I’d always managed to miss seeing Leftfield, until last Saturday night.

Mr Green had sent me a link to a stream of their new album (are they still called that?), the first in years.  It was good and we decided seeing them was a must, it was a pleasant surprise to find out they were playing London Forum in just a few days.  So in the company of our better halves we pointed a motor southward and headed off to the smoke.  As ever the journey passed quickly in laughter and chat, within a couple of hours we had pulled up and parked just around the corner from the venue.  We were in London with time to spare so grabbed a beer and a fantastic pizza before the main event.

There was a DJ warming the crowd up, he was pretty good and got us moving but I can’t remember his name.  The Forum is a nice medium sized venue which filled up fast but we’d got a good position on the floor in the middle and we weren’t budging.  As usual there was a frustrating pause in proceedings; the crowd was ready to go! 

At last Leftfield arrived with a beat and a bang, the crowd responded and the atmosphere was perfect.  This was the way it stayed for the next hour and a half, loads of new tunes and a good sprinkling of old ones.  The room didn’t stop moving and the dub tunes in particular lifted the roof.  If I had to pick a highlight then an old fave, “Inspection Check one” would have to be it.  I love many types of music and there are many different types of brilliant live experience.  This didn't have the visual energy of the Prodigy and it wasn't the extravaganza of Screamadelica but for dancing with a crowd of blissed out, like minded people it was as good as it gets. There was the obligatory trippy light show and a couple of guests joining the show but it was mostly about the rhythms and the dancing.  Sometimes I want a gig to end, others I’ve had enough by the time they finish but I wanted this one to keep on all night.  I waited a long time to see Leftfield, I wasn’t disappointed.  Would I go see them again?  Hell yes!!