The last time I saw Amy Macdonald live was at the Cambridge Corn Exchange in October 2010. I said in my post of that concert that she had gone up in size of venue. Six years later and now she can fill the Royal Albert Hall.
Her voice seems to have got stronger as she belted out new songs from her latest album Under Stars (note the lights in the following photo) and lots of old favourites. Setlist.fm shows all 21 songs.
Amy was accompanied by a six piece band who were all terrific. The sound was absolutely spot on, just loud enough, and the light show was fine with a superb glitterball. On YouTube there is a recording of a concert in Hamburg earlier in the tour. The audience never seem to move, unlike last night when the uptempo songs brought most to their feet. Particularly the last song of the night which was Lets Start a Band, brilliant.
Somehow I had found an excellent seat in the second row of the stalls, although I have to admit these days I seem to be the eldest there. But as Amy said "Rock and Roll is alive and well" and this is music that takes me back to my youth. Except no band from those days had a cello. Thanks Amy.
P.S. I arrived just in time to see the end of the support act. And I was so glad I did as Newton Faulkner (that cannot be his real name), for his last song, performed a solo acoustic version of Bohemian Rhapsody. Absolutely fantastic.
P.P.S. As I sat waiting for Amy to come on, I thought back to when I first visited the Royal Albert Hall. And then I remembered. It must have been 1953, just after we arrived in London and I was eight years old. At my last school in Alton, Staffs, there had been a collection for one of Princess Margaret's charities. Each school had been invited to send along one pupil to present their collection. So as we were already living in London, my old school thought I might like to go. The main memory from that day is queuing for what seemed like hours in the bowels of the Royal Albert Hall, waiting for my turn and then suddenly bursting into the dazzling light to shake hands with the Princess and hand over the envelope.
It then must have been a few years later that Dad took my bother John and me there to see the London Championship Finals for the ABA. Dad always loved his boxing. He would get up in the middle of the night to listen to world title fights from the USA.
P.P.P.S. This was a first. On entry to the venue they checked my ID with the ticket. A good job I had my photo driving licence with me.
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