Jonsi at the Forum

I've been to a lot of gigs in my time and seen a lot of interesting things. From small back rooms of a pub to Wembley Stadium my gigging has taken in all kinds of act and styles. Thankfully I've not been to that many bad gigs, only one spring to mind at the moment and that had an unforeseen outcome that actually made it the most important one I've been to.

Over the course of all this you build up a mental list of you favorites, a top five. Now my top five only has four places up for grabs as the White Stripes gig is permanently in there. Then I saw Muse play and that was pretty special as where The Specials and that time I was stood next to Kristen Schaal at a Yeah Yeah Yeahs gig. I suppose before I go off on a stroll down memory lane I should get to the point, which is thus. Jonsi's gig at the Forum is one of my top five gigs ever, no doubt at all.

It was quite simply one of the most amazing things I have seen. As a fan of Sigur Ros, the band Jonsi is currently taking a break from, and his solo work I knew what to expect. Or at least I thought I did because this wasn't just about his amazing voice. Images and animation were projected onto a screen at the back of the stage and via monitors at the front. Which turned it from a gig to a theatrical production. And Jonsi's solo album had been reworked to fit in with this as well. The songs are striped down a bit and more orchestral in scope to allow the show to come together in a more dramatic way.

The theme was wildlife and nature which seems perfect for Jonsi. For the first song the screens had drawings of wolves on a sepia background looking like some old western map. As the song went on flames burnt away this image until it seemed like the whole stage was on fire.

For the last song we all ended up in the middle of a tornado as a storm took holed of the stage and rain lashed away as Jonsi, looking resplendent in a head dress, built things up to fitting end. And in the process show me something that left me spell bound. The whole thing was amazing, the last ten minutes breath taking.

Such things are the reward for seeking out that which is different and for making the effort when it comes to music and art. You get to see things that move you and to have a meaning full experience. Things which I fear Simon Cowel is stealing from the majority of people. But perhaps that is for another blog.

Apart from anything else it was a delight to have someone put the effort into making a show rather than just stand there and perform, especially in such a small venue and from an act won't attract that much attention.

To be honest I have not really tried to tell all that happened. I don't think my poor writing skills could do it justice and on the page it just wouldn't seem all that impressive. You did kind of have to be there.

Jonsi will be back in the UK in August and I can't recommend it highly enough. If you even kind of half like music, art and life then you really should experience this.

I know who will win the World Cup

I am DB knower of all things, I see all. Yes espcially that your naughty thing, stop it at once and bear witness to my greatness as I work out who will win the World Cup 2010.

One of the best things about football tournaments is working out who will win. Every time they come around I happily fill out a wall chart in a preemptive strike and working out the winner according to my interpretive criteria.

This year proves no different and i've been busy casting my eye over World Cup 2010. However one big change is that I've used a very smart Excel programme. Thus I can change scores and play around with number till my hearts content, which it is but that's another story. I'm always happy when dealing with stats and lists and things like that. Statistics are 99.73% awesome.

I'm not one to take credit for others work so here is the link to what I was using. Its worth downloading as its very good and a lot of fun. You can change things around until you end up with South and North Korea playing each other in the final. Which is surely what every one wants, right? Whoever does this sight has a ton of interesting templates for excel and gets the DB seal of approval, which is a seal that claps when every you do anything good.

http://exceltemplate.net/sports/world-cup-2010-schedule-and-scoresheet/

My analysis is very in depth and based on all kinds of things such as squads, player form and how the team is playing currently. As a research analyst I'm fully aware of to take raw data and project it to make predictions. This is science people.

Then of course there are more important factors such as which players I like and who has the best haircuts. As well as making grand sweeping gestures with little clue of what is actually likely to happen. But my guess is as good as yours and here for your edification is what I did in fact guess.

Lets skip over the group stage (which see's England draw with the US but win the other two games to get through) and get right into the cut and thrust of the knock out stages. Alas the Korean dream is over as both teams crash out with no wins. Highlights of this round are the thrilling 3-2 extra time victory for Argentina over Mexico and Cameron beating Italy in a dramatic penalty shoot out.

So on to the quarter finals then. The Dutch beat Brazil 2-1, England get all jingoistic when they knock out France on penalties. Argentina come out 3-1 winners against Germany and Cameron get a swift kicking from Spain and lose 3-0.

We move on to the semi finals and dreams of the final are in every ones head. Sadly for England a dream is all it will ever be because the Netherlands are on fire and thrash them 3-1. They will meet Spain in the final who come out on top of a very tough match against Argentina, winning on pantiles.

In the completely pointless third place match England lost 3-2 to Argentina but no one cares as its a pointless match.

And so after much analysis and contemplation we arrive at the final, Spain versus The Netherlands. My maths and science has lead me to be live that this will be far and way the most exciting world cup final ever and will amaze and delight fans with.

Robben and Wesley Sneijder, fresh from taking there club sides to the European Cup final, are on top form. While for the Spanish Torres and Villa cause all sorts of problems for the Dutch team. This feast of football is, in the end, won by Spain who come out on top 3-2.

Fernando Torres scores the winning goal with five minutes to go and every one is glad because he is great and has nice hair and is wonderful.

And so the festival of football is over and Spain are champions and everyone is happy because the law is changed to allow us all to have an afternoon nap in their honour.

Hooray for football.

(I had hoped to include all the results and tables but that is proving tricky so I have given it up)