My first trip to the Mick Jagger Centre in Dartford, and it's just a school hall with curtains to cover the radiators. Not that the design is a problem, it's a small venue that works fine for intimate concerts like this one. There are a couple of problems, though. The first is that the sound quality is poor and the second is that each row of seats are hooked together, meaning it only takes one person to tap their foot for the rest of the row to start rocking, and not in a good way.

Whilst I suffered from the latter, Moya Brennan and her band suffered from the former. The sound quality was muggy and most of the intsruments were EQ'd to within an inch of their muddy mid-toned lives. Which is frustrating, given that the band are all clearly talented. Watching them play in a quite restrained fashion so that the live sound came from the speakers and not the stage was a real problem for me. Given the small size of the hall it would have been much better for them to chuck out the mics and play the instruments for real. Or get a better sound engineer.

The gig itself was fine - everyone in the audience loved Moya Brennan and what she did, she did very well. Looking around the venue it's clear that the Mick Jagger Centre has the power to attract a wide range of artists, which I'd put down the the Mick effect. What's most impressive, though, is just how cold the beer is. There wasn't a great range of it, but what they did have was frighteningly cold, and refreshing.