The second one, as is is evident from the title of this post, is Madonna’s only London date from her Sticky & Sweet tour at Wembley Stadium. It was a bit of a manic drive up there (I allowed 4 1/2 hours to get from Swindon to London, which should have been plenty of time, but for the traffic snarl-ups that occurred seemingly from the moment we passed the M25 turn-off and immediately regretted following SatNav’s ‘through’ London route!). She was due on at 8:30 and that was pretty much the moment we were got to the multistory car park on site, so we arrived in our seats a little stressed! In the end, she didn’t start until after 9pm which would have been a relief for the many other people we saw stuck in different traffic queues leading to the event.

As we sat in the stadium waiting for her to start, comparing it with O2 Arena (it looked, to me, like it was wider than the O2 and had mores space for the standing masses below, but otherwise not massively different), I commented to Manda that I was surprised about the number and size of speakers hung from the rafters. I’m no sound rigging expert, but for a venue of that size they just didn’t seem to be big enough or in sufficient numbers, but perhaps they were deceptively powerful?

Apparently not.

From the get-go, it seemed like the sound was going to be an issue. Perhaps the sound was good for those people directly in front of the stage, but the vast majority were not down there, the vast majority were reliant on these speakers. The effect was that the sound comprised a low – but loud – rumble and Madonna’s voice often screechingly loud over the top; there was nothing in the middle or top ranges for the music. It sounded very poorly mixed and was, at times, really quite uncomfortable (largely depending on how well Madonna was singing at that point). I read one person comment that it was difficult to tell what she was singing until some way into the song. I don’t know about you, but one of the things I really enjoy about concerts is listening to the lead-in to a concert gig, recognising the tell-tale chords, melodies etc as they hint to the song that’s about to start. For this gig, there was none of that – it was often a few lines in that I recognised the song, because the melody was not there in the music (because of the missing mid and high ranges)!

I did wonder if this was anything to do with the fact that the stadium was open air – perhaps the wind that occasionally came in and made an appearance was messing with the sound, but I suspect not. I still think it’s down to poor rigging/set-up, not atmospheric conditions. The O2 Arena sound was brilliant, in comparison.

Still on the topic of the sound, another thing that irritated me was not really one of the technical set-up, but artistic choice – Madonna’s insistence on doing mash-ups of older songs with new. The best example I can think of is when she did a ‘version’ of the vocals of Vogue over a backing track of ‘4 Minutes (to Save the World)’. Perhaps good in theory, but what with the sound problems we experienced, it sounded very flat. People wanted to hear some hits, and there was a brief moment at the end where the familiar piano riffs from Vogue were dropped in and the effect was instant ‘yay!’. Comparison time – when Kylie performed, she did some alternative versions of here song (e.g. an a cappella version of ‘I Believe In You’) but didn’t try to be too clever, and for her final song? The original, not mucked-about-with ‘I Should Be So Lucky’. Yes, it’s cheesy, but boy did it hit the right spot, and the atmosphere was fab. There was none of that sheer exuberance and joy at the Madonna gig, I’m afraid to say.

And now on to the stage setting. Once again, probably very good if you were in the minority who were at floor level or at the back of the stadium looking straight on. For everyone else, it wasn’t great. There was a big screen showing the pre-production graphics and video clips, but it was inset on the stage – if you were viewing from the side, it could not be seen. There were additional screens at either side of the stage which were used for the camera close-ups of what’s happening on stage, but these were not really big enough and were set far too low for everyone to see – they absolutely should have been rigged far higher up. If anyone in the seating area stood up, the people behind would also have to stand to get a chance of seeing the screen, and so on it would go until everyone was standing. Perhaps the argument is that seats are optional and that you should be on your feet anyway, dancing. Fine – give us some decent sound and an atmosphere to go with it and that might have transpired! Cue comparison time … At the Kylie gig, the screens were bigger, brighter and easy to see and as for the stage graphics, if your vision of the graphics behind the artist and dancers was obscured, the entire stage floor area was also lit up and displaying graphics – so no-one got left out. Just look how good it was here!

Final comparison time – the end of the show. At every gig I’ve been to, there’s been some kind of encore. Kylie absolutely excelled with hers, while Madonna didn’t ‘play the game’ at all. When the screens showed the phrase ‘Game Over’, it really meant over.

Finally, we had the fun and games of getting out of the venue – it took me an hour just to get out from the multistory car park and on to the street! While I was expecting a delay, I didn’t think it would be quite that bad. I have read that because of the late start, many people who used public transport to get there were unable to leave by the same method because stations had closed, causing the streets around to be clogged up with masses of people which, in turn, seemed to stop the flow of traffic exiting the site.

All in all, this was a disappointing concert, mostly because of the sound problems which led to the lack of atmosphere in general. Madonna didn’t appear to be on top form, either – screechy and often out of tune vocals and arrangements that seemed to lack pizazz.

Manda (my wife) had always wanted to see Madonna live, but this wasn’t the experience she had hoped for, for sure. "The thing is" she said, "I know that she can sing, but this set-up didn’t seem to give her the opportunity to show that fully." We might give ‘her Madgesty’ another go in the future, but it sure as heck won’t be at Wembley Stadium. One thing is absolutely without question – the dancing and choreography is excellent and you have to take your hat off to the woman (I nearly said girl), she is supremely fit.

The irony of this is that having seen Mrs Ritchie’s latest offering, tomorrow we’re going to see Mr Ritchie’s latest offering. Given the reviews of the film so far, and having seen her offering last night, I think it’s fair to say that Madonna’s concert will be ‘Swept Away’ by Rocknrolla as this year’s must-see Ritchie extravaganza.

In summary then … Kylie: Wow! Madonna: Ow!

Honestly, I cannot see how it is that crap like this manages to break in America – the man has a really weak voice (and to think he was in the army once, something that surprises me no end), whatever way you look at it. But the funniest thing for me was when listening to ‘Beautiful’ on the album I noticed that the version there is the ‘rude’ version. Yep, he swears on it and it sounds so out of place, in fact I almost laughed out loud as I pushed the shopping trolly aroud Asda Walmart, listening to it as I was on the iPod. Luckily I managed to stifle the laughs. Compare and contrast:

Chart version:

Yeah, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She could see from my face that I was,
flying high

Album version:

Yeah, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She could see from my face that I was … [pause for effect]
fucking high

Sorry, it just doesn’t work for me. Combined with the dramatic pause it just seemed like an attention-grabbing ploy and made it seem like he was trying too hard. Is this really the best the UK has to offer the US? Or does the US prefer a wet blanket to some proper music?

• A playlist of all unrated songs, so I can find ones that I have still to rate
• All songs – that’s to say everything that is not audio book, iTrip transmission signal, podcast or hour-long mix
• Stuff I should play more regularly – high rated songs that have not been played in last couple of months
• Never played – well, like it says on the tin …

I could go on and on (and sometimes I do). Actually, there is something else I’d like to do: be able to create a playlist that is derived from another playlist (e.g. play all 4* songs that are contained in the ‘live music’ playlist) or, for super-power-user stuff, be able to hand-craft the query, SQL style, rather than rely on the interface provided.

Despite all this, I have a problem – I’m missing music.

In the never-ending urge to cram iTunes (and hence my iPod) full of music I find that I put a few albums on at a time, they don’t get added to a playlist and it takes a while for me to get around to rating them – I never rate on early listens, got to get to know the tracks a bit first. So these tracks don’t end up on the rated playlists and because I shuffle my songs for variety, I end up losing these new albums in a black hole. I’ve tried creating manual playlists for recently added stuff, but I prefer the smart playlists option as it keeps things tidier. Ideally, what I need is an option to select the ‘last 80 songs added’ or something like that, not ’songs added in the last month’ because they’ll soon slip off the radar.

So I’ve come up with a revolutionary new way of using my iPod that I’m going to share with you here. And here’s how it’s done:

1. Select Music
2. Select Albums
3. Select first album on list
4. Listen through in entirety
5. Repeat process, moving on one album at a time

Revolutionary? Well, not at all, but it feels like it. Heck, I still have the songs shuffled, but I’m getting to hear songs and albums that have been hiding in the dark recesses of my iPod for too long. I’m re-familiarising myself with all my music and discovering tracks that I haven’t heard for a long time; I’m also re-evaluating entire albums – do they really need to be on there after all?

What have you done to change the way you listen to your music collection recently?

I’ll admit that I wasn’t sure what to expect of JBT’s album "Sunrise Over Sea". I only knew one song, but it was a strong one. I was pretty quickly hooked on the bluesy/rocky/steel grass mixture, with the odd didge sound thrown in there for good Aussie authenticity measures, and it soon became a favourite album (a look at my iTunes play count will quickly confirm this).

I’ve since bought a couple of their albums, and am always asking people if they’ve heard of the band (I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll appear on Later with Jools Holland one day!). They played at Glastonbury , and once again I was asking people if they caught the band. Those that did hadn’t intended to – but all say they were a lucky find, if not the best band there. I have to agree with the latter.

Last night I went to see John Butler Trio play live at the Carling Apollo in Hammersmith, London . It felt like being back in Australia – there we were, two Brits (me and my bruv, who’d previously seen them at a Big Day Out in Sydney) surrounded by a sea of Aussies. I mentioned to the chap next to me that we must be the only Brits here, to which he replied: "Well, I’m from California !" Once the show started, I discovered what I had always expected – that they really are as good live as they are on record/CD. Actually, make that much better. You really can’t beat the atmosphere of a concert venue full of people who are getting caught up in the whole thing, applauding, whistling and singing along to all the big songs. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a group of people sing along with such gusto.

If I were to pick out a few highlights from the show they would have to be:

• John’s rendition of Ocean – a 12-13 minute song that I only heard for the first time last night (although I’d heard of it before). He plays it on a 12-string guitar and I swear I’ve never heard anyone play an instrument like that before – and by that I mean it was like three different guitarists at once. Incredible. Absolutely awesome.
• The solo sections from the bassist and drummer in the breakdown of Betterman. Also, I gotta say respect to the drummer for turning up in just a pair of flimsy shorts, looking like he was just at home heading into the kitchen for a glass of milk in the middle of the night before realising he took a wrong turn and walked on to a live stage, with his middle-aged paunch on show for all to see! Boy could he drum like a mofo …
• The encore renditions of Hello and Zebra. The latter prompted one of the biggest sing-along moments of the evening (well, the lyrics are so simple!)

In summary, I would have to say that this was the best live gig I’ve seen, and it was amazing the sound that these three guys could produce. I am so glad that I finally got to see them live, and seriously thought about driving up from Swindon to Manchester tonight to see than all over again – it might be years until I get my next chance. If you get a chance to see the John Butler Trio live, take it – trust me, you won’t regret it!