Yesterday, I was on the Flying Pickets concert in Wiener Neustadt. It was really nice.

Highlights: Fast Car (Tracy Chapman), one of their first songs (Working in a Coal-Mine?) [at the chorus they always go “whoo” and jump and it looked really gay… which I found funny because when I think of men working in coal mines it’s usually straightness in its worst and purest form] and of course Only You.

The first time I saw them was about 15 years ago. I remember only one thing, they sang “I Got You, Babe” and the bald guy had the line “and if you say my hair’s too long…” I laughed my ass off.
Anyway, since then not one member stayed the same in the band (I did some research on this. There’s one guy who’s been a on/off member from 1991 but I don’t think he went on tour with them…). But they do have a bald guy (the bass) again. They didn’t do “I Got You, Babe” but if they did, I guess the joke would still be the same :)

Weird, how a band can not retain one single member but still be the same band, doing the same music and having the same people go to the shows. That’s probably a British thing though, seeing as they’re doing the same with the Sugababes.

While I did my research, I also found out that not even “Only You” is a Flying Pickets original. I always thought it was. How very disappointing. But it was made up by the fact that after the show they went into the foyer (the concert was at a theatre) and signed the CDs they sold. I guess you can only do that when you have concerts in a quite small location and with singers/performers who don’t have the usual teeny crowds fainting all over the place (I have a picture of Robbie Williams in my head trying to do that and getting ripped to pieces by the few girls who didn’t faint). However, being able to do it without any threat of dying doesn’t mean that everybody would.

Trying to summarise my rather incoherent thoughts revolving around the concert: The Flying Pickets know how to sing, they have a good show almost without any technical fuss and they are really likeable. And the music, albeit not their originals, is great.