Joe Jackson in Dublin - A Cure for Gravity

We went to the Joe Jackson concert in the Olympia last night. We had found out about it by pure chance really, in a free magazine we got in a cinema a few weeks ago. I used to get updates about tour dates from the Joe Jackson website, but the emails stopped coming about 6 months ago.

As you know, I'm a big fan. And what a treat it was. This time, it was only Joe, Graham Maby and Dave Houghton on stage - so a simple set of piano, bass and drums. But you can hear they've been playing together forever (as far as I know, well over 25 years).

He covered a good few of the old favourites, like Cancer, Is She Really Going Out With Him?, You Can't Get What You Want, Stepping Out, Chinatown, One More Time, Slow Song, One More Time (my favourite), and a few songs from an upcoming album. To see a list of the set from the Tour, have a look at the Joe Jackson Archive.

He didn't play Awkward Age, which contains some of the wittiest lyrics:

I should have known you were only just fifteen
You had a scowl like a Klingon beauty queen

The seats in the Olympia are extremely cramped, so it's impossible to get up and dance, but I did manage to boogie in my seat. Apologies to whoever was behind me. Thankfully, there was nobody on my right, as the 2 couples sitting beside us found the seats too cramped and went to the back instead.

Joe Jackson is a wonderfully talented musician, and it was a joy to see and hear him playing live. I'm delighted he decided to play in Dublin, despite the smoking ban (he's got a bee in his bonnet about that)

By the way, the picture here is one I picked up from the Joe Jackson Archive website. The ones on the official website are just too ugly.

And in case you didn't know, A Cure for Gravity is the title of Joe Jackson's book, where he describes the feeling of being on stage, when everything is going well, and he feels like he is flying. I think we all shared that feeling last night.