Category Archives: Gigs and Festivals

On Wednesday Lizz and I went to see Maximo Park with the tickets I got for my birthday. We were joined there by Dave, Hayley, Gordon, Vlad, Matt Ridgill, Jess, Jeanette, Ben (Jeanette’s son), and last and least Peter. Support … Continue reading →

Friday night was the night of the Prodigy gig at the Plug in Sheffield. It was a really good night. Must thank Gordon for the tickets again. The doors opened at 9pm and The Prodigy didn’t come on until 12:30. There was no support band. We got home at some time between 3 and 4 in the morning.

Last night was Dave’s birthday celebration. I was supposed to meet Gordon earlier on to watch the FA Cup Final. It was raining though, so I didn’t fancy a 20 minute walk to a bus stop, then a 30-45 minute bus ride afterwards. I’m glad I didn’t go now. Gordon tells me it was a crap match.

Lizz, Marc, and I got a lift into Nottingham, got some food at Subway and then met up with Dave. We started off the niht in Speak Easy where Gordon joined us. Shortly before we left Dave and I both noticed our ex-girlfriends together. Nothing went wrong though, everyone kept their distance and things were good. Gordon was wearing a shirt, tie, and trousers so they wouldn’t let him into Rock City. We all decided to go to Rescue Rooms instead, except Dave who was supposed to be meeting a bunch of people inside.

Rescue Rooms was really good. A much better selection of music than I’ve come to expect in Rock City, anyway. When Gordon and Lizz were getting tired we decided it was a good time to get going home. Marc, Lizz, and I picked a taxi and after I’d finished bargaining with the driver we got home for £30 without the metre on. It’s ridiculously expensive when you think about it, but it’s about as cheap as you can get it at that time. Continue reading →

Lizz and I went to see her brother perform with his band at Intake Leisure. They were the support for Green Date (a Green Day tribute band). It was a pretty cool night. Especially when the lead singer gave Lizz’s brother £50 for the gig. More than he and Lizz were expecting.

I decided I wanted a barbecue on Saturday morning, but we had some painting to do. We’ve finished 3 of 4 walls now. Although we may have to do one extra as a feature wall at a later date. We also may require another coat on each wall. That can wait for a bit though, I hope. Once the painting was done I sent a message to JonP and he came over for the barbecue. I only managed to buy 3 disposable ones from the Co-op. I also bought some absolutely massive burgers. They needed to be chopped in half to fit in the cobs that I bought. They were gorgeous though. The barbecue ended with everyone throwing random things onto it to set them alight.

When we went back inside JonP and I played on one of the coolest little games I’ve played in ages. It’s called “Monsters, by Pixel Junk”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PixelJunk_Monsters. The idea is basically that you have to build towers to protect these little creatures from being eaten by bad guys. There are different types of towers and they all target different things in different ways. you only have so much money and so many places where you can build the towers. It’s very addictive.

After we’d played that game a bit we decided to go outside and toast some marshmallows that JonP had brought over. It was really nice! Just as with the previous barbecue it ended with things being thrown on it to burn. Continue reading →

Lizz and I went to see Jimmy Eat World in Leeds on Friday. We left straight from work at 16:30. The doors were set to open at 19:30, and Lizz had already decided we were going to wait in the queue. Unfortunately this meant that we were standing in the queue for an entire hour in the dark, in Leeds, in February. It was cold and horrible. We were very close to the front of the queue though.

When they opened the doors we went in and Lizz got told off for running. We got our places at the very front of the room and didn’t move again until the bands had finished playing.

After an hour of standing at the front of the room the band Sparkadia finally came on. They were really good. I enjoyed them a lot and shall be giving them a proper listen to over the next few weeks. After the show the lead singer and the female guitarist came around to hand out some fliers. Lizz had a bit of a chat with the female guitarist, who’d noticed her in the crowd earlier on during the gig. It was pretty cool.

Jimmy Eat World came on after a 20-30 minute break. They were great. I know I didn’t enjoy them as much as Lizz did, because nobody in the world could claim that, but it was good. I’m really glad I went, even though I did have to stand around for a very long time.

When Saturday came we had Dave, JonP, and Emma come over for a few drinks and stuff. It was a really good night. It went much better than the previously planned housewarming party would have gone.

Sunday mostly consisted of me and Dave smashing up furniture, or going random places, or playing around with computers turning them into MAME arcade cabinets. I hurt my leg when we were smashing furniture because I climbed onto the big pile of broken bits, then went I went to jump off I kinda slipped because it was raining. I twisted my knee a bit when I landed. :\ Lovely stuff. Continue reading →

I went to see Kings Of Leon on Friday with Vlad, Waqas, and Sally from college at Nottingham Ice Arena. It was really quite busy in there, but not really sold out. Manchester Orchestra were the first band, who seemed fairly mediocre. I went to get drinks with Vlad while they were playing though, so I can’t be sure they didn’t get better.

Before the gig we’d gone to a little Mexican style place called Bar de Nada in Hockley. It was really nice in there, and I’ll definitely be going back again.

After the gig we went to the Amici bar in West Bridgeford. I went there quite a while back with Ange from Capital One. It was still cool in there.

I had about 5 JDs with cola, and a beer. The most I’ve had to drink for at least 2 months!

Now I’m at work and it’s my late shift. Continue reading →

After work I got changed and went for a quick bite to eat at The Rushley with the Emmas, Sue (Emma J’s girlfriend), and Marc.

I caught the bus from over the road and went to Notts to meet Gordon, Vlad, and Andy (tutors from college) in “The Social”:http://www.socialnottingham.co.uk/. I got there early, so I’d had a couple by the time they’d turned up. After a little bit of conversation (and perving on the 19-year-old barmaid) I discovered that Vlad likes Manu Chao. He’s one of only two people I know of who knew of Manu Chao, other than the person who introduced me to the music, and the people who were with me at the time (Laura’s cousin Hannah, Laura, and Laura’s mom). That was cool. Weird that I’ve worked in the same place as Vlad for over a year and we only just discovered that we know of the same music.

There was a random girl who lives in Mansfield Woodhouse there who kept talking to us all. I don’t remember her name, if we asked for it at all. She was quite flirtatious. o_O

We went upstairs to watch The Mystery Jets. While up there I bumped into Ange who I used to work with at Capital One. That was cool. We had a bit of a chat and decided to try to arrange a proper night out in three weeks or so. Should be good. The Mystery Jets were really good. At some point during the whole thing I ended up chatting to two girls named Rachel and Katie. One of them was from Manchester, or studying there or something. They were cool to talk to for some of the night.

After the gig I was heading off to Rock City to meet up with Emmas, Sue, Paul, Harley, Punk Dave, etc. I was ahead of them, so I went in on my own. After a few minutes I got a message from Paul saying they couldn’t get in because a couple of them were dressed too extreme for Rock City. Mostly because it was Love Shack, where they play a bunch of older songs from last decade. I was trying to make my mind up about whether I should go to The Rig with them or not when I bumped into Will from Capital One. We had a bit of a chat and then he said I could hang out with him and his friends, so I did.

Most of the time in City was spent following Will and his friends around the club looking for sexy single girls. There were a couple of girls dressed as nurses, a couple dressed as cowgirls, and a bunch of other clichés besides.

While we were walking around one girl was looking at me as I was looking around. She smiled when I looked at her, and there began a bunch of sideways glances for a while. It took a while but I eventually went over to start dancing with her just in time for some other guy to get directly between us and start dancing. I turned back to go find Will. I gave one final look and she held her hands out for mine and we started dancing. It’s good when things work out well.

Turns out her name’s Rebecca. I don’t know a great deal about her at the moment. She has nice eyes, she’s smaller than me, she’s a good dancer, and a good kisser.

I had to leave after a while because we were supposed to catch the last bus at 3am. We didn’t stand a chance of making it so we ended up waiting for taxis instead. Emma Carroll asked me where all the glitter on my face came from.

Marc and I got out of the taxi on Nottingham Road so we could go to the ESSO garage. I bought some orange juice and then walked home by myself because Marc lives in the other direction.

It was a really really good night. I want more nights like that! Continue reading →

I went to see The Bloodhound Gang at Rock City yesterday with Craig. JonP also went along with a bunch of his friends so we all met up inside.

I stayed up on the balcony to watch the whole show. It was kind of weird seeing everyone below having a really good time, but I couldn’t be bothered with jumping around like a mental patient.

They played a lot of songs. There were only a couple that I didn’t know, so I was happy with that. They also put on a good show between the songs. They told Michael Jackson jokes, made comments about September 11th, how dumb George Bush is, the London Bombings, among other touchy subjects.

The bassist downed an entire bottle of whiskey through one of those beer bong things. A little while later he threw up on Jimmy Pop (lead singer). It was a pretty crazy show. Definitely in my top 5 shows.

My mum gave Craig and I a lift home after the show, and now I have to go to work and spend all day chatting on the phone, even though my throat is kind of hurting from talking all day yesterday and then singing/shouting all evening. Oh well. Continue reading →