Location, Location, Location

When going to some kind of prestige, serious musical concert ones of the most important thing for the organisers is to make sure that they get the right venue. Over the past seven days I've been to three wildly different concerts; the Wainwright family Christmas show at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Halle Orchestra at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and Spiritualized playing their 1997 album Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating In Space at the Manchester Apollo. What's more, in all three concerts I was sat on the front row of the Stalls.

The unfortunate aspect of the three concerts was that the one I was most emotionally connected with was at a really poor choice of venue.

Since I bought Spiritualized's 1997 album Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating In Space, it has been a record that I continually find myself coming back to. At the time, I thought it was a good album but as the years have gone on I keep finding new things from it. The songs are rich, full of colour both on the surface and underneath the sheen. In short, it is an amazing record.

Anyway, a huge stage of people (including a gospel choir, a string and brass section) descended onto the stage at the Apollo. What puzzles me is how anyone would think that the venue was capable of coping with this sound; having seen an orchestra there last year with the Last Shadow Puppets I can promptly confirm that it simply doesn't have the sonic capabilities to pull such expansive sounds off.

This time the sound was ruined by an increase in volume across the board to try and squeeze all of the sounds contained in that brilliant record to the rest of the theatre. All this meant was that singer Jason Pierce's voice was pushed over the top and the brass section in particular was reduced to a shrill high-pitched squeal. When the band went off on the noise-scape done so beautifully on the album, all that you could hear was just a stupid mess of loud noise.

Put Spiritualized at the Royal Albert Hall or the Bridgewater Hall and these problems could well have been resolved. In the surroundings of the Apollo, all that happened was that I came away disappointed and have a rather concerning level of ringing in my ears 24 hours later.

In comparison, the sound wasn't the best at the Royal Albert Hall for Not So Silent Night and the consistency of the evening struggled when there wasn't an eminent Wainwright on stage (Martha or Rufus). There were moments of magic: Guy Garvey covering Joni Mitchell's River, Ed Harcourt and Martha singing Fairytale of New York, Rufus and his boyfriend singing Silent Night in German. The problems with the sound were the complete opposite of Spiritualized in that if anything, the vocals weren't loud enough and the drums seemed a lot louder in the mix than they should've been.

As a confirmed fan of all of the members of the Wainwright and McGarrigle clans, it was an enjoyable enough evening. Reviews in the press afterwards were mixed and I can understand why; for non-fans I can imagine that the show dragged a little and lacked a little imagination at times. Considering I'd spent quite a bit of money on travelling down to London and all that entails, I came away with a slight feeling of disappointment too.

I didn't have too much time to dwell on this though. A few days later, I was at the Bridgewater Hall for The Halle Orchestra's "Halle Pops" evening, featuring some of the most famous classical music ever written with compositions from Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi and Mendelssohn. Being the first classical concert that I'd ever attended, I wasn't really sure whether or not I was going to enjoy myself but I soon settled in to the spirit of things and made the most of the occasion.

Some of the traditions of classical music - the soloist leaving the stage and then coming back on at the end of every piece, for example - seemed a touch unnecessary. Another striking difference I noticed was how members of the orchestra didn't particularly look like they were enjoying themselves, something that when pop performers would be critically mauled for.

The Bridgewater Hall is a fabulous venue, far and away superior to the Royal Albert Hall in every way other than size. Sitting on the front row for the event wasn't necessarily the great choice that I was anticipating though - too many music stands and large instruments obscure the view in these situations.

And then, on to the Apollo. The feeling of disappointment from the Wainwright concert was permeated; almost to the point that it detracted from one of my all time favourite albums. I would question why the slightly reclusive Jason Pierce wanted to re-enact what was a quite painful period of life and he never looked totally comfortable on stage performing. At a different venue, this wouldn't have been a problem. At the Apollo - with ringing ears and a front row seat of which a sound monitor obscured the entire middle of the stage (drums, brass and strings included) - it lost a lot of its magic.

So, what are my general conclusions about music venues?

A. If you have a prestige concert it needs to be in a prestige venue.
B. The Manchester Apollo is a dreadful venue for anything other than guitar-bass-drums basic bands.
C. Sometimes the front row tickets aren't always the best
D. Did I mention that I hate the Manchester Apollo?