A night in with Beth and the Fall Guy

Gossip singer Beth Ditto

A NIGHT out clubbing wasn’t on the agenda for me at the weekend.

I decided to be slightly sensible and save my energy and my pennies for my extreme week of partying in Cyprus which starts on Sunday.

So rather than grace the local clubbing scene with my presence I chained myself to the kitchen and mopped the floor while listening to a few tunes on my ipod.

My clubbing restraint meant that I had to get my entertainment and music fix from another source, so I spent a few hours in the company of my TV set.

Channel 4 was playing host to the T4 On the Beach festival which was held at Weston-super-Mare on Sunday and featured a whole host of music acts from DJ Ironik to The Enemy.

I am the first to admit that I am very picky about my music so, unless I can guarantee that a line-up is going to cater for my taste, you won’t see me braving the English outdoors at a festival.

So it was a joy to watch the event from the comfort of my own settee—swapping the rain, dirty burgers and bottles of lager for a duvet, a couple of crumpets and a nice cup of tea.

Generally I was quite impressed with the line-up as it had a nice mix of music acts and genres to cater for most festival fans.

When Tinchy Stryder performed in Rotherham last month he obviously had an impact on more than just the young clubbers who turned out in their hundreds to see the Star In The Hood.

It was quite amusing for me to receive a text from a work colleague who will admit she isn’t really “down der wiv da kids” to tell me the Number 1 star was on stage.

Yeah he did a good job….but the Rotherham clubbers got more for their money I can assure you.

American band Gossip were always guaranteed to have stage presence with their lead singer Beth Ditto who tips the scales at 15 stone, which led one of my friends to comment: “How fat was that bird on stage?”

Well even though I’m not a huge fan of the band’s sound, I would much rather see her rolls of fat bouncing around on stage instead of the skeletons that are the girls from The Saturdays.

At least Beth can hold a tune which, when performing to 45,000 people, is a talent you really should possess.

Listening to the girls screech through their cheesy songs was very painful to my ears….and I had the sound on low as well.

Love must be shown to the boys of JLS who scored a number one hit with their song Beat Again this week and performed their jazzy routine on stage to adoring fans.

But for me the highlight had to be Peter Andre tumbling off the stage during a performance of his latest single Behind Closed Doors—an obvious reference to his recent split with fame-obsessed glamour model wife Katie Price.

And yeah I’m just going to have to put this out there….it is a TUNE.

I’m not ashamed. OK, it might be cheese on toast, but I appreciated the melody and whacked myself on Youtube to get another fix as soon as his performance was over.

What struck me about the festival was that although I wasn’t a huge fan of all the acts, the mix of interviews, performances and general foolery that we come to expect from T4 kept me well entertained for a least four hours.

The variety meant I didn’t get too bored and it opened my eyes to several music acts I may never have listened to if they hadn’t been teamed up on a stage with the mighty N-Dubz.

And it beats watching the millionth rerun of the Friends series any day.