It was sunny, it was finally beginning to look like summer, obviously the rain and cold of the last few weeks decided it would let up long enough to greet the arrival one of Americas best exports, leaving behind the weather that wouldn't have been out of touch in Olympia Washington. The only dull point of the evening being the severe shortage of rather fab and groovy orange t-shirts on sale - sold out by the time we got there, much like the gig, but we had tickets 6 and 7 anyway...General milling around was the order of the first hour, Janet was sitting with a couple of mates having a sneaky cig before heading backstage, Corrinne was seen just walking about, looking a bit lost if truth be told...Anyway, the room started to fill for Mary Timony, who was nice, if a little predictable, she played to a good, enthusiastic response and looked like she was enjoying herself, joined by Carrie for her last song, it gave us all a taste of things to come...
After the usual wait Sleater Kinney took to the stage, immediately launching into Ballad of a ladyman, the three of them straight away had the attention of the entire crowd, Corrinne and Carrie interplaying on song after song, All hands on the bad one was ended with Carrie telling us all about how crap record companies are (well, sort of) and they played mother to two lost friends, guiding them back together across the throng of the mosh pit...Carrie is in every sense of the word a true star, throwing poses at every opportunity and yet somehow not coming over at all pretentious, the set mixed it all up combining the new album, as well as old classics, Call the Doctor, Words and Guitars, Little Babies, being just a few of the highlights. The crowd lapped up everything that was thrown at them and by the time of the encore, which included a blistering Joey ramoney (sleater Kinney and Helen Love joint tour anyone ??) and finishing with Dig me out i don't think there was an unsatisfied fan in the building, it was just a classic gig, best of the three times i've seen S-K and the sooner they return to these shores the happier i'll be.
Pausing briefly to finish my pint before leaving the venue, and yet being quick enough to avoid the crowds we eventually found our way out of the building into what, to be honest, i don't think anyone was expecting - it was raining, so, that was that then, the british weather back to what it should be like, a short walk to the tube station in the rain, but fired up and happy under my trusty Star Wars bag that was finishing the evening masquerading as an umbrella ....
