Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Hi Plymouth

So as the title of this blog would suggest, I'm currently in Plymouth. I slept for most of the journey here, not something I'm happy about. I don't like taking naps/sleeping during the day/falling asleep involuntarily... all of these things happened.

I'm stuck here until Saturday when I head back to BN1 and work (aka listen to PBC, Cartel and maybe a podcast interview or two on my ipod) until the sun comes up. Between now and then I'll be visiting family and generally be doing alot of killing time, not to mention the paid work I'm missing out on. I was planning on seeing Crocus on Friday but it would seem that's not going to happen now.

I want to set up mobile blogging but my phone is charging upstairs and I'm feeling lazy so it's not going to happen. If I do however I can grab the other can of Rochstar which is in my bag, that may not be a good idea as my eye feels very strange after drinking the last one...

Basically, I'm not over joyed about being here and can't think of anything positive to say. Bad times... roll on Sunday.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Updaaaate

Right, here it goes.

Last Sunday (April 5th) was my first show, I'm not going to go into much detail about this as it's more a sidenote than a point of discussion for this post. It all went okay, happy bands, happy people, happy venue staff. Yeeeah!

So last Monday (April 6th) I began my trip up north, I got up at stupid o'clock to catch a train to London, on which I saw Matt King (if you don't know who that is google is your friend) and from there sat on a coach for far too long to get to Manchester. The fact that I even made it to Manchester was a moment in itself, the coach driver did some very bad driving. I was going to met up with Dan before the show and wonder about, we ended up meeting waay later and headed to Weatherspoons and met Ash, Andy and Gaby for drinks. Expensive drinks. We headed over to the Musicbox before Dead Swans were due to play. It was a great set, they played a new track as well. Next was This Is Hell, I was happy to see them again, they killed it to. I had to leave pretty quickly after the show as I was going to be crashing on Kam's floor.

Dan ended up crashing as well, and we both had uncomfortable nights sleep on the small sofas. I woke up pretty early and couldn't work out how to use the shower and didn't want to wake Kam up to ask. Luckily he woke up in time for me to shower before we headed to the coach station.

The coach journey to Glasgow was uneventful. I grabbed a taxi to the train station where I was met by Alessio and we were joined by the rest of Search Party and Steph. We made our way back to the Ivory Black's and I dropped off my stuff and then Steph and I had dinner in Weatherspoons. The Glasgow show seemed busier than the Manchester one the night before. It was ace to see Search Party live again, and also watch DS and TIH. Needless to say both were great again. It sucked that there was a barrier, my ribs hurt a ton after that and still do. It's how it goes though. We met Scott at the show as well and then all headed out afterwards, I can't remember what the place was called. We had a good night though! Subways, alcohol, cheesy chips and deep fried mars bars.

Another early morning and Alessio showed me to Glasgow central station so I could catch my train to Leeds. Definately the nicest journey, trains are so much better than coach! I had to change in Carlisle in order to get to Leeds. I got to Leeds pretty early and had fuck all to do, I went into a few shops in town and then gave Ricci a call to see if he was home. It turned out he was so I went to Headingley and hung out for a bit. On my way to the taxi rank I bumped into Sushi and had a little chat and he came along as well. We spent a while trying to get Ricci to come to the show, no luck though. So we went and caught a bus to Rios.

I know alot of people don't like this venue, but I'd never been. I can now safely say I don't like it either... at least not the downstairs, I've not been to the upstairs. The downstairs I'm not a fan of though. The stage was pretty high and had a low ceiling at the front, plus a metal pillar right in the middle at the down stage edge, this meant I didn't stand at the front as I didn't want to get knocked out. Wise choice, it did mean it was frustrating watching Dead Swans from side of stage though. I left during This Is Hell's first song as I was getting more and more irritated and I'd catch them tomorrow anyway. Jamo was kind enough to show me where I needed to catch a bus from to get back to Headingley, I really need to learn my way round the centre better!

Ricci had to leave early in the morning to get to work so woke me up to say bye and tell me he would leave his keys and could I drop them into work later. This was ace as it meant I could sleep a bit more and then have a shower and eat breakfast without having to rush. I ended up way early for my next coach so I walked around for a bit and went to the market.

I got to London ten minutes before doors as they were moved back an hour. The tube ride to Camden sucked as it was rush hour and so so warm. Gold dust were one of the supports, they were goooood. As it goes without saying that Dead Swans and This Is Hell were awesome but.... they were awesome. It was definately the best show I went to out of the four. Brit, Kath, Steph, Jen and others were there and I met Billy as well. I left straight after TIH and saw some old friends at the station and we caught the train back. I got home sometime in the morning and crawled into my own bed for the first time in days. It felt good.

Thanks to;
Ben/Dead Swans for saving me a shirt, Gaby for getting me a couple of drinks and sharing her Buckfast and doing a bit of street drinking and having some great talks, Andy for not posting up the picture he has, Kam for letting me stay, Dan for the fun chats and goss hahaa, Kam again for giving me a lift to the coach station, Benny/Dead Swans for putting me on list in Glasgow, Steph for getting me a couple of drinks, Scott for the deep fried mars bar, Neil for letting me stay, Alessio for walking me to the station, Sushi for hanging out with me, Jamo for walking me to the bus stop so I could get to Headingley, Ricci for letting me stay, Brit for letting me get her drinks ;), little Ben again for making sure he didn't stage dive on me and if I forgot anyone then I'm sorry!

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Fail

So I've been meaning to write up about my latest trip up north but I haven't yet. I'm not going to do it now either as I've had fuck all sleep, no food and now have a raging head ache.

Daaaamn.