Blog: Divine Comedy at The Palladium

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On Tuesday night I met Mr M Sutton for a night of FINE DRINKS and MUSIC. He had SCORED us some tickets to see The Divine Comedy at The Actual London Palladium, so we met up in the traditional meeting place for anyone arriving into Kings Cross Station i.e. The Parcel Yard. What ensued was a DELIGHTFUL evening of BEER and CHAT as we wandered into town to the King & Queen (which was ACE as ever) and thence for some GRUB. I was having such a lovely time that I must admit I was feeling slightly resentful towards Mr N Hannon who was forcing me to go to his gig!

I was somewhat mollified when we got to The Actual London Palladium, got a drink, and found our seats. We had AISLE SEATS! As anyone who regularly attends EVENTS into their late 30s (hem hem) and beyond will know, these are the PRIME POSITIONS, especially if you have just been in the pub, and they were also comfy and nicely SPACED too. Whatever happened, we were going to be COMFORTABLE!

In addition, it turned out, we were ROCKED, for LO! the gig was AMAZING. It's in support of the new GRATEST HITS album, so that is what they played "Just the ... 'hits'" as Mr Hannon put it, and crumbs there are a LOT of them. Gloriously, the set was split into two halves with an INTERMISSION, which is something I think ALL gigs should do - you often see reviews saying "Ooh, they did two hours without a break" but does anyone actually WANT that? Much better to have an ACTUAL break in the middle, instead of everyone shuffling off to the bar/loo during The Acoustic Section.

They started off with "Absent Friends", then "Indie Disco", and then... well, it just carried on like that, with HITS. My favourite in the first half was possibly "The Certainty Of Chance", which is not a song I have ever particularly loved but sounded INCREDIBLE done live, with HUGE backing vocals. In the second half I realised that "How Can You Leave Me On My Own" is possibly my NEW FAVOURITE, we all sang along to "Songs Of Love", they finished the main set with a GINORMOUS "National Express" and then came back for "Perfect Lovesong" and I decided to FORGIVE the TITLE PILFERING, as it was lovely. Again, this is one of those songs I've never really thought much of, possibly because it's on my least favourite of their albums, but here it was ACE. And then they did "Tonight We Fly" and MY GOODNESS ME it was BRILLO. I always remember hearing that for the first time, having got the TAPE out of Leicester Library and being blown away. Several thousand years later, I was again!

It was, in summary, a GRATE evening and a GRATE gig. Live music, it's dead good!

posted 5/5/2022 by MJ Hibbett

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