Tuesday 6^th May

After a fabulously warm weekend, the alarm clock sounded the start of another baking day. Only trouble is its back into the office! An 11 O’clock appointment with Malcolm Campbell for a guided tour of Brighton’s famous back passages was on the cards today. Just to clear up the obvious confusion, the tour is of the many alleyway’s and passages in the older parts of our city, not as the name might suggest, a trip into Brighton’s alternative scene! With that cleared up, I went to meet a very passionate Malcolm adjacent to Brighton Town Hall. Winning a best tour of the festival award in 2005, it promised to be an interesting time. Starting in the historic lanes area, Malcolm led us down some of the little known passageways but not before giving a detailed talk which provided some great little snippets of information. The group I was in had around thirteen people in it, varying greatly from Brighton residents through to one chap travelling the UK from New Zealand. Malcolm certainly knew his stuff and I can safely say that everyone went away having learnt something new. From the lanes we headed towards the centre of town, then through some of the quaint little passageways left of Brighton station before heading down Trafalgar Street and into the north laine area. A personal highlight was the alley that has become a shine to both mods and rockers, made famous in the film Quadrophenia.

After a humid afternoon at the office I was looking forward to Still Black, Still Proud at the Brighton Dome. Admittedly I was rather excited about this one. It was a pan-continental tribute to the Godfather of soul himself, Mr. James Brown. What’s more, it was a world exclusive! The band was pulled together by two lynch-pins in the soul/funk genre, Pee Wee Ellis and Fred Wesley. These two guys directed, and even wrote some of Browns greatest tracks and also toured extensively with him. For this particular spectacle, Pee Wee and Fred along with musicians from around the world proceeded to raise the roof afro style in what was essentially one giant house party. At times the two drum kits to the rear of the stage were manned and worked perfectly in tandem with beats coursing through the packed venue. Each brilliant musician had their turn to impress the crowd with a solo piece and I was blown away by Fred Wesley on the Trombone. I didn’t think that such a range of sound was possible on the instrument! The entire place was rocking! Other highlights included Senegalese superstar Cheikh Lo and his stunningly beautiful vocal. If you have to step out of your musical comfort zone once this year, make sure it’s for this.