David McAlmont at The Fairfield Halls

On Thursday evening we traipsed down to Croydon to see David McAlmont at the Fairfield Halls, not in the main hall, but in one of the smaller venues with a dance floor. Now, I've been to the Fairfield Halls before and my abiding memories of the place are that it's terribly 70s, rather provincial and very brown. It still is. Clearly, Mr McAlmont feels the same since he attended in a smart - but brown - suit and brown brogues. He is, of course, a Croydon lad so this was a 'homecoming' of sorts and the last gig before going to Ireland to write a new album.

I was quite keen to see David following his great performances at the 'Ready Steady Go' show at Meltdown a couple of weeks ago when he brought the house down. I hadn't seen any publicity for the show so it wasn't surprising that it wasn't terribly well attended but it is to his credit that he performed as if it was packed out. It was a mix of some new songs, old songs and favourite covers, interspersed with chat to the audience and telling stories of his day in Croydon.

It was nice to see him again and it'll be interesting to see how the song-writing pans out. No doubt we'll see more of him in the autumn.