Another interface entirely

This last week has seen a host of good concerts in London, including at the more cerebral end of the spectrum Andrew Hill and his Anglo-American band - an interesting crossover between contemporary classical and jazz (QEH) - and at the riotous end, the madcap Boban Markovic, leading the brassiest and danciest of bands from the Balkans (Barbican X-BLOC Reunion), a concert which curiously reminded me of those 50s films with jazz club scenes (although this was not strictly a jazz band).

The Barbican Hall audience did not disappoint, with both stalls and circle transformed into impromptu dance halls for around three hours. But why do we have these strange places, where it's so difficult to get up and dance? The staff were tolerant, but these venues - serried rows of seats - are really not made for dancing the night away (what the music demands).

Had the audience read Stewart Brand (How Buildings Learn), they might have torn up the seats, and who could have blamed them?