Bigsby

I've been impressed with the calibre of acts attracted to The Ironworks (Van Morrison was there last week.) Maybe The Ironworks management could be persuaded to launch in Aberdeen.

I met him too. I asked him to sign my book "To Ebay", but he didn't really get it. Nice enough to tolerate me and force a smile though. I loved this t-shirt and would have bought it for my 9 month old son but for the ridiculous price tag: raspberryblowers.com: Boys T-Shirts - Finest Milk - ...

Only 140,000 to go then.

I still haven't heard what the 150 grand is for, can anybody tell me? Not having a go or taking sides, I genuinely would like to know.

It's Saddam Hussein, obviously, although I can see why you didn't recognise him, usually he's not wearing a black tie and a security pass. Pretty damn famous though, well done, can anybody beat that?

Ding ding! We have a winner. Extra points for appearing in the only known photo of Jerry Lee Lewis where he is smiling.

I have a DVD of him playing with Chet Atkins, and he uses a new guitar. Still sounds exactly the same. His tone is in the fingers.

Probably just that the TV doesn't accept whatever your PC is outputting. Fiddle about with the screen resolution settings in Control Panel.

Got tickets for row J Not cheap at 40 a pop, but a bargain compared to the 140 I paid to see Led Zep I suppose.

Or a Ferrari.

Dates now added for Dundee and Glasgow too.

Good luck with that, can you tell us about the process and how you get on? I've heard some real horror stories about ebay and paypal before.

As the parent of an 8 month old, I would say turn it down. It's hard enough getting them to sleep at the best of times without having loud music playing. Remember, "One man's ceiling is another man's floor".

Just back, definitely one of the best gigs I've ever been to. This review sums it up well: Rolling Stone : Led Zeppelin: The Full Report From David Fricke

OK, fair enough, so it sounds like those small projects weren't the problem then. But the board must have known that it wasn't getting its SAC grant for some time now. It should have either have cut back somewhere else or been upfront and told the council that they just couldn't do it with what was being offered at the time.

I should preface this by saying that I'm a fan of the Lemon Tree and I hope a soloution can be found BUT presumably the board/management came up with a business plan etc. They obviously haven't been able to deliver it, leading to the board having to go back to the council to ask for more cash. How often could the council keep writing cheques? Shouldn't the board/management have "cut its cloth" to match the resources it was being given? Could it have scaled back some of the unquestionably admirable programmes you mentioned to prevent the situation we are in now?

If only you had a Photoshop expert on the books when you did my wedding... or maybe you did!

The council subsidy for the AECC is much, much more than the Lemon Tree ever got.

Oh man, did you really take a 1300 hit on it? 650 is too low, I know it's only worth what somebody will pay for it, but still...

I did contemplate spelling it like that, but thought that some people wouldn't get the reference and assume that I couldn't spell.

With respect to Moshulu, I really don't think it's appropriate for a lot of the type of artists that the Lemon Tree used to attract, ie folky/jazzy/country stuff. Stuff for "older" audiences. Moshulu's fine for a rock audience, but I can't imagine 40 and 50 somethings going there to see, oh I dunno, Ralph McTell or somebody like that, at least not in it's present state. That said, now there's a gap in the market it's perhaps an opportunity for Moshulu to step in if it can tidy itself up a bit?

I have to echo other comments about the lack of promotion. The last gig I went to at The Lemon Tree was Steve Phillips. I'm a big fan of his, but I only found out about the gig the day before by looking on The Lemon Tree website to see if Steve Earle might be playing as part of his 2008 tour. The previous time Steve Phillips had played it had been packed out, mainly I guess due to its early promotion in the brochure. The real downer here is that Aberdeen is going to miss out on a whole raft of artists who are too small for The Music Hall but too big for The Tunnels etc. So get set to head for Edinburgh or Glasgow to see loads of your favourite artists.

He was probably going on about swiping another picnic basket.

Kind of gutted about this, played there quite a few times and seen loads of good gigs over the years. I still think there is a case for the council subsidising a venue though, could well be they have a plan up their sleeves for something that won't lose so much money.

I got one of the buses back into town after that gig and there were a heap of bams on it.