It was quite an experience in itself, standing in the cue outside the KOKO in London, with the crowd waiting to get in to see Amanda Palmer on her UK tour. But with all due respect to Amanda Palmer I was there to see one woman and her cello. Zoe Keating is a cellist of extraordinary ability and qualities, and I almost talked to her at a party about a year ago but I chickened out.

As with meeting several other musicians in the past I was a little nervous, especially when you know and like their music.

It was great she had just finished sound check and she came out, and we got to chat about music and the various projects we were both working on, I told her of my envy when she got to perform at NASA and my recent trip to her home state of California.

Chit chat over with she popped back into the KOKO for the start of the show, I was lucky enough to be on the guest list so I got to stand at the side of the stage in the V.I.P. area. First up was Jason Webley who was fantastic, very very entertaining even if I didn’t  understand all of the words and not sure if I was meant to.

Next up Zoe, I had heard her music on cd and on several videos on the net, but really you do have to see her play live to believe it. I have always loved cellos, but this was more, layered, delayed and live sampled, not gimmicky, it showed a deeper understanding of the instrument and the performance was excellent.

For Amanda Palmers set I moved up into the balcony to watch so I could take in the whole view and it was very necessary as the show really did take up the whole stage. I think my favourite song was “I Google You”  which was co-written by Neil Gaiman and was very very funny.

Overall it was a very good night, I got the second to last train home and funnily will have to take that same train back to the city again tomorrow.