Last night O and I went to a new venue for us, The Pigalle Club which is on Piccadilly Circus - for all it's pretensions it's still the old Cannon Cinema to me! By and large I preferred it to the other club we have been to recently - Too 2 Much - where the attitude of the staff was kinda off-putting but maybe that was because we, the non-eating Pigalle punters, were left to fend for ourselves apart from ordering drinks. The venue reminded me of the Jazz Cafe with the stage sideways on as you walk in and the low ceiling due to the seating upstairs. However the Pigalle stage and seating areas are on a lower level as you walk in so the only place to stand if you are there for the act only is by the bar which is furthest away from the stage or on a cramped ramped walkway facing the general dining area with the stage at your 2 o'clock. No I can't figure it out either. Allegedly it took 4 years to design this! We nabbed a place at the top of the ramp which was bad as it was so close to the bar area where punters of course didn't SHUT THE FUCK UP even when George came on but good as we had a clear view over onto the stage.

The support was Amanda Ghost who was resoundingly average - for a woman feted for co-writing the ubiquitous YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL with the Blunt none of the tracks she sang had anything even approaching a memorable musical phrase. As Owen suggested they all sounded like the album tracks you leave out of a live set! She also commited the cardinal sin of conducting a conversation with a member of the audience - a friend? - without including the rest of the audience into the gist.

Sister George bounced onto the stage with a fullish band and played a set which mostly boinged with Dancehall rhythm - interesting to see him embracing one of the earlier influences of Culture Club so vehemently. Opposed to when we saw him at Ronnie Scotts back in 2003 where a lot of his songs where a bit shapeless the current set featured a return to what he does best - writing great pop songs with great choruses. SHADOW-BOXING stood out particularly and indeed he said he was quite proud of it (there was also exquisite guitar from longtime collaborator John Themis). The opener CZECK was good too as was his ragga overhaul of GO YOUR OWN WAY! We were treated to EVERYTHING I OWN and CC's DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HURT ME and KARMA CHAMELEON which, as George's upper-register seemed shot to shit, we the audience duly filled in. He encored his hour-long set with the forthcoming single with La Ghost TIME MACHINE which actually sounded totally chartworthy. Oh and we got a short spiritual in tribute to the fact that Kylie was in the audience. Sadly this last fact appears to be the only coverage the gig received in the press today. He seemed in fine if somewhat subdued mood. Maybe he was thinking of the crash 'n' burn documentary that was on Channel Four at exactly the same time?