(Actually, he was supporting Jens Lekman, who I have nothing against, but I didn’t stick around to see. After seeing Bon Iver, there didn’t seem to be any point.)

Sometimes gigs come at just the right moment. The ‘right moment’ is usually the point where I’ve been listening to an album for long enough that I love it, and know it well, but not so much that it’s wandering into the territory where I’m a little bored of it and am waiting for the next one to come out.

For Emma, Forever Ago is definitely one of my albums of the year. It’s beautiful, sad, but not melancholic and although in some ways it’s a classic singer/songwriter album, it’s much, much more than that and doesn’t sound like any other album of it’s type. The falsetto voice and the quality of the sound and excellence of the songwriting is entirely unique.

Justin Vernon’s one of those people who appears to be his band, if that makes sense (when he came on, he said “I’m Bon Iver”). He has real stage presence, a sharp sense of humour and made me laugh out loud a couple of times during the banter in his set. And my, what a set. All of the songs were from the album, rather unsurprisingly, but live they have even more power and beautiy. He’s not afraid to play with the songs a little, extending the odd solo, breaking down the odd ending and all of this does nothing but add to the amazing tone of his voice and the quality of the songs.

I have to thank Cat for taking me along to this – I’m so grateful. This was such a great set that I didn’t think twice about booking tickets for his next show in September, and I highly recommend you buy the album, and then do the same.