50 Bands I've Seen Live

I recently got sent a challenge on Facebook to name 50 bands or astists I've seen live. So always one for a challenge (especially when it involves a list) I wrote down the first 50 I thought of.

To maker it more tricky I tried to do it alphabetically and have two bands for each letter (that's why some aren't exactly my favourite acts!). I couldn't think of any for a couple of letters so some have more than two.

It showed just how much live music I've seen over the years, either at their own gigs or at festivals. This list is just the tip of the iceburg! How many can you list yourself?

1 Alabama 3
2 Airhead
3 Blur
4 Bjork
5 David Bowie
6 The Cure
7 Nick Cave (and the Badseeds)
8 Donovan
9 Dan Donnelly and friends
10 Ezio
11 Echo and the Bunnymen
12 Foo Fighters
13 Franz Ferdinand
14 Newton Faulkner
15 Goldfrapp
16 Gomez
17 Hot Chocolate
18 Inspiral Carpets
19 Jay-Z
20 Hobo Jones (and the Junkyard Dogs)
21 Kings of Leon
22 Kaiser Chiefs
23 The Killers
24 Leftfield
25 Lenny Kravitz
26 The Levellers
27 Paul McCartney
28 Manic Street Preachers
29 New Order
30 Orbital
31 Oasis
32 The Police
33 Pulp
34 Public Enemy
35 REM
36 The Raconteurs
37 Radiohead
38 Snow Patrol
39 Bruce Springsteen (and the E Street Band)
40 Squeeze
41 The Ting Tings
42 Travis
43 Underworld
44 The Verve
45 Velvet Underground
46 The Who
47 White Stripes
48 Yeah Yeah Yeahs
49 Neil Young
50 The Zutons

A pretty diverse list, I guess.

Guilty Pleasures - 5 things I love but maybe shouldn't

Big Brother

Probably one of the guilty pleasures that most would be least likely to admit to liking, Channel 4's annual summer marathon on "reality" madness is one of those programmes you watch with the notion that maybe your life isn't quite as bad as you thought.

Britain's Got Talent and the X-Factor may get more viewers but they're only really any good in the auditions stages, watching people who think they have talent delude themselves. Big Brother is like that all the way through!

Originally quite an interesting social experient it's become more a freakshow of wannabe's and extroverts prepared to humiliate themsleves on national TV in the vain hope of winning a possible £100,000 prize or a mediochum on z-list fame. You always wonder what you woulod do in the situations the prisoners of the BB house are thrown into and which housemate you are most like (sadly probably a mixture of Marcus and Halfwit for me this year!). And gawp through your fingers in embarressment and wonder why they don't walk (or even why they applied in the first place).

It's compulsive and definately a fine arguement for the "dumbing down" of television but it's car crash TV at it's best, am I excused by the fact I usually turn over to Newsnight when it's finished?

Queen's Don't Stop Me Now

Bohemian Rhapsody gets all the plaudits and everyone knows the the words but Don't Stop Me Now is a thrilling, unashamadly upbeat belter of a sing-a-long. With lyrics so happy and upbeat it ahould have a warning label for diabetics Queen's 1979 hit always leaves me with a huge smile and a soar throat from "singing" along at the top of my voice.

It just edges out the whole of the Flash Gordon soundtrack! And I wouldn't even call myself a huge fan of Queen, I usually find them too overblown and overtly camp.

Double Deckers

If you asked someone to name a chocolate bar they'd probably say a Mars Bar or even a Dairy Milk. But my favourite chocolate indulgence is Cadbury's Double Decker. It's a proper hunk of a bar, not like many of these new variations on a theme which seem to be just a way of addind more air to the confectionary by making it a gimmicky shape or an "exotic" flavour.

The Double Decker is a solid bar of chocolate, nougat and crisping stuff, a thick bite of chewiness and a fulling lump of sugary goodness. You can keep your boring Twix and Wispa's, give me a Double Decker any day.
Though I'm also partial to a dark chocolate Bounty too.

Dr Pepper

Like the Double Decker, Dr Pepper "fruit flavoured spakling drink" is overshadowed by the behemouth that is Coca Cola. But as a non coffee or tea drinker I get my caffeine (and far too much of my recommended daily sugar intake) from this little brother in the fizzy drinks market. I think I might be addicted but hey, what's the worst that can happen? (Don't answer that!)

Top Secret!

Probably my favourite "crap movie", Top Secret! is a spoof war/Elvis/Blue lagoon film from the gang that brough us the Airplane! and Naked Gun movies. Like those films it's a mismash of slapstick, visual and gag-a-second stupidness, with hundreds of quotable linesand Val Kilmer as a World War Two rock 'n' roll rock star thrown in.

It's daft, idiotic and, in my mind, one of the funniest films ever made. The characters are stereotypes (the group of French Resistant fighters are named things like Deja Vu, Chocoal Mousse and Latrine) and the jokes aren't the most sophiosticated at times ("What phoney dog poo?") but the overall effect is just as clever as Airplane! and a damn site betten than the modern spate of spoofs and American "comedies" like Scary Movie or Dude! Where's My Car?