As I mentioned the other day, the “Tips For The New Year” business has become something of a self-perpetuating industry now. But it occurred to me over the weekend that another journalistic phenomenon is on the rise at this time of year: who’s going to reunite in, say, 2009?
A strange moment, on Friday night. Sitting somewhere quite close to the roof of the O2 Arena, it seems to me as if several thousand people are singing, simultaneously, in a scarcely-audible whisper. Onstage, Leonard Cohen and his extraordinary band are playing “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye”, with a softness, precision and clarity that I can rarely recall hearing at an arena show.
Turning up at the SonyBMG HQ in London last week to review the new AC/DC album for Uncut, it occurred to me: what on earth am I going to write? I’d heard and blogged already about “Rock’n’Roll Train” and – not for the first time in anticipation of a new AC/DC album – knew what to expect. The challenge would be how to spend 700 words saying little more than, “It sounds the same as all the others, and it’s great.” As it turned out, though, I rather wish now that I’d had that problem.
