Any fool can think of words that rhyme

I've got a couple of gigs coming up in quick succession, starting with Interpol on Sunday. It got me thinking about all of the concerts I have been to this year. Because I'm a man, here they are in list form:



- The White Stripes - Nottingham Arena, 23rd January

- Athlete (& Snow Patrol) - Nottingham Rock City, 28th January

- Snow Patrol - Oxford Brookes, 13th March

- The Glastonbury Festival, 25/26/27 June

- Morrissey - Blackpool Empress Ballroom, 4th September

- The Hives - Nottingham Rock City, 22nd September

- The Bees - Oxford Zodiac, 16th October

- The Darkness (& Ash) - Nottingham Arena, 24th November

- Snow Patrol - Birmingham Academy, 28th November

- Interpol - Nottingham Rock City, 19th December

- The Kings of Leon - Nottingham Rock City, 21st December



Not too bad. Not a ridiculous number, but not too bad.



A couple of years ago, I made the resolution that I should go to more live music. I think I'm doing OK. No idea how that compares to last year, but perhaps we can have another look at how 2005 compares this time next year. I already have R.E.M. booked up, and I hope it will be the year I can cross U2 of the list (finally).



This got me thinking about the CDs I have bought this year....



(now you'll have to bear with me here, as I don't record when I buy these things, so this list is going to be done by scrolling through my IPod and trying to work out what wasn't on there last year... so it's not in the order I bought them, but alphabetical by band)



- Ash - meltdown

- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - BRMC

- British Sea Power - The Decline of British Sea Power

- Carla Bruni - Quelqu'un m'a dit

- The Dears - No Cities Left

- Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing in the Hands

- Devendra Banhart - Nino Rojo

- Dido - Life for Rent

- Embrace - Out of Nothing

- Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand

- The Futureheads - The Futureheads

- Green Day - American Idiot

- The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives

- Hope of the States - The Lost Riots

- Interpol - Antics

- Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights

- Jet - Get Born

- Kasabian - Kasabian

- Keane - Hopes & Fears

- The Killers - Hot Fuss

- Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak

- The Libertines - Up the Bracket

- The LIbertines - The Libertines

- Morrissey - You Are The Quarry

- Muse - Absolution

- Muse - Origin of Symmetry

- The Pixies - Surfer Rosa & Come on Pilgrim

- R.E.M. - Around the Sun

- Razorlight - Up All Night

- The Reindeer Section - Y'All Get Scared Now, Ya Hear?

- The Reindeer Section - Son of Evil Reindeer

- Snow Patrol - Final Straw

- Snow Patrol - Songs for Polar Bears

- Snow Patrol - When It's All Over We Still Have To Clear Up

- The Streets - A Grand Don't Come for Free

- Supergrass - Supergrass is 10

- Throwing Muses - The Real Ramona

- U2 - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

- The Vines - Highly Evolved

- The Von Bondies - Pawn Shoppe Heart

- Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell



That's absurd.



At least I know where all my money goes. I'm not even going to think about DVDs.



I can see how I buy music too - you know that bit in High Fidelity where he talks about arranging his records autobiographically? Well if you did that with me, you'd see clumps of purchasing... like all the Snow Patrol & Reindeer Section records... and I'm also in the middle of a Pixies clump: Surfer Rosa, the Throwing Muses, I downloaded some Breeders.... might buy "king" by Belly, that kind of thing.



A lot of the rest is new releases or bands I heard somewhere and loved (I saw Devendra Banhart on Jools Holland, and I heard Interpol being played by Zane Lowe). I'll also usually buy a bunch of records after gigs when someone really impressed me live. Often this is at Glastonbury, where I try and watch lots of people I don't know. This year I think it was the Von Bondies, although the no-show by the Libertines piqued my interest.... This year I also discovered Snow Patrol when they supported Athlete (although I think they might have been hard to avoid anyway)



I bet I've missed some off as well, and I haven't even included stuff I bought for anyone else (I bought the whole Snow Patrol back catalogue + the Reindeer Section + Belle & Sebastian's "Dear Catastrophe Waitress" for one lucky friend on his birthday this year.... he did get me a share in a beer fridge and some golf lessons for mine though, so I felt I owed him)



Hm.



I'll leave my "best of 2004" lists for another day, I think. This post is silly enough already.