7th APRIL 2001
ACADEMY, MANCHESTER, ENGLAND

Dido Live Dido Live Dido Live

Review from Dave:
I'd never been to the Manchester Academy before - it's a fairly small, all-standing venue, and we got fairly near the front.
It was a seven-piece band (guitar, bass, drums, percussion, keyboards, turntables, and Dido), and they rocked. They opened with 'My Lover's Gone', and played pretty much the whole of 'No Angel' (Except 'Take My Hand'), and two new songs - one was 'Don't Leave Home', and the other was a new, never-performed-before song (arrghh.. can't remember the name!) My favourite songs of the night were probably 'Isobel', and 'Honestly OK', where she repeated the line "I'm so lonely I don't even want to be with myself anymore" over and over... (probably my favourite lyric on the album).
The support act, Tom McRae, were pretty good, too - a bit REM-like.

Review from Rowan:
I was also at Manchester and was lucky enough to get Dido's set list, the full set (which I presume will be the same for the rest of this tour) was:

Worthless (Instrumental)
My Lover's Gone
Here With Me
Isobel
My Life
Honestly OK
No Angel
Slide
See The Sun (Brand New)
Thank You
Hunter

Then, as an encore:

Don't Leave Home (Newish)
Don't Think Of Me

As Dave said, it was a really good gig though, I'm afraid to say, not as good as in London a couple of months ago. The people there (of which there were many) were not as into the music. There was a lot of head bobbing but not a lot else.
The two new songs, 'Don't Leave Home' and 'See The Sun' (the latter of which is about friendship apparently) are quickly becoming my favourite tracks. The vocals are mind-blowing on both. I really hope she manages to capture the sound when she records them.
I was talking to Vinny and the bassist after the gig. They were very friendly and genuinely interested in talking about the music and the tour. Dido didn't come out but I got a few autographs on my treasured song list!
I agree about Tom McRae - he was really good although I think he was a little annoyed at people talking right through his set. Still, he's doing a solo tour of sorts soon so that'll be worth going to.