The year the music died?

Image credit: christhebarker

2016 will probably go down as one of those years where sad news overshadowed the good – certainly that was true for me both in personal terms, which I won’t cover here, but also the seemingly relentless march of famous icons being taken by the grim reaper.  Just as we were coming to terms with Lemmy passing away at the end of 2015, in 2016 we’d be constantly reminded by social media of a glittering parade of cultural icons shuffling from this mortal coil.

David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Glenn Frey, Jimmy Bain, Terry Wogan, Harper Lee, Frank Kelly, George Martin, Keith Emerson, Frank Sinatra Jr, Paul Daniels, Ronnie Corbett, David Gest, Victoria Wood, Lonnie Mack, Prince, John Berry, Nick Menza, Muhammad Ali, Henry McCullough, Anton Yelchin, Caroline Aherne, Kenny Baker, Dalian Atkinson, Gene Wilder, Pete Burns, Leonard Cohen, Andrew Sachs, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Rick Parfitt, George Michael, Liz Smith, Richard Adams, Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.

That’s not an exhaustive list, I’m sure, but that’s not really what I wanted this blog post to be about – but you can’t really do a review of the year without mentioning the elephant in the room.  As with seemingly most things these days it caused ruckuses on Facebook with folk taking to social media to express their sadness whilst others get irked at seeming over-emotionalness.  Certainly there’s a lot in that list who whilst I’ve never met have had huge influences over my life, and I felt genuine sadness at them moving on – some seemingly far too early, others having reached a ripe of age.

(more…)

Freeborn Al / 30th December 2016 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Lee Bonsall, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Fine fettle down in Settle..

IMG_3001When I originally bought a ticket for the Settle gig it was going to be in June last year.  I’d naively thought ‘oh, it’s Yorkshire, I’ll probably drive to and from that’ – it wasn’t until more recently, having acquired another ticket for Ella for the rescheduled show, that I troubled to look at a map and realise quite how far up Settle was in North Yorkshire.  Seeing Clitheroe nestled beneath it meant a quick search for accomodation for the evening was very much the mission – luckily I found somewhere suitable, more on that later.

We’d arranged to meet up with Michael, Daren and Michelle for lunch in nearby Malham, having set off in good time we were running an hour early on arrival estimate so pulled into a services.  Checking in on Facebook as you do revealed we were actually really close to Michael’s house – sense prevailed and we arranged to go and pick him up, meaning a chance to catch up wtih Rebecca too which is a bonus – and head onward with a much better carbon footprint than if we’d gone in separate cars!

IMG_2997The Lister Arms is a lovely pub.  Malham was absolutely snidered with cars, we were worried the pub would be rammed – but it seems the streets and carparks were full of vehicles of walkers rather than pub goers so we soon found a table and awaited Daren and MIchelle’s arrival.  A hearty meal of mostly pies and mash or chips (or cajun chicken for Ella) was demolished, followed by a bloody nice selection of cheese with a glass of port (or sticky toffee pudding and a cuppa tea for t’ladies).  A very pleasant few hours before hitting the road to Settle.  Definitely planning on a return visit at some point!

(more…)

Freeborn Al / 6th March 2016 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Lee Bonsall, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments