I’m sure it is simply a matter of time before Blogbridge has a similar problem, but I was amazed to read over the weekend that the website selling tickets for the Led Zeppelin reunion show crashed under the strain of something like 234,345,994,232 hits - I suspect that the touts outside will be charging a similar number of pennies. All that aside, sounds like great fun and will no doubt be a worthy tribute to Ahmet Ertegun. Reading that obituary again, it is still amazing to see the roster of artists on Ertegun’s Atlantic label and despite Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles, my favourite of the Atlantic soul artists (albeit on the ATCO imprint) would be the late Donny Hathaway; hopefully, his name drop in Amy Winehouse’s ‘Rehab’ might make a few more people seek out his albums - I’d start with the simply wonderful ‘Donny Hathaway Live’, it’s the business.

As for the Zep, I fear that in the same way a somewhat reckless evening at the Vermont Exchange in Cobham, Surrey circa 1990 has turned me against Southern Comfort, a few too many listenings to Led Zeppelin’s first four albums in my younger days has inoculated me against their charms. Or could it be Robert Plant’s voice? The drum solos? All the stuff about hobbits and elves? Or even the guy I went to university with who proudly wore a leather jacket with the words to the final part of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ on the back? Who is to say? I quite like ‘Kashmir’ though.

I spent some of the weekend indulging in some proper geekery. I’m not sure if it makes a great deal of difference unless your ears are tuned in to this sort of thing, but recently, I’ve been reading a lot about so-called ‘needle drop’ CDRs being circulated of sixties albums, especially those by the Beatles. The theory goes that the early CD versions of their catalogue were mucked about with considerably in an attempt to make them sonically ‘better’ and more suited to the medium; subsequently, the CD versions have been consistently taken from these sources and don’t accurately reflect the original sound of the records, leaving aside the whole mono/stereo dilemma. A mysterious fellow called Dr Ebbetts has made probably the best known, but there have been CDRs of recreated Beatles albums knocking about on the interweb for a while and I passed a happy couple of hours *ahem* finding out more about them. So basically, one finds pristine copies of the original LPs and then records them on like super-duper equipment before presumably doing a bit of digital jiggery-pokery (this is the technical term) to make them sound more akin to what Sir George Martin and the white coated boffins in Abbey Road intended. I’m not sure if my Mac is quite the high-end sound equipment one needs to appreciate them and I’ve got all the records anyway. Basically, I need to get out more.

That said, mercifully there won’t be any geekery tonight as I’m off to watch Arsenal play Sevilla in the Champions League. While it won’t be Arsenal’s most heated game in the last week, I have a grudge against Seville as while on holiday there a few years ago I slipped while getting out of the bath and really bruised my leg. The very impressive cathedral and a great deal of tapas compensated, but I can’t help but be bitter towards the city and it’s damn bathrooms floors. Do it for me, chaps.