War of the Worlds

In spite of my blue fingers I thoroughly enjoyed the concert on Friday night. We're very lucky here in Birmingham - we have four theatres, a concert hall, a symphony hall and an arena in the city centre, and another arena a few miles away near the airport, so the list of bands, acts etc that come here is very extensive. So far this year we've already seen Cirque du Soleil, the Austrialian Pink Floyd show, the Blue Man Group, and Jean Michel Jarre.

On Friday it was the turn of the live version of Jeff Wayne's 'War of the Worlds', and it was pretty amazing. Wayne himself conducted the orchestra and rock band that provided the music, while two of the original performers, Justin Hayward and Chris Thompson, reprised their roles. Apart from a few minor glitches the overall standard was extremely high, and it can't be many concerts that have a Martian tripod descending onto the stage and sending heat rays out across the audience! Great fun, and the place was packed to the rafters. So much so it took us half an hour to get out of the car park afterwards...