An Amazon token for a few quid has enabled me to purchase The Byrds Live At The Albert Hall 1971. Believe it or not, readers, I was at that very show but, obviously, haven't heard it again since just now.
What an album! I hade quite forgotten what an amazing guitarist Clarence White was and this recording conmpletely knocks spots off the (Untitled) live album. The song selection was impressive to: challenging, not just a Hits Show (even Mr Tambourine Man was played accoustic so no jingle-jangle intro).
So looking back I have come to realise what a cathartic experience it was to see The Byrds at the Albert back in May 1971. It was only the third gig I had been to (preceded by The Nice supported by Yes and Ten Years After/Blodwyn Pig/Stone The Crows, it was the early 70s, forgive me) but it arguably changed my life.
Anyone else (a) there with me or(b) had another catharsis like that?

Whilst reading Sebastian Faulks' latest paperback Engelby I came across this passage that sums up my feelings exactly:

“I had a bath and put Steely Dan on the record player. I ought to explain that I don’t like new pop music anymore. I’d always liked the latest thing, sequentially: rock ’n’ roll, pop, soul, psychedelia, hard rock, progressive, glamour, punk, then: whooaaah! I remember the day I suddenly stopped. A deejay played a song that started ‘I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, /That much is true...’When it finished he banged on about how brilliant it was, how it was the future and everything. And I thought that pathetic sound, those gutless hairdressers with a toy kazoo – that is the inheritor of Hendix and Dylan and Stevie Wonder and the Beatles and Cream and...Dear God. I lowered the top half of the sash window, took careful aim and hurled the small radio out as hard as I could: over the street and into the grassless ‘garden square’, where it landed noiselessly. I like to think of them warbling on till the batteries died, face down in the dog mess.”

Do fellow-bloggers agree with Mr Faulks and me?

Did anyone go to Dingwalls to see JD Souther last Sunday? What a show, so many great songs performed with great skill. I never thought I would get to see him play live so it was a real treat. He had a genuine and uncomplicated way of dealing with unwanted heckling: "Shut the f*** up!"
Come back soon.
Anyone got any comments?