I have been a right gad-about recently Constant Reader!

Last Thursday Owen escorted me northwards to his hometown of Newcastle so we could see Buffy Sainte-Marie at The Sage in Gateshead. See.. I thought it was in Newcastle but no... cross any of the 725 bridges crossing the Tyne and you are in Gateshead! Endless fun.

The Sage is an odd old thing... designed by Norman Foster, the building is hardly organic to it's surroundings and looks like it was modelled on a collapsed loin of Pork. However, it appears to be popular and it's two auditoria stage a mixture of classical, folk and pop concerts.

We were staying at the nearby Hilton and as night fell on the city and the river, we had pre-concert drinks with O's brother and wife. Yes, finally meeting the in-laws, and it wasn't half as traumatic as I was expecting! We then high-tailed it over to the lozenge-shaped Hall One of The Sage for herself... Buffy Sainte-Marie.Buffy was indulging her UK fans with a mini-tour supporting the release last year of her new cd RUNNING FOR THE DRUM. She was backed by a band of three Native American musicians who go by the rather dodgy name of Gathering Of Flies but they energised Buffy's sound with muscular playing. The sound in the hall was a bit off but the audience, after a rather subdued start, were soon on message and she left the stage to a standing ovation.

After the show Buff did her usual meet-and-greet in the foyer and bestowed grace on the faithful - even the most 1970s hungover fans! It was all a bit special for Owen, seeing his favorite singer about 10 miles from where he first discovered her music back in the 1970s, so I can forgive him being a bit awestruck in her presence... it was me who found out she had wanted his e-mail address! So we hung around for the queue to vanish and she got her wish!
The next morning it was time to explore the Newcastle town centre... but not before a rather intense snow flurry hit us just as we were crossing over the Tyne Bridge... not many places to hide up there!

After that we meandered through towards the Toon centre with Owen showing me *his* Newcastle. I liked the town centre but all that Georgian dark grey stone brickwork can get a bit drear. It was certainly built to show off wealth. We visited the Laing Art Gallery which has a couple of pre-Raphaelites along with works by Cezanne and Reynolds and Owen communed with John Martin's SODOM AND GOMORRAH - a painting that Cecil B. deMille certainly would have approved of...One thing the Geordies love more than anything else is to shop! There seemed to be shopping centre after shopping centre - we even lunched in a shop called Collectibles, beloved by the mams of Newcastle. Afterwards Owen showed me the delightful Central Arcade which houses the music shop where he bought his first Buffy album back in the 1970s.Time was moving on though and we had a train to catch...

...because on Saturday we were seeing Buffy Sainte-Marie again, this time at Shepherds Bush! Yes for me it's Madonna... for O it's Buffy!!

It was a shock to see Shepherds Bush as an all-seated venue - I presume the stall seats were being held in place by the regulation sticky floor. One thing else.... it was FREEZING in the auditorium. I swear to God... the people seated in the side sections looked like two rather miserable bus queues.... all sat in coats and hats. Absolute madness.

However Buff soon got the crowd warmed up. Massive ovations greeted each of her songs and again, the material was enlived by the muscular playing of the three musicians on stage with her. Like seeing Chris Clark, Brenda Holloway and Mable John last year at Hammersmith and Jazz Cafe, it was good to see Buffy ruling the roost on a noted "pop/rock" stage.Favorite songs were "No No Keshagesh" which had some serious drum-thumping, "Fallen Angels", "Cho Cho Fire", "He's An Indian Cowboy At The Rodeo" where pop meets pow-wow, "Until It's Time For You To Go", "Soldier Blue" which I bought as a single all those years ago, "Universal Soldier", "Up Where We Belong" with the auditorium lit up by the glitter ball above the stage, "Little Wheel Spin And Spin", "Darling Don't Cry", "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" and "Starwalker".

Afterwards it was time for another meet-and-greet in the foyer and getting the balloon-like Owen back home! I hope Buffy has taken from this mini-tour how much she is appreciated here and she doesn't leave it so long before visiting again.