Joanna Newsom @ The Royal Festival Hall

I saw another wonderful Joanna Newsom concert last night at the Royal Festival Hall. I was lucky enough, through Twitter friends to get a ticket six rows from the front and fairly central so had a beautiful view. The show was opened (again) by Roy Harper who was (again) compelling (although the mutual gushing about each other that he and Joanna do is a little bit much - get a room for goodness sake!).

Joanna's set was stunning, playing with a small but beautifully "into it" band really suited. High point in a set of highs, was an absolutely entrancing take on Emily from Ys - but frankly the whole set was entrancing - except maybe the jokes/Q&A section during the harp tuning - and even that was mostly enjoyable.

Some idle notes...

• No matter how hard the musician may try to convince otherwise a trombone is a comedy instrument and whenever I hear one I expect a clown in a tiny car to come on stage.
• One of the violinists may have been a contestant on Big Brother (in Australia).
• Despite selling out two nights at the RFH in a matter of hours, my work colleagues gave me the blankest of blank looks when I mentioned who I was off to see.