I love Blackpool. It has a distinct faint smell of Playdough. It's weird, as a child I hated Blackpool. It was dull, wet, rainy, boring and most definitely not cool - unless you were talking about the temperature.
The Winter Gardens, Empress Ballroom is fast becoming a favourite venue of mine for gigs. I've seen Bloc Party there, the Flaming Lips and last Thursday night, Bjork.
Now I was a fan of Bjork from her Sugarcubes days - at least, I knew a few of their sings. And Debut was a great album, with Human Behaviour still a favourite song of mine. But in recent years I've gone off the Icelandic pixie, around about the time she had that huge black woman from Skunk Anansie join in.
That changed last year when I saw Bjork at Glastonbury, and really enjoyed her show. Have I been selling her short all these years? Perhaps. So I thought it time to give her a second chance.
The Empress Ballroom is a great venue. With its tall ornate ceiling and Blackpool charm. Almost any show could be impressive here, and in recent years I've come to enjoy bands I've never heard of play live. And that's about all I can expect from this gigs. I've listened to Bjork's new album, but liked it very little. That said, there were some classics she played. But perhaps not the ones I would have chosen.
Bjork jumped around on stage like some demented, über-techno Icelandic fairy queen. Whilst her brass band "wonderbrass" danced to their own beat. With some fantastic light shows and a few pyrotechnic flares, the show was just passable as enjoyment. But not what I expected.
Come on Bjork, we now you have to whore out your new material but please through a few more classics.
