Ecclesiastical Wildness.

It was great to finally cross off watching Kim Wilde sing Kids in America in a church from my bucket list today. 

She was performing alongside her brother Ricky at St Mary's in Hitchin, as part of a scaled down version of the town's annual music festival Rhythms of the World, which celebrates its 25th birthday this year - but then, who isn't?

Theirs was the shortest set of the night, but the most anticipated; not least by me, who last saw Ricky Wilde when my old band Big Day Out recorded a demo at his studio in Knebworth eighteen years ago (I think I've got the numbers right). He championed us at the time, having judged us the winners of a local Battle of the Bands, and swore he'd get us a record deal, yet for some bizare reason we decided to opt for one of my dad's friends from work as a manager instead; recording our best songs at a different studio before going to Wilde's, where we worked on lesser material. It's fair to say that we were idiots. 

Kim and Ricky were only on for fifteen minutes which was a shame, as I'd have happily watched them play for much longer. They closed with their biggest hit, with us inevitably joined in with "Woah-oh"s. I've mentioned before that the song's a bit of a guilty pleasure, though I don't know why I felt embarrassed by it; there's nothing wrong with a good pop song, and it's a cracker.

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