I was one of those lucky enough to be at the Philharmonic Hall on Saturday to see Marcel Khalife.
In fact, I seem to have spent most of the weekend at the hall, being back yesterday afternoon for a Last Night of the Proms featuring conductor Carl Davis in a succession of lurid frock coats.
His wardrobe must be stuffed with them.
Anyway, Khalife spent most of last week in Liverpool doing a series of appearances, workshops and concerts as part of the Arabic Arts Festival.
But bizarrely, despite his massive standing in the music world, the promoters seemed to find it an uphill battle to translate that to bums on seats.
In the event if not a sell out, there were a decent number of people at the Philharmonic Hall on Saturday night, and those who didn't go missed a real treat.
Khalife's son is an accomplished pianist and started proceedings with a very contemporary, very LONG (!), Lebanese work - too contemporary really for my tastes but I could appreciate his mastery of the piano and there was a soaring orchestra part.
Khalife senior followed, performing his own Andalusian Concerto for Oud (a Lebanese lute) and Orchestra.
What a fantastic work! The kind of music that you can't help smiling to. Everyone should buy a copy and have a listen.
One thing though.
The audience.
At the risk of being pilloried as elitist or snobby (I'm not, I just value good audience manners), I'm going to have a little moan.
It was great to see so many people at the Philharmonic Hall who have probably never been before and I hope their experience persuades them to go again.
But oh my, oh my, why does no one know how to behave in a live performance any more? You see it at the Empire as well when the audience spends much of the show bobbing up and down to the bar and loo, chomping their way noisily through picnics at their seat, text messaging and taking calls!
It was nowhere near as bad as that at the Phil, but this is a place where normally you go a self-conscious shade of red if you even give a little cough in a quiet passage.
Despite the information given out at the start of the night, the girl in front of me (who I took to be a foreign radio journalist) got a pair of headphones and a mic out and started recording! Well, she did until they were confiscated by a steward.
There also seemed to be a number of babies in the balcony who were allowed to gurgle, yowl and cry on and on and on during the performance, while someone behind me was moved to start clapping in time to the music at one point.
Not forgetting the wandering in and out in the middle of the performance, doors a-banging. And the flash photography.
Still, it happens on other occasions as well (you know who you are, woman with the red handbag who waited until a quiet passage at the Last Night of the Proms to unwrap the loudest sweets in the world).
Incidently, there are some well-mannered concert goers like the polite and chatty young lad who sat with me in my box yesterday.
His dad is a member of the orchestra and asked if his son, who is learning the double bass, could join me so he could get a better view of what was going on on stage.
He certainly got that - from our vantage point you were almost sitting on the brass section's laps.
