Like Gavin Creel I appear to be getting a bit behind...

A week ago, Owen and I finally saw one of the Princesses of 80s/90s Pop, Miss Belinda Carlisle. We had booked to see her a year or so ago at the Shaw Theatre but she chose to stay in that night and sort her hair out or have a deep pore cleanse or something - anything but appear on the Shaw stage. But when we arrived at the Jazz Cafe there was no hastily-scribbled BELINDA CAN'T BE ARSED messages on the door so in we went.

For once we were standing downstairs and after a while I remembered why we started sitting upstairs - as much as I like the Jazz Cafe it can get a bit claustrophobic when there are more than 12 people standing in front of the stage. Just as I was thinking how better it would be to have the stage at the end of the room as opposed to at the side... there she was, walking down the stairs to the stage.It was billed as An Acoustic Evening With... - *after*, I hasten to add, we had booked - so I was a bit nervous what we were going to be presented with, but I needn't have worried as her two guitarists, keyboard player and percussionist managed to make quite a row between them which fairly well duplicated the BIG sound that her best songs always had.

She was very Rive Gauche in her black long-sleeved top and black jeans and looked very trés chic especially with her auburn hair swinging away. She seemed very at ease and was nicely un-gushing.In a setlist that spanned her career from the Go-Gos to her most recent cover album of French songs so we were treated to RUNAWAY HORSES, SUMMER RAIN, VISION OF YOU, I GET WEAK, LA LUNA (her "La Isla Bonita" moment), CIRCLE IN THE SAND, MAD ABOUT YOU, EMOTIONAL HIGHWAY, VACATION, OUR LIPS ARE SEALED, BIG SCARY ANIMAL, LEAVE A LIGHT ON, BONNIE ET CLYDE and WE WANT THE SAME THING (I think!) and finally LIVE YOUR LIFE BE FREE, HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH and NE ME QUITTE PAS.

It was great hearing all these songs live after all these years and I would very much like to see her again, although I would prefer somewhere where I had a smidgen of personal space. She left the stage saying how it would be nice to come back soon and do all this again "maybe with some new songs" - I hope they are all uptempo pop classics, being an old pro at this she will know the slow new ones ALWAYS get the audience talking between themselves.

Now I need to blog about TWO theatre trips... Constant Reader, it's all go believe me.