If We Are Together Again, Surely This'll Never End

At long last - and by long I mean 12 years, I finally got to see my favourite band live. The venue was the Birmingham Academy, the same venue as The Feeling just two weeks ago. Back then I posted that The Feeling are challenging Dodgy to title of 'Smeg's Favourite Band' but seeing Dodgy live utterly confirmed that The Feeling are no where near.

Dodgy lacked the amazing light show, they lacked the leaping across the stage. In fact they just stood their with roughly 5 different coloured lights but they dominated the stage and held your attention in a far more powerful way. They simply let their talents shine through and Dodgy have buckets of it.

For the last few weeks its odd but I've discovered that Dodgy are the biggest band no one as ever heard of. Weird to think that back in the Summer of '96 they were huge. Still, sing a few bars of Good Enough to those who'd 'never heard of them' and a glimmer of recognition would spring to life in their eyes. It was reassuring to find that on Tuesday I was in the comapany of 300 others who had not only heard of The Dodge but, like me, loved 'em too.

Oddly though it wasn't the anthems, Good Enough & Staying Out For The Summer that got me going on Tues, it was the album tracks, UKRIP, Grassman, Longlife (a stunning rendition of that!), Melodies Haunt You, oh I could go on but I was so, so happy.

I contemplated this, I've seen a lot of bands live, Kylie, Scissor Sisters, George Michael, Feeling, Kaiser Chiefs, Basement Jaxx, Robbie, Bowie, Coors, Bush, Eurythmics, Stereophonics, Catatonia etc but Tuesday was something special, it was more personal. Obviously it was an intimate gig but Dodgy are the one band I've grown up listening to and listening to.

It was worth the wait. So Nigel, Andy, Matt & Richard thanks - not only for a stunning gig but for the gift of your music for all these years.