I went to see Hurts play at Union Chapel last week, as part of Mencap's Little Noise sessions. They were wonderful: haunting, elegant, emotional - as arresting now as the first time I saw them.
I really enjoyed the support act Saint Saviour.
We described Saint Saviour as:
- Kate Bush meets Liza Minelli
- Marcella Detroit meets Robyn
- Enya meets Roisin Murphy
- Dolores O'Riordan meets Enya
- Enya goes to Florence (with the Machine)
Ergo: amazing.
Maybe the church setting set me to thinking more than usual, but the lyrics Saint Saviour sang really stood out: "don't shine the spotlight on me, I'm already bright enough". Profound, no?
Adrian, USA
Friday, November 05, 2010
Whilst reading the article on the nomenclature of American towns, I got to wondering about places with my name. It turns out there's quite a few Adrians in America, stretching all the way from New York to Washington.
The majority of American Adrians are quite small, with no more than a couple of hundred people in each. Some are named after settlers, with one, Adrian, Oregon, named after another Adrian: Adrian, Illinois.
Adrian Minesota, one of the larger Adrians, with more than a thousand inhabitants, was named after the mother of the local railway's directors. She was called Mrs Adrian Iselin, and he was Adrian C. Iselin. So really he named it after himself. The locals, apparently, prefer to believe the town was named after St Adrian.
Adrian, Michigan is perhaps the most exciting of all, with a plentiful 21,000 inhabitants. During the late 19th century and early 20th century, it was known as the "fence capital of the world," as it was where the first successful wire fence was invented. Fancy that.