London Gigs (1)

From http://banchoryheadbangers.blogspot.com/

Dave and I managed to bookend our annual trip to Lord's with 2 gigs that we both fancied. Firstly, on Thursday night, we went to the Cadogan Hall, in posh Belgravia to see Nils Lofgren again. The concert hall is usually used for classical recitals and its internal layout reminded me of the main hall in Glasgow University Men's Union.

After a couple of pints locally, we headed to the gig - here's Dave outside:

The view of the stage from our seats was obscured a little by some railings, but we sat through the first half of the concert in thrall anyway. The gig wasn't a sell-out and so, after a while, we moved up to seats right beside the stage, but in the gallery above and slightly behind where Nils and his partner in the Acoustic Duo (Greg Varlotta - http://www.gregvarlotta.com/) were playing.

Nils played the perennial favourite, Keith Don't Go, quite early on, and he did the kind of guitar pyrotechnics that he was famed for in the 70's, including playing with his teeth, Jimi-like:

We got a bit of a shock later on when he started to play Cry Tough. A sound board had been set up at the back of the stage and Greg Varlotta stepped on it and started dancing along, with clogs on! Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLf485XAHKM

Nils himself then took this one step further when he donned clogs and started using the sound board, while simultaneously playing the harp with his right hand and using a cane to tap out the rhythm! View it on You Tube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL_9RGs9VE8

In the following very brief video (view from blog), Nils and Greg are holding a clog dancing competition!:

Nils was superb as ever - I could have watched and listened all night - and the clog dancing trick was interesting and only diverted attention away from the music briefly.