269 THE AUTEURS, LUNA, Bristol Bierkeller, Monday 23 May 1994

Drove down for this gig with Beef, after our third intended gig companion got food poisoning, so we had his ticket to shift outside the venue! Had a beer in the "Prince Rupert" beforehand and got in at 20 to 9, thereby missing 10 minutes of Luna's earlier-than expected set. D'oh!

Still, what we saw was pretty splendid; some haunting rock with a very slight C&W lilt, operating in similar territory to the likes of Bettie Serveert. Dean Wareham, ex of Galaxie 500, retained their sense of atmosphere with his new charges, but over some generally more upbeat material, and embellished the sound splendidly with his eerie vocals. I enjoyed it, especially highlight "Slash Your Tyres"; shame no-one else did, as they were largely ignored by the slowly-filling venue.

The place filled up slightly for The Auteurs, who showed an unabashed rockier side to their music than at previous live sightings, which surprisingly worked well with their splendidly crafted and considered songs, giving them extra impetus and dynamism. A fine, confident set, with "Idiot Brother" and "Lenny Valentino" my highlights. Two fine performances; a close run thing, but I think Luna shaded it for me - just!

294 LUNA, Pram, London WC2 Borderline, Wednesday 10 May 1995

A bit of a convoluted one, and a real adventure, this! I was originally going to accompany Beef to the Hole gig at Shepherd's Bush Empire tonight, as I believed tour support, the excellent Scarce, were also supporting Hole tonight. However, 2 days before the gig I discovered this wasn't the case, as this was an extra show. D'oh!

Not being a Hole fan, I didn't want to go just for them, but I decided to accompany Beef to London anyway, as excellent new Boston discovery Letters To Cleo were due to play at the Splash Club in Kings Cross. So, I duly sold my Hole ticket (for a tenner - I should've held out for more, as the touts were flogging them at the tube station for £30!), tubed it cross town to Kings Cross, then hit the venue only to find Letters To Cleo had cancelled! Bugger! Their drummer had contracted chicken pox so they'd flown home! Double bugger!

So, dejected, I strolled back to the newsagents at Kings Cross railway station, only to browse the NME and find out that Luna were playing at the Borderline tonight! Yippee! So I headed over to Oxford Street and got to the Borderline, only to find out this gig was sold out! Double plus bugger!

Protestations to the bouncers about my plight, and even asking Luna mainman Dean Wareham himself (off for a bite to eat before the gig) couldn't get me in. Triple bugger! However, finally a punter rather luckily had a spare ticket which I gleefully purchased. Hooray!

So, got in and went downstairs - my first time at The Borderline, a tiny downstairs Tex/Mex bar which was a great place for a gig, very intimate - during support Pram's pointless keyboard-based children's TV theme tune type doodlings. Luna themselves came on at 9.45 and played an hour-long set of splendid atmospheric strumalong rock of the slightly wild West, left-field variety, and were totally at home in this venue. Highlights were the mesmeric "Friendly Advice" and the more in-your-face "Angel" (Luna? In your face? Oh yes!). Dean, joined by Stereolab's Laetitia for the French duet of "Bonnie And Clyde", led Luna through a little jewel of a set, far punchier than their more laid-back recorded output, and all the more precious for being unexpected!

Oh, did I mention that thanks to an eye operation the previous day, I only had one contact lens in all night, so did all this semi-blurred? Well, so I did; told you it was an adventure!