Orson

Another freebie to see a band.

I have a friend who is always winning prizes in phone-in competition with a local radio station and this time he got hold of tickets to go and see Orson in concert. The competition is called "Live at the local" and Orson are going to be playing a secret gig at a venue somewhere is South Wales for an invite-only audience.

The morning of the gig we're phoned up, given the address of the concert and sworn to secrecy. It's a little pub in Cardiff and we're told to turn up at 6.30pm with ID.

So turn up we do. The pub is small and dark and filling up with people (other competition winners and a fair few liggers) most wearing concert passes around their neck. The stage has been set up at the far end of the pub and it's clear that no-one is likely to be more than a few metres away from the band once they come on stage.

There's a few false starts as people step up to the microphone basically just to say "1-2 1-2 testing" or "not much longer" but at 8.00pm the band are announced and come out on stage. It's hot and loud and surprisingly good. The band play for a little over an hour in total and do all of the tracks from their album and have a fair bit of banter with the crowd. At one point the lead singer walks out in to the audience and sings no more than a foot away from me and the bass guitarist plays on the bar right next to me. Looks like we chose a good spot to stand and watch.

Top tracks of the evening: Bright Ideas and No Tomorrow.

A good gig - especially for free.