The Beatles, Hammersmith Odeon, December 1964

It was Christmas 1964. I was four years old. My Dad wasn't into music but my mum - a big Guy Mitchell fan - was still only 24 when the Beatles emerged and so she listened to them and wanted someone to go with when she got tickets. So it was that I dutifully boarded a train to London to see a department store Santa and, after visiting Santa's grotto and collecting my neatly wrapped present, Mum took me on to the Hammersmith Odeon to see The Beatles' Christmas Show 1964, compered by Jimmy Savile.

I heard The Beatles that evening, but my memory is not of the music. I don't remember what John and Paul said, or whether you could hear them over the screams of the audience. Or indeed if the audience was screaming.What I remember is opening my present from Santa and removing the wrapping paper to find that I'd got a set of wooden skittles and balls. And then dropping one of the balls on the floor where it promptly rolled away on the sloping auditorium floor to the stage, never to be seen again.  I didn't understand then why the ball couldn't be retrieved.  I do now.

The Wedding Present, O2 Academy, Liverpool, 29 October 2013

The Wedding Present's Hit Parade Tour ends on Friday in London, so you've got just three more opportunities to catch the band replaying their Elvis Presley-matching cascade of a hit single every month during 1992. From the opening chords of Blue Eyes through to the haunting chorus of No Christmas, the audience in Liverpool were reminded of why the charts back then were so much more interesting than they are now. Well perhaps that's nostalgia, but if you're going to get all nostalgic why not do so in the company of a great band playing loud in a small venue? The Hit Parade songs were bookended by 9 or 10 others from the band's 'extensive repertoire', as main man David Gedge introduced them. Whether it's the industrial thunder of Interstate 5 with which the band start the show, the spirit lifting 524 Fidelio with bassist Katharine Wallinger on backing vocals or the squalling guitar of Patrick Alexander on new single Two Bridges there are a range of newer songs for fans to nod along to. But it is Brassneck and set closer My Favourite Dress that get the mosh pit of 50 somethings bouncing around. The band are held together by the energetic Charles Layton on drums, and David Gedge has a line in patter that other front men would do well to study. The only sombre note (aside from the fact that most Wedding Present songs are bitter sweet lyrically) is when Gedge says a few words in tribute to Lou Reed and then plays Reed's She's My Best Friend. By the end of the pulsating 90 minute show the crowd have had their fill, which is just as well since the Wedding Present don't do encores.

My top five gigs of 2013

A bit previous, as Arfur Daley would say, since we're only in October but here we go:

5.  The Wedding Present, Lille, 13 October 2013

This was a small club gig and there was no mosh pit (it would never happen back home in Blighty) but the Pressies knocked out a tidy 90 minute set with David Gedge throwing the shapes and dragging from his guitar the feedback that seasoned followers of the band have come to expect.  The reputation of the band as jingly jangly indie heroes doesn't pay heed to the monstrous amounts of distortion that they've been producing for 20 odd years, the kind of noise you'd expect to hear at a ....

4.  Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Newcastle, 10 June 2013

concert.  Apparently people were walking out of this and other gigs on Young's 2013 European tour.  More fool them, I say.  Old Neil was on top form, and if you came expecting peace, love, incense sticks and an acoustic ramble through Neil's gentler back catalogue then you really should have listened to his last album, Psychedelic Pill, before buying your tickets.  Or listened to any Crazy Horse album from the last 40 plus years, really.

3.  Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Manchester, 14 June 2013

My ears could still have been ringing from the Neil Young & Crazy Horse concert of four days before, but the sonic assault with which Elvis targeted his audience towards the end of his set was like a short circuit on a human juke box with seven (count 'em) of his early gems fired off one after the other. Throw in Elvis as the Master of Ceremonies wisecracking and gladhanding his audience and you had the Royal Variety Show, thankfully without the Royals.  The audience were slightly less engaged at....

2.   The Wedding Present, Lille, 13 October 2013 (matinee)

but what this gig lacked in atmosphere it made up for in sheer charm with the band playing a seven song 25 minute set with turned down amplifiers and toned down lyrics for an audience of pre school kids and their parents.  I've seen the Pressies over 20 times now, but this gig will live in the memory a long time.  And talking of kids with their parents....

1. The Rolling Stones, Hyde Park, 6 July 2013

The sun was beating down, the son was with me and happy to melt in the heat for a few hours so that we had a good spot when the band came on, and the Stones showed how they earned their reputation as the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world by dipping into their treasure chest of hits and putting on the kind of event that few (ok, no one) can match when it comes to entertaining a big, inter-generational crowd.  My gig of the year (so far!).

The Wedding Present, L'Aeronef, Lille

I'm not very tall. Five eight is what I claim, although some of my nearest and dearest dispute this.  Still, it's not often I get to go to a gig and can see over the heads of most of the audience.  But I managed it at this Wedding Present gig, which was put on at L'Aeronef in Lille at a time when some musicians would only just be getting out of bed. It must be every rock star's dream. Get your audience while they're young and they'll grow up with you, buying your records throughout your career. The Wedding Present went one further, playing an afternoon matinee of seven songs to an audience of children ranging in age from 2 to 10, plus their mums and dads.  The guitars weren't turned up to 11, the lyrics were altered ('sex was all you needed' in set opener Interstate 5 became 'fun was all you needed') and there was no mosh pit, but this was still a gig, albeit with pint sized patrons. Mainman David Gedge still threw his rock star poses, a seven year old stood up and filmed a whole song on his mum's iPhone and Freres Jacques didn't make it into the set. Even better, no one tried to impress their girlfriend by talking all the way or managed to start a fight by spilling their pint over their neighbour. Instead the audience of school age children was treated to California, Ringway to Seatac and Montreal, with a gorgeously understated My Favourite Dress to finish.  The band appeared to be having fun, with Gedge exchanging grins with drummer Charlie Layton, and there were no tantrums on or off stage, although one young audience member did have to be carried out to use the toilet halfway through the second number.  'Hope to see you again one day,' said David to his new young fans, a clutch of whom were gathered around the monitors at the front of the stage.  If this is the future of rock and roll, it has a long life ahead.