Calypso Rose @ Jazz Cafe, Camden, London.

First and foremost, a thank you to Cerys Matthews on 6 Music  as hearing her interview with Calypso Rose and listening to her perform two live songs, took us some thirty odd hours later to see her for real.
What a great lady! Frail yes but in front of a mike, with a great band behind her, this was something else. Her zest for performing and singing was infectious, and the audience just loved it.
This was up tempo, jazz rocky calypso music. yet again, what a difference a horn section makes! Only a two piece, trumpet or trombone and sax, but the way it pushes the song along just cannot be replicated by a guitar based band.
She was rude (funny rude), flirtatious, political, and just pure feisty.
We loved it and went away with a big smile on our faces. Just wished we had come across her when we went to Sunday School in Tobago a couple of years ago.
Many thanks, Calypso Rose, for a great evening.

Ade Edmondson: Bits of Me Are Falling Apart @Soho Theatre

Quickly becoming our favourite venue, two weeks after seeing Richard Gadd, we are back at the Soho Theatre to see Ade Edmonson perform a one man monologue lasting for a solid 60 minutes.
A bitter sweet story of a man looking back at his life following the separation with his partner and 2 year old son.
Touching performance by Ade showing that he has become an actor to be reckoned with. How he remembered that dialogue is beyond me.
Finally, a big mention for the inventive stage set, simple to a degree, but well used to illuminate the act that was evolving below.
Yet again, if you get a chance, go and see.

P J Harvey @ Brixton Academy, London

I will let the links below bear testament at what a great gig this was, but a few observations first.
I said to my partner about five songs into the set, its a Rock Opera for a Brave New World, with PJ Harvey playing the Pixie Queen with her nine musicians as her commanders.
Highly appropriate that on Halloween, they should be all dressed in black and only black and there was certainly a bit of the Gothic in the performance.
Finally, it was so good to hear a performance that was not driven along by the drummer. It featured percussion heavily, but not the constant bass drum thump, the zing zing of the hi hat, and the crashing of cymbals.
As one of the reviewers below said, PJ Harvey is a class act.

The Guardian  NME  FT  Telegraph