I’m sat listening to Tommy Emmanuel after being out with my parents to the local pub. It’s completely not my kind of night out, but they keep asking me. I saw an old friend, Allen, and spoke to him about our love for listening to and making music. He’s 67 now, and is always singing. He’s good at it too. I also saw my old schoolfriend Nichola who I’ve seen just a couple of times since I left school. That reminds me – via the gift of Facebook I’m back in touch with my old schoolfriend Antony so we need to get together, play Pro Evo and down some beers or something.
I had a text from Michelle earlier tonight telling me to get over to York and I wish I’d done that instead. Sounds like she had a top night, and I could’ve been kipping in a two storey suite! Damnit… Hey well. York’s one of my favourite places to be so maybe we’ll go some other time.
Friday night was spent at Ste’s playing Rock Band with Jodie and Gregs. It’s about time it had a release here. At least they gave us the full back catalogue to download. Was an awesome night, mostly pissing ourselves at Gregs’ “singing!” Ste lives in North Yorkshire though, so I lose half a tank of petrol if I go… the state of the price of oil now it’s an expensive do!
I’ve got the week off now. Michelle quite rightly pointed out that it’s James’ last week and since the new guy’s not up to speed now’s the only time in the near future I’ll get time to take holidays. It also buys me some time to finish the task I was given at work. It seems I annoyed the directors at work with that. I was told that I was arrogant and self-righteous, and to get my head out of my arse. Sometimes it seems that my opinions aren’t valid. No, actually… it seems that they aren’t even considered, which is strange because after said argument the itinery changed to the one I suggested.
Champions League Final was an awesome match, what I saw of it. I was hoping for a blues win. Both sides played well. Things got a little out of hand in extra time, but I think everybody was tired and bitchy. I’m too tired to go into details, but it was a good match. It’s a shame it went to penalties as I don’t believe it’s a good way to determine the winner.
Last night was PUSA night and, as one Kerrang! journo described a friend’s band a few years back, it was bouncier than a bare-backed bonkers convention (please bear in mind that Kerrang! journos are rejects from the usual music press crowd that sit in a room with a Chambers thesaurus trying to lay way too much emphasis on cheap puns and one-liners.)
Support came in the form of very, very, VERY Japanese Electric Eel Shock – three kids, while managing to play their respective instruments to ridiculously high ability (as only the Japanese know how thanks to super-pushy parents) insist on writing songs that only consist of two chords with radio-friendly titles such as You Bastard. Actually, I think I counted three in one song. Not that that was any detriment to their entertainment factor – top class!
Next up was a (probably quite brave) Kid Carpet – a guy from the South-West armed to the teeth with sampling equipment, a Casio keyboard, more kiddy toy intstruments than I care to acknowledge exist and a microphone. I’ve gotta hand it to this guy – he had more guts than an exploding whale. It was a very fine line between musical genius and absolute tosh, and I think he achieved the former. Very mixed reaction from the crowd here which probably helped the odd heckle. “Thanks to the Presidents for bringing me on tour with them! It’s very cool of them to do that – they didn’t have to!” to which one guy yelled “They shouldn’t have!” It was all taken in good faith and fisty-cuffs didn’t break out.
The Presidents rocked as always, playing a couple of lesser known earlier tracks which everybody seemed to go down better than most of their later stuff. Not that their recent albums are bad at all (some songs are genius) but I guess we were all twenty-somethings reliving our youth. Notes were taken of kit I am required to purchase for our venture into the tribute world as The Prime Ministers of The United Kingdom. Oh yes. It will happen. At least as soon as I can afford a guitar that I can afford to deface. I was watching the guitbassism closely. It’s a talent I shall soon master.
Here’s Hayseed Dixie playing a bit of AC/DC! Fun times were had… The support band, Instill, were brilliant too, singing songs about those important issues such as conkers, vending machines, pedalos, zoos, etc.