That was how I came to be at the Hoxton Underbelly last Friday. Sometimes people describe me as “lucky” so I suppose it was no surprise that, having discovered a great new band originating from my home town of Nottingham, I would swiftly find them playing just round the corner from my adopted Spitalfields. After the fates had conspired, it would have been rude not to attend.

Rude, but possible. There was a parallel invite from ITV to spend the night in the Jonathan Ross green room (the real one rather than what you see on stage) with Noel Gallagher (who did so much to revive British music at its most dead), Michael Sheen (who did a magnificent portrayal of the great Cloughie himself) and Miranda Hart (who did so little to win all those comedy awards) but I reasoned I can go to Wossy any week when he’s filming. But then there was an also a British Sea Power  gig at the Barfly in Camden and they are quite possibly Britain’s absolute best band, but I have seen them maybe a dozen times before. Nottingham’s finest won out.

This year I’ve been invited to see Muse in the private Wembley box of the head of Warner records, stood on the very front row for U2 at Glastonbury and even had to step in as John Taylor’s body double for Duran Duran (I told you I was a lucky so-and-so), but it’s this sort of gig, down in the basement of a small club with an energetic hungry young band that will always excite the most.

Spotlight Kid (the Spotters on Tour) had support: the long running order comprised four hungry bands, but I missed the first (apologies to La Bete). Next up came three-piece Alphastate, with singer Ani announcing it was her birthday. She sang well, but spoke quietly and moved little, but I liked her dreamy folky vocals. And that she asked if anyone had been lucky enough to get Stone Roses tickets earlier in the day. I’d booked my place at the reunion gig so raised my glass to her and cheered, and embarrassed myself as I was the only one in the whole of the Underbelly in that fortunate position.

After Alphastate came four-piece Faults (in the unusual position of having a female drummer). They had what I thought were excellent songs,  but the Hoxton-fin-crowned lead singer’s voice was just one you really didn’t want to listen to for any time at all and the (excellent) guitarist squeezed every note with the emotion and anguish of forcing a number two. Half the audience seemed to comprise family or friends of the band, so you clapped on pain of being beaten up. Bizarrely the other half was largely made up of minute women, presumably swelling the crown to make pint-size Spotters singer Katty Heath feel more at home.

Katty’s pronounced “Cat” rather than “Kate”. I know because I asked at the beginning of the evening, finding her all glittery eyed selling CDs and T-shirts in the middle of the bar. That’s another thing about proper working/touring bands – you can talk to them properly, except when you get all tongue-tied despite being a professional wordsmith like me. But she is very cute and all smiles. And just when you think she can’t get any more perfect, you notice the Johnny-Mackintosh-style Starmark tattoo on her right wrist. It would have been rude not to buy a CD and in fact I found myself asking for two.

In the twenty-three years before I left Nottingham permanently I don’t recall any decent music coming out of the city. One band (Krush) made it to number three in the days when the singles chart mattered, and I think they even DJ’d at The Garage, a presumably long-defunct Lacemarket club where I spent most of my weekends, but House Arrest really wasn’t my cup of tea. I moved to Oxford and fell into the “Happy (Thames) Valley” Shoegazing scene made all their own by the once-mighty Ride, with support from Chapterhouse and Swervedriver and Lush and Curve. Back in that muddy Somerset field I felt I’d hit upon the new Ride, but with more ethereal vocals. And unlike Alphastate, Spotlight Kid are all energy on stage, Katty pumping her air guitar for all it’s worth.

But Spotlight Kid are much more than their female singer. They’re a six-piece of sweltering guitars, building a wall of subtly crafted noise and with vocals and energy also coming from Rob McLeary, an effortlessly thin guitarist with spectacular hair and a penchant for taking his guitar into the audience and climbing onto the sound desk. He told me he was from Arnold and he looked it. Your eyes are drawn to these two but the band are very tight, with Chris Moore and Karl Skivington also on guitar, Matt Holt on bass and Chris Davis bashing away behind them. Space was limited. I thought I’d caught Katty on video accusing the others of touching her bum but the phone failed so instead you get a video of a track from their new album Disaster Tourist. This is “Forget yourself in me” (I might be wrong but I think it would make life easier for Katty in all that wind if she got a shorter veil):

The Spotters are endearingly proud of their visuals and I guess must have spent a lot of time putting them together. I thought this meant that the occasionally bitty nature to the night was because, between every song Katty had to get down on her knees and play with a laptop to call up the next vid. But she reliably informs me it was just to have a swig of water before belting out the next number!

The setlist is short and well crafted, as yet without an encore. Is that because Spotlight Kid haven’t yet found their breakthrough song that might see them sitting in the Jonathan Ross green room? Or are they just modelling their appearances on Jesus and Mary Chain/Strokes/Vaccines (take your pick)? I hope the former. Next time they’re gigging, treat yourself – I hope London doesn’t have to wait too long. What we heard was:

Plan comes apart

Forget yourself in me

Can’t let go

April

Creeps

Reason

All is real

Seefeel

Haunting

During the final number, grasping her tambourine tightly, Katty made her way back to the CD stand to sell merchandise with the promise of kisses for purchasers (sadly I could hardly buy more) while Rob vaulted onto the bass drum, only to fall backwards into the drum kit – I wasn’t sure Chris was terribly amused.

On the Quercus Books blog (Quercus is my publisher) you can read my post about Doomed Teddy Bear Love.

On the brilliant Book Zone for Boys website you can read another of my posts, this time on the coolest way (we’ve yet come up with) to land on another planet.

Then, over at www.JohnnyMackintosh.com, there’s a piece on Jo Rowling’s and Harry Potter’s influence on the Johnny Mackintosh books.

What are you doing still here? Go and get reading!

After finally downloading some of my pictures, here’s a belated post about summer fun. If you’ve never been to the Glastonbury Festival you might be labouring under the misapprehension that it’s a music event. In fact, you could have a great time in the fields of Worthy Farm if you don’t do to see a band at all. A city of two hundred thousand people, three miles across, descends on the Somerset countryside and it is a city of wonders. I think the first time I went was 1992. I remember catching sight of the place and thinking I had stumbled upon Tina Turner’s Bartertown, from the Mad Max movies. There was just so much going on and here are a few pictures away from the music side:

Much of this year’s art was on a gigantic scale, set in some sort of post apocalyptic dystopian future. Here in an area of the site known simply as Block9 is “The London Underground”, a 50ft tower block complete with a crashed Tube train near the top.

Opposite “The London Underground” is another extract from an urban cityscape, the magnificent “NYC Downlow”. Dare you cross the road to enter what for the Glastonbury campers might still appear to be luxury accommodation. Yes the bathroom’s exposed to the elements but, hey, at least there’s a bath.

Shangri-La was a nearby area of the site that had “been contaminated”. It was a Blade Runner-style world with a mixture of hope and desperation. You entered underneath a neon banner proclaiming “We are all sky” which is something that’s always had a special resonance for me in my more poetic writing.

There was a rumour (that I started) that Bono’s plane had been shot down on leaving the festival, ending up as another club in one of the outlying fields. Or maybe this is an allusion to Lord of the Flies, that if the mud becomes too deep we’ll all revert to savages. Whichever, I think the styling’s extraordinary.

Here’s your chance to begin again in the off-world colonies. Now we’ve seen the final space shuttle flight it might be the only way to go there.

There are more conventional creations (but none the less disturbing) like this oversize sand baby. Basically everywhere you go that’s away from the very central area you’ll see something.

And, after his performance on the Friday night (I was on the front row, so confess I did see some music) where better to give thanks the Temple of the Blessed Bono?

If you go to the festival in 2013 (next year they’re having a break) then make sure you do more than sit in a field listening to faraway music.

I spent Saturday in the company of Duran Duran. Had you told me, back in the 1980s, that I’d do that, I wouldn’t have believed you. Yet, in recent years, I’ve had nights out with a fair few of the popstars I grew up listening to or watching on Top of the Pops. There’ve been the likes of Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet, Leee John of Imagination (we danced together to “Just an Illusion” at the rap party of Reborn in the USA) or even the lovely Tereza Bazar from Dollar (who could forget that dress for Hand Held in Black and White?).

Even so, Duran Duran are special and I’ll certainly treasure my crew pass. They were always a cut above the others. While not necessarily regarded as such in their home country, they were the biggest British band in the US since the Beatles. Never overtly cool, they had a superb brand of brilliantly crafted pop that I’ve always loved. In fact, over their thirty year career in music, I’ve enjoyed every Duran single, perhaps with special pleasure reserved for the brilliant “Ordinary World” that led to a revival at a time when it appeared they would fade away, when their music has always deserved to be heard.

It’s thirty years since debut singe “Planet Earth”, a song the band sometimes mix with the underrated “All She Wants Is” in their live shows. There’s an element of sadness that, after all this time, the band are still worth writing about. I once scripted a TV show called Sing it Back with Paul Gambaccini, the walking encyclopedia of music who stated earlier this year that the era of rock ’n roll is over. It seems horribly true. It’s not just that I went to the opera a few weeks ago, and surprised myself by rather enjoying Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. It’s that there’s very little interest or enthusiasm from the young generation in forming bands and actually crafting songs.

On Saturday, Duran played three of their new songs, all of which were impressive, especially “Leave a Light On” which I presume is a single to come soon. The band were recording Duran Duran: One Night Only at ITV’s London Studios, hosted by Christine Bleakley. Very professional, they were working pretty much all afternoon on sound checks and setup, but at times even this band with great stamina (as you’ll know if you’ve seen them live) need a break. At one point I was asked to take to the stage and mime a little bass playing, giving John Taylor a well-deserved rest. I’ve done some strange jobs over the course of my lifetime, but I never expected to become the body double for one of the world’s great heartthrobs.

The Independent on Sunday music journalist Simon Price, perhaps the man with the most distinctive haircut in music since Phil Oakey, also came to the filming. I always see him at gigs and wish now I’d asked him who he feels the next decent band to break might be. There’s lots of hype around Slough’s Brother or Chapel Club from my own East End, but I’m not convinced they have The X-Factor (another ITV show which is, without doubt, brilliant television, but has probably played its part in undermining real music). But this was a night to look back, not forward, and enjoy a great musical legacy, and share a beer in the very crowded green room afterwards – even Frank Lampard popped in after the show to join up with Bleakley.

The show transmits on Sunday 20th March and will be well worth watching for any Duranies still going strong (I’m sure there are lots). Once it’s been seen, I might add a few of my own pictures from the day to spice up this entry, but I’d hate to annoy either the band or the good people of ITV by slipping them out into the ether before the show is aired.

It’s not often that singing superstars Katherine Jenkins and Rolando Villazon are to be found a few yards in front of you belting out YMCA, complete with actions. So begins Friday evening at ITV’s London Studios for the latest instalment of Popstar to Operastar. Jenkins and Villazon are joined by fellow judges Meat Loaf and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, equally good sports as they whip the audience up before filming begins.

It’s week three and Blur’s Alex James and The Saturday’s Vanessa White have both left the show. I have the best seat in the house, right beside Rolando and Katherine, to discover who will be next. Rolando sets the bar high, performing an epic pre-record that the world will hear while they’re awaiting the results of the public vote. It must be nerve wracking enough for whichever competitor goes first, but following that would be especially daunting.

Marshy gets the gig. That’s how she’s known to fellow Hear’Sayer and co-host Mylene Klass, but to much of the nation Kym Marsh is also Michelle Connor, barmaid of Corrie’s Rover’s Return. She starts us off singing Habanera from Carmen, armed with a black Spanish fan to hide behind. The performance over, Klass’s co-star Alan Titchmarsh quizzes the judges.

“Meat” starts the ball rolling saying, “That was like sex. One minute, forty-five seconds of pure ecstasy.” The one-time scriptwriter in me is praying one of the other panelists will respond with, “That’s a long time for you, Meat,” but they’re all far too kind and the moment passes.

During the breaks, Katherine and Rolando’s stylists rush in to beautify their charges. As magic potions are sprayed onto Rolando’s ringlets, I ask if they might help regrow my own disappearing locks.

Before the show I tweeted that Jimmy Osmond would be next to go. He surprises me and the panel by turning in a decent operatic performance of Amor Ti Vieta. Afterwards, he comes up and shakes all the judges’ hands, coming across as a totally great and genuine guy.

The other performers left in are Marcella Detroit, Danny from McFly, Darius and Bernadette Nolan. I’m sitting behind Marcella’s friends and family (with the McFly boys, their girlfriends and Katherine’s mum a couple of rows in front). Everyone’s nervous because Marcella’s up next singing Queen of the Night from The Magic Flute, apparently the most difficult piece in the opera canon. As she reaches the end, pretty well note perfect, and hits the highest, most difficult to reach one of them all, Rolando beside me punches the air in triumph. If you’re quick enough to catch this week’s video on the website, you’ll see me laughing beside him (1:03 to 1:10 seconds in).

Clearly nervous after a failed rehearsal, Danny takes a while to get going, but finishes strongly. The panel are still quite damning. It’s because he’s not fulfilling his potential – there’s a clear desire for everyone to do well. Danny’s upset. Katherine’s upset that they were too hard on Danny and wonders about finding him to apologize. While this is a live show, during the VTs (videotape inserts) and the ad breaks there’s plenty of time to stretch your legs and wander around. All the while the crew on the studio floor perform magnificently – I’ve worked on some live shows and it was the best drilled group I’d seen.

Darius (hit my baby one more … time) Danesh/Campbell has had a bad week. You can tell because there are dancers on stage, a sure sign the producers want to distract from the vocals. They needn’t have worried. Opera suits the once pony-tailed would-have-been Pop Idol, and he rises to the occasion. Last comes Bernie Nolan. If you, like me, recall the original Nolan Sisters (who later underwent a radical rebrand to the Nolans), you wouldn’t have expected too much from the final act of the evening. You’d also have been very surprised. Bernie pulled it off big time – I thought it all the more impressive she had to sing some of the piece sitting down (on a chez longue Llewelyn-Bowen could easily have leant the studio for the occasion). We awaited the vote.

I love the way all these shows announce the acts going through “in no particular order”, giving strategists and psychologists hours of potential fun wondering who should be announced when for maximum impact on future shows. Sadly, I can’t even remember the order now, but we were left with Danny and Jimmy standing before the judges. My earlier prediction hit the spot and the one-time long-haired lover from Liverpool is the one to go.

Afterwards it’s back to the green room, past various interviews taking place behind the scenes. The stars change and make their way up to join us. I’m struck by the great vibe all round – everyone’s friendly and happy to talk. Katherine looks after her mum while my friend Eddie forces me to take a photo of him with Kym Marsh, who’s totally lovely and happy to oblige. Had I remembered, I could have reminded her that the first (and only other) time I saw her, was in another ITV green room when I was talking with Midge Ure. Way back then, Marshy asked Midge for his autograph, so there’s no need to be embarrassed.

A great way to spend a Friday night and very different indeed from my last night at the opera – with only three shows left, I hope I’m able to get back for another.

Some people say there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Earlier this week, mine lasted 32 hours, beginning with a grand American breakfast (eggs sunnyside up) in downtown San Francisco, followed by a cable car ride up Nob Hill, clinging onto the outside which they’d never let you do in London.

A little shopping preceded a walk along the waterfront, staring out towards The Rock, otherwise known as Alcatraz, on which Jo Rowling’s Dementor-guarded prison of Azkaban was based. Her third title, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, is many reader’s favourite so it was fitting to see it as I’ve spent a little of the past few days getting back to the third Johnny Mackintosh book.

Great cities have great architecture and San Fran is no exception. There’s the landmark Transamerica Tower and, as you can see above, I managed to catch a glimpse of the unforgettable Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Mason Hill before heading back towards the hotel, having lunch (a pastrami and swiss sandwich even Joey Tribbiani would have been proud of), and then on to the airport, scene of my first ever full body scan where the security guards can see right through your clothes (I felt so sorry for mine!). We talked about these on The Science of Spying exhibition that I worked on, so it’s amazing to see them already in action.

On the plane it was a lamb curry, two disappointing films (Aliens in the Attic and the animated 9) and a chat with neighbour Katy who showed me photos of the prizewinning cats she breeds. She’s also a dog lover and there’s an Old English sheepdog in the family, so we talked about Bentley. To get over the poor movies I also re-watched the first half of the terrific Time Traveler’s Wife, which is a splendid adaption of a great but difficult book to bring to the screen. I could be wrong but the film seemed to die in the UK from a near total lack of publicity, after a very delayed global release. Some fans of the book weren’t keen on the casting, but Rachel McAdams is seriously underrated and always splendid and Eric Bana did a great job too.

Sadly, not much time for sleep, before leaping onto the Heathrow Express and heading for lovely London town – it’s always good to come home after some time away. One of the tricks to defeat jetlag is to stay awake as long as possible and not succumb to the thought of “a little lie down” which could turn into several hours and then you’re scuppered for the week. To keep me going, I had the prospect of the 30th Brit Awards Launch Party to look forward to, which was happily an early evening affair.

Arriving at the Dome, I confess I eschewed the red carpet, thinking I didn’t look quite my best having been up for more than 24 hours at this point. I’ve just started Tweeting (you can follow me @KeithMansfield) so had checked in on presenter @FearneCotton during the day. She’d suggested a choice of three outfits and people were sending their preferences. The power of the internet meant she picked blue. I bumped into her as I entered Indigo where the event was being held, but was a bit too jetlagged to twig and say hello. The next moment she was up on stage introducing 80s throwback synth singer La Roux.

Performances from JLS (X Factor runners up made good from a couple of years ago), Ellie Golding (winner of the most promising newcomer award) and Pixie Lott – the night could largely have been retitled “Here Come the Girls”. I’m sure everyone performed fine. Though I was struggling to stay awake by this stage, everyone was enthusiastically cheered on by the kids from the Brit School who were down at the front.

It’s the thirtieth anniversary of The Brits. For me the greatest ever was the night Sam Fox presented with Mick Fleetwood and it was total chaos, but the organizers prefer not to talk about that one. Sadly, a little self-indulgently, the award for “Best Live Act” has been dropped this year for “Best Performance at the Brits”. In an era when the industry is being devastated by illegal downloads, we’ve seen a great resurgence of live music and it seems short-sighted not to recognize this.

Even so, the Brits is the music award everyone wants to win (or even go to so it was great to have an invite). As if he doesn’t have enough on his mantelpiece, Robbie Williams is up for this year’s lifetime achievement gong. The main event is in Earl’s Court on 16th February.

By the time it had all finished, I didn’t know whether I was coming or going, got on the Tube in the wrong direction and spent about an hour stumbling around Canary Wharf  buying supplies I didn’t need before finding the way home, all ready for a 6.30am start for work the next day. I’ve survived the week relatively unscathed when it comes to jetlag, but confess to still feeling rather tired.