Come back!  There are no real spoilers for Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows herein, I promise.  Although the next time someone bumps into me in a tube station because they have their head down and aren’t looking where they are going, being far too engrossed in the wizardly antics of Hermione, Thorin, Gandalf and whoever else is in the bloody thing, I’m quite tempted to let slip some wicked disinformation (”Didn’t you feel cheated when you found out that the whole thing is just a dream?”, that kind of thing).  Before the gig yesterday I met Mandrew at Kings Cross station, as he had to take some photos of Platform 9.75 to show to his excitable students back in Japan.  Nothing more to it than that, honest.

So, two James Blackshaw reviews in one day?  Is he worth it?  (Ha ha ha, I’ve just reminded myself of something I saw at the Great British Beer Festival the other day: rotund man with a “L’Real Ale - because I’m worth it t-shirt”, ugh.  Mind you, one thing that I can say for it: being in the same room as a load of fat men is rather slimming).  Back on topic now - yes he is.  He played two long twelve string pieces tonight, one brand new one, and one older one  - nothing off the wonderful new record then.  While much of the set induced blissful reverie (indeed, a very tired Monkeyman nearly drifted off to sleep on the sofa next to me), the latter picked up speed with some sections of very lively fingering on a couple of occasions.  It was far too short, I could listen to this man play guitar for hours.

PG Six had half as many strings, was about half as good, and played for twice as long.  No, that’s not fair at all; although anyone’s guitar playing would suffer in comparison to Blackshaw’s, I was really getting into his  tales of small-town Americana by the end.  I particularly enjoyed “Bless These Blues”, which by his own admission would have sounded better with Al Green singing it (but then again, wouldn’t most things?). 

This was the first In The Pines promotion I can remember having been too.  It is definitely a site worth bookmarking, especially if they do any more gigs in this cute little venue next to what, with the pending opening of St Pancras for hot Eurostar on track action, is likely to no longer be the holder of the title of “Europe’s biggest building site”.