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One thing about increasing age is that it brings with it an increasing lack of acceptance of the etiquette of "gigs".

Example: "Doors at 7.15."

Doors do what? Open? Sit slightly ajar? Rotate in five dimensions? When is the support on? When is the actual event? Are they just trying to screw up your entire evening?

These questions were high in our mind as we queued outside the venue on Saturday night. The people behind us in the queue milled around, unconcerned with the world. Gradually, they became the people next to us in the queue. And then slightly ahead of us in the queue. Completely unaware of the world around them, or of the curious pressure I was feeling. Fortunately, the queue started moving, and they were no longer in front of us. Indeed, much of the queue moved past them...

Many people there knew the venue. We didn't. They knew where to stand and mill around to stand a good chance of getting seats. We didn't. We were, however, early enough in there to get a stonking place to stand - just next to the sound desk, handy for the bar, and with a fantastic view of the stage.

But was it any good?

Why yes. It was simply sublime. The support act, Heidi Talbot opened for Eddi, and performed six or seven songs from her album In Love and Light, accompanied by the always excellent Boo Hewerdine on guitar. I believe it's her first tour as a solo act, and she was a pleasure - a slightly nervous stage presence, but when she sang it was clear and confident - a faintly ethereal quality to her voice without it being contrived in any way.

Eddi Reader took to the stage about 9. And for a shade over 2 hours, she filled the room with a mixture of material from her new album ("Buy the bootleg because I need a new Dyson"), her Burns album, and the occasional song from the very early 90s. Funny, approachable, stunning, and a pleasure to listen to - the highlights would be when she performed a song with just her and drums, and when she dragged Brian Kennedy on to the stage to join her for an encore.

That said, it was the first gig I've been to that I can remember where they skipped that business where the band go off, and the audience clap, and the band go back on again. It turned out they were tight for time - at 11.30, the venue had to become a night club, people had to pay to get in, so the band had to clear out. A shame, because you really felt that they wanted to play on for hours. And I'd have been happy to watch them.

The Beatles have a lot to answer for.

Without The Beatles, we'd never have had Sowing the Seeds of Love, The Frog Chorus or the entire Oasis songbook.

We'd also never have had this gem. Lyrically it's not the most complex truffle in the box, but musically it's a big production number with hints of musical theatre but a huge dollop of the bits of Sergeant Pepper that were written when McCartney was in danger of being able to focus on the real world. That's a compliment.

Like most homosexualists of my age, I appreciated Take That in their early days mainly for their dancing, for speculation about their sexuality and for their unashamed pandering to their gay audience. As such I watched their reinvention as besuited respectable faces of Marks and Spencer with interest, wondering if it would be a spectacularly misjudged effort, degenerating into a whiny bitchfest. Instead we're presented with four respectable figures not making tits of themselves by prannying around like teenagers, still sharing the vocals so they're not Gary Barlow plus a backing group.

In the olden days of The That, my undoubted favourite single was Never Forget, which is mainly sung by Howard. These days, it's Shine - mainly sung by Mark.

The reason is not just the sheer exuberance, not just the production, not just the quirkiness of having such an upbeat song that's basically about trying to cheer someone up, but it's the line in the break in the middle of the song. It's a simple enough line - "You're all that matters to me", but it always brings a lump to my jaded cynical throat. Because it's such a simple declaration of love, and always makes me think of Mr Twinky (my evil sidekick cat) and it's teamed with cunningly manipulative music.

It's also because although it's simple, it's almost more powerful than "I love you", After all, lots of other things matter to most people. Their health, their family, cake. That line is effectively saying that none of these matter at all - which is bordering on psychotic, really.

Fortunately, it's not overplayed, and it's coupled with an upbeat song. And it gives me goosebumps. Every time.

I've got you under my skin where the rain can't get in.

I discovered The The, ruined by google way back in 1986. I think it was down to Thatcher, actually. In the midst of miner's strikes, I went off to University and met a generation of mullets, jackets with sleeves rolled up, cheap Bulgarian wine and 80p pints in the late night bar that closed earlier than the bars did back home. It was the era of the mix tape, of Enya recording Orinoco Flow for the very first time, of discovering the social value of owning a record player, and of Sainsbury's Bramley Apple Swiss Rolls.

Soul Mining came out in 1983, although I didn't come across it until late 1986. It was the music that was listened to by the guy with the beard who was quiet and understood politics and had deep thoughts.

We were 18.

So, I thought he had deep thoughts and understood politics. In practice that would usually mean knowing a few sound bites and latching on to nursery rhymes that claim to be political comment.

Uncertain Smile is my favourite track on the album - possibly my favourite track of all time - a good place to start, I think.

What makes it for me isn't the lyrics, which were undoubtedly deep when I was 15, but the lengthy piano solo at the end. At the time, I hadn't heard of Jools Holland, but this was the point where I fell in love with his music.