But while I consider a shopping trip to Reykjavik, I should just mention my night of passion with Rick Astley. Lisa and I went to the 'Here & Now' concert at the Brighton Centre on Thursday. It's the third time we've attended such an event (after Christmas 2004 and last year's summer of love), so clearly we never learn from our mistakes.
It was very good though. Here we are in Row H of the south balcony, enjoying the show...
As surprising as it may sound, I don't actually have Lisa's permission to publish that photo. I think her exact words were "Delete that NOW", with the emphasis very much on the last word. But I could tell she didn't mean it.
Anyhoo, the first act on were Cutting Crew, who reached number 1 in 1986 with 'I Just Died in Your Arms', an appropriate title, because while they were belting it out on the stage of the Brighton Centre, Lisa and I were experiencing a slow lingering death at the bus stop outside my flat. Buses are meant to arrive every few minutes. We were there for twenty-five before one eventually turned up with a handwritten scrap of paper on the windscreen telling us where it was going. And they say public transport is the future.
Fortunately we got there in time to see a song and a half from Johnny Hates Jazz. I remember stealing their album from Big Sis's bedroom in 1987, but having heard them again twenty-one years later, I think I might give it back. They weren't quite the band I remembered. Possibly because they had a different singer.
Next was Curiosity Killed The Cat, who did have the same singer. And no one else. It turned out to be Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot on his own. His music was ok, but by the time I'd watched him dedicate every song to "the ladies" (I think he was desperate for the toilet), and talk like he was a black teenager from Brixton, I was hoping he'd become a curious cat pretty sharpish.
ABC were up next, and were very good, but I've seen them before. The same goes for Paul Young, who was marginally less entertaining than when cooking fish on Hell's Kitchen.
Having woken Lisa up, we then saw two of the three members of Bananarama perform four of their five biggest hits. They were often criticised in the 1980s for not being able to sing, and frankly you could see why. They attempted to distract us from their voices by employing a couple of male dancers who spent their time fondling the girls with their shirts open, and gyrating their hips like some kind of lap dancing act. At one point, Sara and Keren rode them like horses. It was dangerously close to porn. But at least it took my mind off the singing. As they left the stage, the compere said "Those girls are bad!". I couldn't agree more.
The show finished on a high though, with the Rickroller himself, Rick Astley. I have to say I thought he was great, and the man should definitely make a comeback. He was pretty much the only person there who hasn't turned fat and ugly over the past twenty years (and I include myself in that). He could teach Bananarama a thing or two about singing (but then who couldn't), and he looks pretty sharp in a suit. Although I'd suggest a lighter colour next time. I couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just got back from a funeral.
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