Indulging In My Two Loves

What a great weekend it has been.  The two activities that I love more than anything else are listening to music and running.  Obviously, the second activity shouldn't come as any great surprise to anyone reading this blog.  This weekend I have thoroughly gorged myself on music, and it makes a really nice change for this to have dominated my time instead of running.

First of all I bought the new albums by Foals and Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds on Friday.  I've listened to both a few times since then, and both are excellent.  I am a massive fan of Nick Cave but I was half expecting not to be too enthralled by his latest offering, solely based on a few snippets I'd heard over previous weeks.  However, the album is a massive grower that offers up more and more rewards on repeated listens.  I wouldn't go as far to say that it is his best work, but it comes close.  It is a subdued classic and very different to his far more raucous recordings of late.  Here's a little taste:

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Jubilee Street

I also went to two concerts over the weekend.  First up, on Friday evening I went to see Richard Hawley at the Cambridge Corn Exchange.  I'm amazed by just how many people have said "who?", when I tell them I've been to see Mr Hawley.  He was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize this year!  He's another great singer/songwriter with an electric guitar and a great voice.  His music also tends to be rather subdued, but with the occasional rock out moment.  He has great live presence and is also a very funny man.  This is one of the subdued tracks:

Richard Hawley on Jools Holland - Don't Stare At The Sun

Now it is quite possible that I drank slightly more than my usual three pint limit on Friday.  But that didn't stop me from going for an 18 mile run Saturday morning.  My good friend Jamshid had arranged to do a run with other friends and running couple, Chris and Suzy, and Lotti, who I don't know so well.  We all met at 8.30am Saturday morning and went for a run on a route that I wouldn't normally choose to run.  However, it was nice not to be the organiser for a change and to go where I was told to go.

Suzy, Chris, Jamshid, Lotti & me

Our run was a 5 mile run out of Cambridge alongside the busy Newmarket Road, followed by a 4 mile run through some fairly nice villages.  We then turned around and headed back the same way we came.  On the way back Suzy wanted to practise running at her marathon pace, so I said I'd act as her pacemaker.  I did a terrible job of pace making as I was consistently a few seconds per mile faster than Suzy wanted to run.  But Suzy did a great job of keeping with me, whilst managing to also hold a conversation for most of the time.  

With less than 2 miles to go to the finish I think my indulgence from the previous night suddenly caught up with me.  I suddenly felt light headed and a little dizzy.  I told Suzy I'd need to walk for a bit and encouraged her to keep going without me.  I do believe she rather enjoyed leaving me behind feeling rather weak and pathetic.  I walked whilst I consumed an energy gel and drank lots of water, and was soon joined by Jamshid, who was a little concerned for me.  By that time I had recovered enough to run the remainder of the way back home.  Some food and a little siesta were all I needed to completely sort me out.

Then in the afternoon I headed into London Town to catch up with Simon and Abigail, who I describe as my Glastonbury friends.  Why?  Well because I first met them several years ago at Glastonbury Festival when I went along with a friend and his work colleague who went to university with Simon.  Over the years that followed I would always bump into them at Glastonbury, despite their being more than 120,000 people there.  Then it got to a point when I decided to get their mobile numbers so I could actively arrange to meet them.  So through Glastonbury and the shared love for live music we've become pretty good friends.  Helped by the fact that they are also two of the nicest people you could meet.  

The main reason for my trip to London was so that we could all go to the NME Awards Tour at Brixton Academy.  It also happened to be Abigail's birthday.  After a beer and a chat in a pub on Stockwell Road we headed off to the Academy.  The NME Tour used to always come to Cambridge, but suddenly stopped doing so a couple of years ago.  It aims to showcase four up and coming bands destined for good things.  Past acts have included The Maccabees, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Cribs and Florence & The Machine.  This year we had Peace, Palma Violets, Miles Kane and Django Django as the headliners.  Peace were o.k. but didn't completely win me over.  I have seen and heard several things by Palma Violets over recent months and I already think they are an amazing band, so I really enjoyed seeing them live.  Miles Kane has been around longer than the other acts, but I personally find him to be a little too much like Oasis for my tastes, but as a live performer he was fantastic.  Django Django released their debut album last year and I do rate it as one of the best albums of 2012.  I was also looking forward to seeing them and I am happy to report that their live show did not disappoint.  Here's the opening track of both the album and the live show:

Django Django - Hail Bop (official video)

All-in-all a great night for £20 (plus the price of my train ticket).

Today I am having a fairly indulgent Sunday of doing not much at all.  Which is making a very nice change indeed.  Next week I will be able to report on my first marathon of the year.