I have been working for the past five days at the old job in Borehamwood while the boss was away en vacance so what better way to celebrate my last day - I have had so many with that company - than happily being Owen's +1 for Marianne Faithfull's secret gig at St. Luke's Church in Old Street. He won them in a MySpace competition.

The last time I saw her in concert was in 2005! Her successful battle against breast cancer and her rest cure during 2008 means she has played only a handful of dates in Europe so it was good to see her again. She looks great, slimmed-down and in good voice.

The gig itself was being filmed by the BBC so that, combined with this being the first live airing of the songs from her new EASY COME, EASY GO covers album, cast a somewhat jittery atmosphere with several missed cues for her and the band, and indeed two songs had to be filmed again at the end of the gig.

I had fears when the first screw-up occurred that the night might descend into the debacle that was her 2002 Barbican Hall gig when the sound went wrong at the start which threw her completely and from which she never really recovered but she pulled it together tonight by her innate charm and several glares at members of the band. The band actually sounded great - a wonderful full sound - but sometimes to the detriment to Marianne's vocals.
We were treated to some old favourites sprinkled among the new tracks: TIMES SQUARE, THE BALLAD OF LUCY JORDAN, BROKEN ENGLISH, SISTER MORPHINE (twice!), WHY D'YA DO IT, CRAZY LOVE and a fab version of AS TEARS GO BY with the 1960s pop arrangement which sounded great.

Among the new ones I recognised Morrissey's DEAR GOD PLEASE HELP ME (of all the Moz songs she had to cover this one?), Bessie Smith's EASY COME EASY GO BLUES (great) and Billie Holliday's SOLITUDE (a bit unfocussed).Checking the album's tracklist - it's not released here until next month - I reconize Dolly Parton's DOWN FROM DOVER (very good), Neko Case's HOLD ON HOLD ON (played it twice and both times I couldn't hear her for the band!), Randy Newman's IN GERMANY BEFORE THE WAR (excellent - especially with the band's Kit Kat Orchestra MACK THE KNIFE intro), Merle Haggard's SING ME BACK HOME (very effective) and Jackson C. Frank's KIMBIE (ok). I am looking forward to hearing the album proper.

Marianne arrounced she will be at the Festival Hall in July so that is definitely going to be booked as soon as. Oh and speaking of shows being booked...

I think a reason I wasn't absolutely blown away by tonight was the total bollocks of getting into the church. Our names were on a guestlist held by posh Andrew who is now part of Online Team Marianne. We got there just after six we were told to get there a bit early for the 6.30 doors open as these things are always over-subscribed. We joined the small queue and waited. And waited. And waited. A woman appeared asking for critics and record company guest list people to queue separately. And we waited. And we waited. We finally got in at 7.15 and were shunted quickly up to the balcony, no doubt in case we came into contact with any of the beknighted people on the other guest list.

Bearing that in mind, when I got home Owen called, alerting me that a certain group that I am a paying fan club member of had announced a gig which was going onsale on Friday. And that their was an exclusive pre-sale on Thursday. How exclusive? It is e-mailed out to the promotor's e-mail list and the pre-sale is linked to on the groups website. Gee, that's exclusive.

So you pay to join this fan club thing and get no advance warning of gigs and you get tickets as a fan to gigs where the organizers leave you queuing for hours and then shunt you like so much condemned veal to your designated 'area'.

Now say what you like about Madonna but at least the Icon fan group has a designated pre-sale three days before the general onsale starts and long-term members *bows* are even given a few hours headstart before the rest of the membership.

I'll still be there tomorrow of course, left to my own devices pressing the 'refresh' button at 11.59am, to get the pre-sale tickets but I still think it's a lousy way of rewarding support.