Ready For This? Reading.

When I booked tickets in February I asked to sit close to the front and to the left of centre. I had a mild panic when I discovered my tickets were positioned in the front row and right in front of the microphone stand. I walked out and swapped my front row ticket for a balcony seat with a friend. I don't think i've ever sat that far back before, but I really enjoyed the view (however, I did miss being able to see his facial expressions).

The first half was a pretty standard set and I loved that he put the high handed piano hits in Prejudice; I haven't seen him do that in a while.

The second half was one of the best i've seen. His bear, Chris, was studying Classical and had a long fringe which covered his eyes when he put on the head. Tim took great pleasure in making sure that he could see (poking his fingers into the eye holes and pushing his "emo hair" to the side) and even asked the stage hands for scissors at one point (although, he didn't actually end up cutting his hair).

Chris was a very enthusiastic bear and Tim had to grab him and sit him back down at one stage as he started dancing too soon. When it was the right time to get up and dance, he gave it his all and pulled some pretty "interesting" moves (the bear head must have felt like it was falling off as he danced while holding it firmly in place the entire time).

If You Really Loved Me blew me away; those piano solos are absolutley brilliant. At one point in the song Tim's hands are hitting the ivory so fast all I could see was a blur.

There was a new backing track for Storm tonight (a live jazz band recording) and it seemed to add a whole other dimension to Minchin's beat poem about rational thinking.

Before the encore Tim ad-libbed a couple of songs. "There are big socks in all the shops" was sung as he tried to justify singing White Wine In The Sun (the Christmas song). He then went on to sing about the venue "we're rockin' in a hexegon as it's so much better then rockin' in a square" (or something to that effect) before finally launching into his stunning festive ballad.

A thought.

When your friends are sad it brings your mood down too.