Had been on the Dodo wall pad for months before rushing to meet us last Friday: drop off kids, drive to Stansted, fly to Dublin, bus to hotel, walk to venue, watch Muse. Here's a taster from an intense night:

Small bit of upfront online research had revealed The Point to be walkable, apparently, from our bijou Liffey-facing hotel, a fact confirmed by a nice lady on the airport bus. She'd mentioned a boardwalk, and sure enough there's a well-lit and smartly street furnitured walkway all the way out there. Began walking on our own and finally arrived in a snowballing crowd: SOLD OUT, said the sign.

Our standing tickets put us in the heart of the action, closely surrounded by, well, young people, space becoming ever more at a premium in anticipation of the lads appearing. Bovine cries of "Muse!" echoed round the hall. 9:30pm and on they came, and what a noise, in a good way.

They'd been fittingly awesome at Glastonbury in 2004 -- from the comfort of an armchair in front of the BBC2 coverage -- and they sure make a racket for three lads from Teignmouth. Have to love frontman Bellamy for his Thom Yorke voice, Brian May guitar stylings and his Philip Glass piano work. That man sure can perform.

Supermassive Black Hole was everything you'd expect a song of that name to be, and Knights of Cydonia -- maybe about that face on Mars -- was anthemically singalongable. Left with our ears ringing, deaf to the world but happy.

What impressed the kids, though, on our return was our celebrity spotting. Not of Jeffrey Archer, strolling around the Dublin airport bookshop, but of none other than one of the Chuckle Brothers on the Stansted bus. No slacking!