There’s something about Cate Le Bon that I can’t quite put my finger on…….but I love it. She has a fantastic stage prescence that just draws you in. It felt like she’d only been on for 5 minutes when she was announcing the last song “Awwwwwwww” “Well, y’know, we’ll come back on in a minute”…….

It was my daughters 17th birthday so I’d bought 2 tickets just in case she hadn’t organised anything and she could come along. As it happened she had her pals round (watching ‘Life of Brian’) so Sledge joined me for this sold out gig which turned out to be a fantastic night. We skipped the support in favour of a beer and a chat in the other room with Mark – the general concensus being they’d rather have seen fellow Welshman ‘Sweet Baboo’ do a set (he’s playing bass for Cate on this tour).

The band came on to a tape asking not to take photos but to send postcards instead – available to buy after the gig. I did take a few on my phone without flash as that’s what this blog does and hope she can forgive me because I would never want to offend this woman. She looked like she could have just come from work at the potters wheel in what looked like a black artists smock (though no clay smudges evident). When she sings in English her voice has that wonderful Abba-esque quality when a foriegn accent shines through. A fantastic brace of songs that had the crowd eating out of her hand.

When she introduced the band she made note of Sweet Baboo’s black jumpsuit “He looks like he’s just come off the crystal maze”. She also said how much they like the Brudenell – well, don’t we all! I got a (sadly not pink) vinyl copy of her new ‘Mug Museum‘ LP and look forward to wearing it out.

Bob the Chiropodist