10th March A Del of a predicament


Back in the 1990's one of my favourite bands was Del Amitri, starting with the very first time I heard the wonderfully prophetic 'Nothing Ever Happens'. They were a band that had a knack for writing not only foot tapping rock songs with memorable hooks that quickly became ear worms but also penned some beautiful, thought provoking slower numbers .

I have memories of going to see them live in Newport when I was studying to be a physiotherapist alongside several of my fellow students on what was a thouroughly enjoyable night. And I still find it funny that one of my least favourites recordings of their (Roll with it) is in fact their most popular song.

As with most bands, new albums are recorded and released that don't quite hit the same mark, listener tastes change, and things that were at one time on constant reply slowly but surely fall out of favour. Today Del Amitri are back in the news with the announcement that lead singer and songwriter Justin Currie has been diagnosed with Parkinsons disease, a fate that Mohammad Ali, Michael J Fox, Billy Connelly and Ozzy Osbourne amongst many others also faced.

It is an illness that although still in its early stages is already causing him problems both playing the bass guitar and also with singing. Quite how long he will still be able to perform is already a question that Justin Currie is having to ask himself. So let's just enjoy him while we still have the chance with these two songs; the first a catchy toe tapper with a great twist in the last verse, the second a reflective rumination on life.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

6th May Olbia

Image
  A chance to stretch our legs today with our first port of call; Olbia, Sardinia. And it was a quick stretch too due to it being only a five hour stay. Up bright and early, so early in fact that the hot food at the buffet wasn't even ready to be served. Still it gave us a chance to watch the ship glide into port past a host of oyster/mussel beds, before performing a 180 degree turn to reverse into it's berth. A couple of short bus rides later and we were in downtown Olbia. But there an hour or so before anything appeared to open, the disadvantage of being early birds and something we don't seem to learn! Not that Olbia had a great deal to see or maybe if we had done the slightest bit of planning beforehand there might have benn but we didn't. It was pleasant enough but that's about it. It was pleasant enough but nothing special, indeed we were back on the ship after just a couple of hours ashore and then managed to sleep away most of th...
Read more

7th May Naples

Image
 I'm sure I've heard the phrase 'see Naples and die' suggesting that it is perhaps not the nicest location in the Mediterranean but if it's good enough for Diego Maradona fir a few years then it's good enough for me for 10 hours. Although the millions of tax free pounds he was paid might have eased his stay. By the time we got up, washed, dressed and up to The Kitchens, the rest of the ship were already there. Compared to the Marie Celeste of yesterday it was absolutely packed, presumably with people having breakfast before heading out on 8am excursions, our excursion was simply going to be the city of Naples itself as possible trips to Vesuvius, Pompei or the Amalfi coast would have been too much / tired.  So on a day when the weather initially seemed uncertain, we jumped aboard route A for the Hop on Hop off bus and headed out into the mayhem that is the Napoli traffic where it was every van, car and scooter for the selves. I think it's bes...
Read more