I have recently been involved in an alphabetical jaunt around some of the cuisine in London which prompted an alphabetical discussion of films. By prompted, I mean I asked.
Can you name a film that you like for each letter of the alphabet? The idea is to do it quickly so that you do not just think of classics but more the first thing to enter your mind.
Here is A-M for me (more foreign language films than I initially expected):
I tried to find a trailer for each and a link to a relevant page (not just imdb all the time!)
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”
“The few”. Who knows the few and why has anyone even heard of them? The reason the few were able to have even an opportunity to defeat the many is the advantage of speed – speed of response. And the ability to respond is improved if you can react before the act – to preact.[1] if you will
Bletchley Park is to be found, not surprisingly, in Bletchley (which is near Milton Keynes) and is considered to be the home of the UK's military intelligence during the Second World War. It has recently been made into a museum so that everyone can get a sense of the genius and toil that took place here.
Bletchley is fairly easy to get to from London and there is a direct train from Euston amongst other places. The park is very near the train station and is not more than 5 mins to the entrance. Bletchley Park was a country home for a stockbroker before it became the home to the military intelligence and was so chosen as it was so close to the train line .[2]. As a result, it is basically a mansion/stately home in landscaped grounds and so is quite a pleasant location (with weather that plays along, anyway).
The entry fee (£15, but also valid for 2 for 1 offer with National Rail when I went) gives entry for one year which is not too bad at all. This seems to be more and more common for paid museums and I definitely approve as it feels good value even though I imagine the percentage of people that return is vanishingly small.
After getting the tickets, we were guided to the multimedia guide area where a man gave out, with appropriate deposit, touchscreen devices and headphones[3] to access multimedia whilst on the grounds. From here, we were directed to where we could book a tour guide which was much more to my liking - so a "45 minute" tour was booked (included in price).
The tour guide was excellent and impressed on us the importance of the work performed and also gave a real sense of what it would have been like with a number of anecdotes. He also seemed to really make great play of how feminine the park would have been with many mentions of the important role women played in keeping the operation smooth and clear. It felt like the tour guide himself enjoyed giving the tour and it ran on for well over an hour. An enjoyable overrun.
Once the tour was over, we were left to our own devices which was quite good. The tour guide actually suggested that we try another tour at some time (using the annual pass) and also to return when the new block is finished which sounded pretty good. Walking around the park, there are a number of other blocks and exhibits that were not part of the tour which were great. A particularly large building (BLOCK B) showed a bit more about how the enigma code was broken and explained what other kinds of spying was taking place.
Next to the Bletchley Park exhibitions, there is also the The National Museum of Computing which is separate but loosely connected as programmable computing was somewhat connected to Turing. Oh, Turing? He was the person that helped decipher the enigma code at a worthwhile speed and is often called the father of computing, and it is essentially his work (with the help of others) that is shown here.
The National Museum of Computing is a separate museum (with separate charge) and I only went to the Colossus room, which is a recreation of the first computer - appropriately named. Again, it is a fairly small exhibit (outside of the size of the machine itself) but is improved markedly by having a human guide to talk you through the story. I found it very interesting and enjoyed it a lot. I would imagine the museum itself would also be very good.
Returning to the Bletchley Park museum again, there were some more informative exhibits in the grounds including a garage and post office. The park was fairly busy by this time and it was nice to see so many people taking an interest in the subject matter.
I would recommend a trip to the park as it is a well-presented museum with a lot of interesting back story. Without the tours, however, I can imagine that it would feel a little empty so make sure that you get on a guided tour. Everyone is given a "multimedia guide" but I really do not like these, conceptually, as it can sometimes feel like looking at a website in another place. I think there is probably a good way of using them and maybe it would work better if you look through the multimedia guide before actually walking around. I found it quite disconnected and so did not look at much of the "media" (and the control method is not to my taste anyway[3]) but the people I was with seemed to enjoy it and walking around, lots of people were peering at them as they walked.
1. Yeah, this is a made up word but I think it works pretty well. English is adaptable – prefix and root.↩
2. It was chosen by the military for its good links to the universities of Cambridge and Oxford as well as London. It was also not too close to London to be a target in of itself.↩
3. As it happens, these were ipod touch players with on ear headphones. I find iOS a little annoying to use without a "back" key and there did not appear to be hardware volume control which is actually really bad design for this type of use.↩
When something happens in your life, how accurately can you remember it? We think we can, but apparently not that well. How about when something happens in someone else’s life - that we remember less well and then we also imagine all kinds of thoughts and emotions that they were having at the time. Accurate or not, that is the basis of our justice system.
Confessions is a Japanese film by Tetsuya Nakashima starring Takako Matsu as a teacher that decides revenge is in order. Revenge for (as she sees it) the murder of her young daughter at the hands of two of her students.
The film starts with a scene in a classroom full of unruly teenagers (and unruly teenagers is not our image of the Japanese schooling[1] system) with the class teacher giving her class notice of the fact that she will leave. Her reason for leaving is that she has had enough and cannot handle working in a class where she feels that her child’s murderers are able to be without a hint of punishment or remorse - something she blames on the legal protection that minors have within society[2]. As the law will not protect society, she has decided that she will - and her method is to contaminate the milk of the two students with blood. The blood of a man with AIDS. This should not give a short life, but it will cause their deaths (she said) and give them plenty of time to reflect and show remorse. Will she get her revenge or will the children win out?
As I hope the pictures should show, the film has quite a distinctive style to it and is beautifully shot and lit. Visually, it is very clean and almost "architectural" in the simple, clean visions it shows. The shots will often be shot perpendicular to the action and with a clear framing which reminds me a little of Wes Anderson. There is also quite a lot of slow motion and the lighting, which is often unnatural, can sometimes make it look like a music video - but an excellent music video. In fact, the soundtrack is pretty interesting in itself with songs by Radiohead, The XX and Boris all very well cued in.
The structure of the story is non-linear but it does not jump about all over the place following a path with diversions - the start is the start (by and large) and the end is the end. This makes it easy enough to follow the narrative but there is enough verve within the story to keep it interesting. In terms of the "diversions", sometimes they will show the same scene from the point of view and then what you see is slightly different depending on how that person either saw it or felt it, which is kind of similar to the mid-90s classic "The Usual Suspects"[3].
The themes approached throughout the film are consistently well-developed and thought through with the vengeful teacher able to wreak much of her revenge from the sidelines just harnessing the peer pressure and bullying at any school. The two main suspects have different motivations and there are strong hints as to what made them turn that way with family life and pressure shown to be quite important. One of the characters is driven to have his genius recognised - the other just to be recognised at all. The themes involved in the film really do stretch out with a hugely relevant question about how adults should treat children - and in fact when they cease to be children.
The film is excellent with a great concept and "in" to the film with the compelling resignation speech setting the rest of the film up expertly. It looks great and sounds great so it really does tick the boxes of visuals, sound, story and thoughtfulness. I would highly recommend this film to pretty much anyone that can handle the themes.
Here's the trailer but you really should just watch the film.
1. As I have mentioned before, the school age is regularly used in the Japanese film world in recent years.↩ 2. I think you are meant to sympathise with the teacher throughout and that this comment on the legal protection is to have audience support - but it should be noted that anti-social crime is relatively low in Japan and also in other countries that have this type of protection as re-offending seems to be checked.↩ 3. Or, more pertinently, Rashomon of course. I think this footnote is, by referencing a famous foreign film but linked to a better known Hollywood film, essentially having your cake and eating it. Rather than having it and just admiring it which is what you do with cake apparently.↩
When I played Thomas Was Alone (which is also about the characters of AI), it made me think of the nature of a character within games and how they are built up. In many ways, any character in the real world is actually imaginary as we all use our imaginations to fill in the gaps for people we know, don’t we? We imagine their thoughts and motivations and that means we all have differing opinions about the same person. So where we are interacting with this image of a person, does that need to be with an actual person or will an AI be sufficient? The “Turing Test”[1] is a clear indication of when we think a computer has become “human” enough to fool another human and although there should be uncanny valley[2] issues, it should be possible, shouldn't it?
In “Her” (directed by Spike Jonze) there is a man that is seeking a relationship of sorts whilst in the later stages of a divorce.
Theodore (played by Joaquin Phoenix) has a job as a letter writer for a company providing the handwritten notes and declarations of love that people want to give but cannot provide themselves[3]. As it happens, Theodore is also going through a divorce and so is suffering some emotional difficulties too but this appears not to affect the quality of his letters[4]. It does appear to affect the quality of his life an he mopes around feeling lonely - lonely enough to indulge in some phone sex with a stranger.
The launch of a new Operating System is heralded whereby an AI controls your computer (and phone) and Theodore decides to install it. The OS is set up to work for you, more as a PA than a simple OS and so Theodore sets it up as he pleases - with a female voice (provided by Scarlett Johansson) of course. The idea behind the OS is that it will adapt to the user and provide support as and when he needs it and work out whether he should be disturbed for the information. A little like a PA/secretary of yore and there is a long tradition of men falling for their PAs, isn't there? As OS1 is an adaptive artificial intelligence, it also grows over time and "evolves" towards a higher plane of consciousness. As Theodore comes closer to his OS, and moves towards describing her as his girlfriend, the question to be asked is: "Can you be intimate with the inanimate"[5]?
The theme of isolation in numbers is quite strong within the film and shows the strange paradox of dense, urban loneliness quite well. And those relationships being replaced with the almost transactional nature of socialising is shown before the OS1 system is even unveiled. The fact that the job of a letter writer is even required is a little sad in many ways but does show the trend of seeing social interaction as a commodity to be bought and sold as with any other commodity. It (social exchange) is not necessarily any different but I do think it can be a little harder to price. And indeed cost. The phone sex that Theodore indulges in (and available on demand suggesting an "efficient marketplace" in matching supply with demand) is used to show that any “new” medium can have these similarities and, historically we would all have found the notion of being able to get to know people without seeing them as fanciful and ridiculous. I quite liked this piece of foreshadowing as I really do not think many people realise their inconsistencies when it comes to technology. The urban lifestyle shown is a little idealised but it does show a lot of people walking along as individuals and this is something that almost any commuter will recognise. I still remember a few years ago being the only person with headphones on a tube and the only person looking at a screen when travelling - how times change. The pervasiveness of technology is almost unquestioned and when Theodore explains about his new girlfriend, very few people question it and there is this thread underneath about this being increasingly common. The first time anybody questions Theodore about it is his ex-wife when she asks him if he is seeing anyone else. She is a little shocked and taken aback at her replacement by an AI and I think this is understandable although the nature of their relationship breakdown is not explicitly discussed. Feeling that you can be replaced by a lesser being must be a bit strange and although logically, it should make her feel more confident (in that he could not fall for someone that was even the same species as her), it does kind of bite at you. I guess the idea that an adaptive AI was what he needed must make her feel like she has wasted her time a bit.
Jonze is a pretty accomplished director and so the technical aspects of the film are pretty sound - even if they are not necessarily to my liking. The visuals are very pleasant - and this is what is not always to my liking. It is a very smooth look and reminds me of tech (or consumer electronics) adverts - especially with the kind of soft focus that seems used throughout. The lighting throughout is very "sunsetty" with an almost contrived look throughout - you do not see much weather variation and outdoor scenes seem to be close to sunset or sunrise unless dark (and clear) outside. The indoor lighting is also similarly advertesque and is highly planned - it felt a little too presentable for me. On top of that there seemed to be a shallow depth of field[6] which made it really personalised which makes sense as often there was only one person on screen - interacting with a voice in his head. In conjunction with the soundtrack by Arcade Fire, it felt like watching a long advert for an Amazon Kindle with people walking along a beach reading/"interacting" with their device. Ironically, this really reminds me of children playing as before reaching a certain age, toddlers play by themselves but in the shared space of others rather than with each other. I have to say that I did not really like the look that much.
I find judging the film separately from the idea quite tricky in this case - it is clearly a massive part of it and Jonze has done pretty well for a film that is often, visually, a monologue. But, ultimately, I found the second character in this film very annoying and I could not get away from that. Scarlett Johansson, (even apart from her real life interests in money over justice) just has quite an annoying voice and her character is also pretty irritating. By the act of finding her attractive, I felt a little sorry for Theodore - it seemed pretty pathetic (as I assume it is partially meant to be) but the utilitarian nature of their relationship is so clear from the outset that I just found it quite hard to take. Unless he was in a position of weakness - which of course he was.
I did kind of enjoy the film but I felt it could have been much better and the questions posed in the film have been dealt with much better in my opinion. Charlie Brooker touched on it in a Black Mirror episode and I recently heard a radio play called Billions which was better and more thought-provoking. Her is, of course, a lot more mainstream than either of those and that may explain it.
I wonder if this is a vision of our "connected" futures - essentially, everyone is playing a one player game in a massively multi-player world. I do sort of hope not at the moment, but that may be the next stage of prejudice to fight.
1. Named after the recently increasingly famous Alan Turing [link].↩
2. In computer graphics, this is the difficulty of making 3-D models of humans as we are so used to seeing them, even very slight variances can completely break the façade.↩
3. It is not clear on what basis this service exists but I think there is an interesting idea in this as to whether it is due to the inability to write (at all, or well) or the lack of time.↩
4. The office Theodore works in is the classic American cubicle style variant but a little more open. Everyone still clearly has their own space but it is a slightly airier version than that usually depicted. I don’t think it compares favourably with the kind of open-plan offices I am used to though, from a social point of view.↩
5. There is a relatively well know Nintendo DS game called Love Plus which has gained some popularity in Japan and notoriety elsewhere with its virtual girlfriend status so the answer appears to be yes...↩
6. This is a fairly common technique in photos where the item to be isolated is sharply in focus and the background is blurry.↩
Colorful is a somewhat deceitfully named animation by Keichi Hara that was the opening film of the "East Side Stories" touring film programme by the Japan Foundation (London)[1]
. The festival screening schedule is quite nice as it seems to showcase films that have not had wider releases[2]
outside of Japan which is the kind of thing that JPF should be trying to do and for that I applaud them (not literally, unless I am at a screening or talk or something).
Animation may not seem the most appropriate medium for stories about suicide - often used as a way of showing the fripperies of fantasy and being a cheaper way of creating outlandish stories and worlds. "Colorful"[3]
starts off in an otherworld - some kind of limbo for souls where faceless and almost formless beings trudge towards a door. The door would transport them (via train, naturally) to the next stage of life as the almost formless beings are souls without bodies. In fact the viewer is actually a soul as the film starts in a first person perspective which always reminds me of games[4] and only switches to a more conventional 3rd person after a rather neat story transition. A small, silver-haired boy greets you before you go to the train to explain that you have, through dint of chance, been partially redeemed as a soul and will get the opportunity to drop into the life of another person (a little like Quantum Leap) to help you learn from your own mistakes. The boy, Purapura, acts as a guide when he sees fit so he might give a few background details but not all. Is he an angel? Even he does not seem sure.
You then find yourself in a hospital bed with your "parents" crying at your dead body as you regain consciousness - the first thing you ask for? A mirror of course.
After that, Makoto, for that is the body now inhabited, is dropped into the family life quite excitedly - he has been resurrected after all. He returns to special meals and talkative parents, everything seemingly fine. Makoto wonders why the boy whose body he know inhabits would have committed suicide if everything was fine. That must mean that everything wasn't fine.
After the first meal, Purapura returns to provide a little more information (initially to explain the house's layout, and where Makoto's room is, for instance) about the situation. Makoto committed suicide a day after seeing something, what was that and why did it cause such a large reaction? After this point, the thrust of the story is that of a "mystery" of finding why.
As the film progresses, some of the issues that are under the surface unravel and you learn a lot about the family and, more importantly the family interactions. I think it is fair to say that some are a little culturally specific (well the manifestations are - or maybe just seem different cos they have a name) but most are quite universal.
Makoto's homelife was quite difficult for him but he was quite safe there unlike in his school. Ranked 32 in his class of 32, he was not bullied for being clever (or stupid, in fact), he was just bullied. Being beaten and mocked throughout his time when new Makoto walks in and talks, it is quite the revelation. This is something that is shown a few times, how acting in an apparently normal way - interacting with those around him, there is a lot of surprise. Makoto was also a bit of an artist and was a member of the art club so he would go after school and paint (tortured artists maybe?) but he still had no actual friends there - but there was one girl who took an interest in him. And another girl he took an interest in. The story does not play out as any kind of love triangle but it is quite a neat way to introduce some of the ideas of not always comprehending that other people do comprehend you - and others do not.
There are quite a lot of social issues brought up with the relatively small number of characters along with the aforementioned bullying such as extra-marital affairs, "compensated dating[5]", exam pressure, salaryman lifestyles, sacrifice and of course suicide itself amongst other things. Without wanting to give too much of it away, I won't go into details but it is a fairly dense slice of life depicted. And once those problems remount, Makoto returns to a feeling of depression. The melancholy atmosphere is captured very well and reminded me a lot of Melancholia (2011 film by Lars Von Trier) which is a stark and brilliant depiction of the sadness behind someone's eyes.
The film is not all sad, and Makoto does make some progress towards redemption - a friendship with a classmate, Saotome. I felt that this was also very well realised as they bump into each other in the street and follow the trail of an abandoned (and pretty short) tram line. As they walk along, the excitement of Saotome is clearly infectious for both Makoto and the audience and it really seemed to capture that mixture of nostalgia and imagined sentimentality that comes with retracing footsteps. And the friendship that results is also shown throughout as a simple, and beautiful, one.
As a film, I found it hugely entertaining (I am not sure "enjoyable" is appropriate with the subject matter) and with a strong moral throughout. It is a relatively simple film but it is expertly crafted with real thought into how the characters fit together into the puzzle of the plot and lovely details throughout. I would highly recommend that you watch it if you get the chance. As I said, it does not seem to have wide distribution that it deserves so you really should take the chance if it arises. Somehow...
Trailer here:
1. I went to see this at the ICA which is a nice venue that few seem aware of. The cinema is not too bad but in this case, I was disappointed at the poor projection. As the film started, the panning was very jerky, though I am aware this is something I notice more than a lot of other people (annoyingly, considering my general eye problems). It also seemed to be at a fairly low resolution and low bitrate in places. It was a very good-looking film in general (not in a showy way at all though) so it was a bit of a shame that those details were not dealt with. I really would expect better from ICA as they are not a purely commercial venture.
There was also a Director's Q&A after the event which was interesting as he described some of the production details and the basis for adapting the novel.↩ 2. In terms of worldwide distribution, I think a lot of Japanese cinema has hit a bit of a brick wall and it is hard to sell film outside of "type". I was struck, when I initially went to Japan, that the Japanese films that I had seen had not been seen by that many Japanese people I met. The more "extreme" end of the market is not very big in Japan, as it is not here, but it has become almost synonymous with the cinema of the country. Similarly, anime, which is a pretty broad medium in reality, has a relatively fixed market outside Japan and so it can be difficult to get traction for these kinds of films. Contemplative films don't necessarily travel well, but would guess this would distribute easier if it were French, say. I guess in the same way French horror does not get talked about much.↩
3. We all know the word is not spelt like this but the film is titled such.↩ 4. The way that the scene itself plays reminded me a lot of the "Ace Attorney" series of games which are essentially adventure/mystery games where you often get talking heads over the top of hand-drawn backgrounds.↩ 5. Enjo-kōsai (援助交際) means "compensated dating" and is the act of dating whereby there is some form of "payment" which could be in the form of gifts or cold, hard cash. There has been a long term furore in Japan about this and often involves middle aged men compensating school girls - this seems to be the most common depiction of it though I cannot be sure it is the most common in actuality.↩
I think I want to get this out of the way: This film is long at almost 4 hours. I would guess that it is better to watch in one sitting but that length may make it tricky. That I did watch it in one sitting[1] is testament to how interesting I found it - but interesting is not necessarily the same as good.
"Chapters". That is one way of breaking a film up and making it manageable and that is what a film like "Love Exposure" needed. Shion Sono is not an idiot so he put them in. The first three chapters are exposition chapters for the three main characters - all 17 year old students.
Yuu [Takahiro Nishijima]: The son of a "father" - a priest. Christianity is not that common in Japan but being at the head of a Christian community brings pressure for Yu's father and, after his wife's passing, he sees sin everywhere. He asks his son to confess but Yu has done little wrong - and so his sin is being unaware if his sins (which is more than a little recursive). Later Yu gives tenuous sins, and then lies for larger ones but his father sees through this until he is pushed into actual sinning. In a roundabout fashion, this leads to Yu heading up a team of guys that take upskirt photos of schoolgirls. Non-consensual ones. Mechanically non-consensual.
Yoko[Hikari Mitsushima]: A schoolgirl that ends up in Yu's class at school and also, bizarrely, in his house. Due to her upbringing, she has grown to hate all men (with the honourable exception of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain) and so hates Yu[2] too.
Koike[Sakura Ando]: Another schoolgirl that ends up in Yu's class that is somewhat taken by him for reasons that are not too clear - they first meet when she spots him taking photos of her pants... In her spare time, she is also a member of Zero Church and, impressed with Yu's earnest photography, she thinks that she can bring him in to the church.
The three first chapters all end at the same point in the street where they all meet and then brought together throughout the rest of the film. And what a "rest of the film" it is as it veers through and around topics scattered around like confetti.
It is pretty difficult to describe Ai no Muikidashi without making it sound truly nonsensical because it actually is nonsensical. Nonsensical, incoherent, uneven and occasionally melodramatic. The motivations for the characters do not really make sense, the atmosphere flits between slapstick, sombre, sweet and silly throughout - and not even scene by scene but within scenes. Yet, these are all positive things for the film and the mark of brilliance is that all these elements come together to make something that is far greater than those constituent parts. In some respects, this is like a Rovian[3] film. The uneven nature of the film lends strength to the slapstick and, inexplicably, weight to the drama. A biblical recital of Corinthians 13 (in Japanese) is expertly done with real emotion and urgency within the film. Without the film, it would be hammy and stupid. The incoherence is totally coherent within the film.
I know that the film's length will put a lot of people off, I did not watch it for a few years because of it, but the pace is quite high and it is consistently interesting enough to keep your attention. There are enough ideas to fill the time and the plumber/kitchen-sink approach is cleverly pulled off. Normally, I do not like saying too much about a film's story as it "spoils" it but with Love Exposure, I am just not sure where to start.
I would suggest you start at the beginning and see where it takes you. Probably to the end with a smile on your face.
Trailer here:
1. I rarely seem to watch films in one sitting and usually find any film that is markedly over two hours to be quite a chore. I initially planned to watch Ai no Mukidashi as two 2 hour films over two evenings.↩ 2. Phonetically, this is a good way of remembering the spelling of the present UK Chancellor. It is spelled "Osborne" because he hates "u".↩ 3. Karl Rove's electioneering strategy, copied by right wingers the world over, is to, counter-intuitively, make the opposition's strengths their greatest weakness.↩
2013 has been an interesting mix of rubbish and excellence - often at the same time. These are my favourite things of the year within music, film and games, though some may have been released at other times. There are many reasons that could be given but this is a subjective choice and so could be very different had things had happened at a different time. But you all know that, right?
Thomas Was Alone (Original review)
This was released on Playstation plus as an included (free) game but I think I'd have bought it anyway. As part of cross-buy, the PS3 or PSV versions were accessible. I was very taken by this in a way that reminded me of my youth - though it is a short game.
Gaming is a simple feeling of control and the simplicity of control can strengthen that feeling. Platformers, 2D platformers especially, do feel as if they are from a different age and they can still captivate. The coherence of the concept is what kept me in it but what drew me in was the atmosphere. The graphics are simple, the sound is simple and the game is easy,but the easiest thing of all is the easy charm of the characters. The characters are wonderfully rounded with narration from Danny Wallace and he gives them all a sense of purpose within the world that you want to help them with. And, yes, they are "them" rather than "you".
Helter Skelter (Original review)
Deconstruction and destruction are quite different things but I felt this had both. It won't be to everyone's taste, of that I am fairly certain. It is pretty kitsch, ridiculous and nonsensical but who doesn't like that? Beautiful, quick and melodramatic - the ideal woman. Possibly?
Ufabulum
I probably listened to the album Entertainment by Sekai No Owari the most this year (original review) but not sure it ended up being my favourite musical thing of the year (maybe my favourite interview though). One of two albums that I remember really connecting with me after hearing them live. The concert for this was at the Roundhouse but I actually had booked and then cancelled an earlier performance in 2012 due to a wedding. The wedding was great fun so I don't regret that one but I was fortunate to get a chance to go again. Squarepusher is an acquired taste, no doubt, but seemingly each time he releases something, I think "this is the most accessible thing he's done". As was the case for this.
The concert started with a little tenderising massage as the sound system flexed the bass it could produce as almost a sine wave for about 5 minutes. It was bizarre and brilliant. After that, the man on stage with lights for eyes played through the album, track for track with an amazing light show to match. It was great and there is something hugely satisfying about knowing what is going to play next as each song goes on. He then ended with a classic version of A Journey to Reedham (7AM Mix) which was unexpected. A great gig that made me think it was great album.
