People seem to want to treat Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings like some second coming, as if it’s the closest – in this lifetime – they’ll get to seeing Aretha or Ella or Etta or whatever…and no, she’s not that great. I come and go with Sharon Jones really, can’t be bothered much at all with some of her albums and then other times I’m nicely surprised. But this was a good gig. A very good gig. Yes, it was a bit of a too-slick operation, when you think about it after. The band all plastic-soul revue – but still good, and so much better than that wailing buffoon, Charles Bradley – Gah!

This was a good gig. It was also the first time I collected tickets under the pseudonym Art Vandelay – not my doing, just the crazy whim of a crazy promoter/publicist-guy. Funny though. Art Vandelay seemed to have a lot of sway as I recall – there were four tickets under his name that night, where Simon Sweetman can hardly even buy one these days!
Stubs is an occasional feature here at Off The Tracks – looking back through the ticket-stub box and remembering how the show went down.