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Tuesday 22 July 2014

Crazy Town and London 17th and 18th June 2014

Hopefully this won't be such an image heavy post!
Well...it could be...

Back in June me and Kev went to London to see Crazy Town! :D
I've wanted to see them for so many years (I think the Gift of Game came out 2001ish?) and so when they announced the one off show in London after Download Festival I HAD to be there!

The plan was to go down around lunch time, have a chilled out bit of lunch and find our way to the hotel and head down to the gig.

But when does anything we do go to plan?!

Ended up that Kev had an interview that day, that would run til around 1 or 2pm. And so we had to change our Megabus to about 3:30pm and hope he got to Bristol in time!
Luckily, he was out around 1pm, managed to get the train just in time and then when he got to Bristol we were ready to jump on the coach! Phew!

But it did mean that we didn't get into London until about 6pm. Then we had to get to Victoria station, buy our tube tickets and find our way on two tubes to where our hotel was!

We ended up in Hackney, which has a pretty bad reputation, and we were completely lost. Unfortunately I trust Google Maps way too much and it had us wandering around this council estate aimlessly searching for a Premier Inn!
One little old black lady did try helping us as best she could, and told us to be careful, and eventually we managed to find the hotel. I can't remember what time we got there but we dumped our stuff, and pretty much turned around again! It was so draining!

We found a taxi booth place to get us to the venue because catching a tube would have taken ages, so we ended up getting to the gig at 7:45pm!!

I was so terrified that we were going to be late and stood at the back without being able to see anything and I was just tired and worried and gah...but...we got in there, and it was pretty much empty!! Like maybe 25 people when we got in there?

So we went and bought a drink and headed down to the stage, we were in the second row so that was amazing :) and luckily we stayed there! <3

The starting band started about half 8 (could hardly believe my worrying lol) and they were really fun! They were called Love Zombies, and they had a female singer who was very energetic and it felt like an early day No Doubt which was pleasantly surprising! :)




Then it was Crazy Town who were just awesome! :D I loved it! <3
The only downside was the fact that there were scene-whores next to us who were ALL over them (and themselves!) whipping their bikini-clad boobs out whenever anyone came near our side of the stage (it was a tiny stage...).

But enough of them lol.

It was so good, they were really grateful and so happy that their fans have stuck by them this long and came out to see them :) There were a few CXT tattoos and people that had seen them back in the day and it was just so nice to see for them! :)





























The photos aren't the greatest quality (when are they ever with my camera?!) but hopefully they put across how fun it was ^_^

And after it was over I managed to get a setlist from one of the roadies! Ahhh! :D So awesome <3

I was aching like mad by the time we left, and my throat was all croaky, but we made it back to the tube station and got the tube back to Hackney. We stopped and got some fried chicken to take back to the room with us which was yummm :)



So the next morning we went down for breakfast, went back up for showers and then went on our merry way into London town!

We headed towards Covent Garden (for purposes I cannot divulge to my one reader! :P) but there were a few photos that I can share!














So yeah, it was a lovely night and day in London! :)

Thursday 17 July 2014

Nine Inch Nails - IMAGE HEAVY - Cardiff - 21st May 2014

Sorry I've neglected this blog for so long. I'm hoping to get back up to date!
So let's start with this.

Back last year or the beginning of this year, Nine Inch Nails announced a small UK tour.  Now they are Kev's all time favourite band, he has their logo tattooed on his arm, and he'd never seen them live before. So we had to remedy this!!
If you signed up to the bands website you could get earlybird tickets that meant you got in half an hour before the rest of the crowd. So the morning they went on sale I was ready with my card to get onto the site and buy these tickets!
Luckily, I got them, which was super exciting, but we had a long wait until May.

Anyway, May came around, I booked a half day from work, and so we headed off to Cardiff in the early afternoon!
We popped out for a meal in a buffet place, can't remember the name, and had a wander around the shops before heading over to the Motorpoint arena!

I was honestly expecting a huge queue, and that we were gunna be near the back inside and the only thing getting me through was the thought that 'at least they will have a good lightshow that we'll be able to see'.

But we got there, and the earlybird queue was tiny. Like, TINY. I couldn't believe it! This was around half 4 or 5pm! We sat there for a little while before getting talking to this guy who has seen them a ton of times and was following this tour around the country. He was cool, he told us he was a freelance artist so I asked him if he had a website or anything (macabremagpie.co.uk!) and by this point we had made our way inside the building and were waiting for the doors.
The earlybird ticket people were given wristbands so that we were let in in the order we were there, so me and Kev were 14 and 15! Still can't get over that!

By this point I still could not believe we would be in the front row, but low and behold, we got in to the arena, tottered down to the stage and we were on the barrier! Right at the front! :D Amazing!


Here is an awful photo to prove it lol.

There was a starting band which consisted of a one armed man who fell right out of the 80s and his useless lady counterpoint, and then after a time, the lights went down, the screaming rose and Nine Inch Nails came out!!

It was brilliant, I can't really describe the atmosphere, but it was just amazing. You could hear in the crowd's singing every word that they adore Trent and everything he and the band has ever done. It was a little sad that I didn't know all the lyrics to sing along to, but I think I recognised almost every song and I got to sing along to a few :)
http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/nine-inch-nails/2014/motorpoint-arena-cardiff-wales-53c09be5.html

You don't think the light show matters much at a gig until you've seen a NIN gig. Honestly it was beautiful, my photos just could not do it justice! The lighting suited the atmosphere of every single song perfecting. Reptile was all green and grungy reptilian, Closer felt like a hot sweaty orgy of fans, all of it was just perfect.

I never really paid a lot of attention to the band before, I'd only had Closer and Hurt to go from, and although they were good it just wasn't my cup of tea, but hearing whole albums by them since being with Kev, they're so much more. I like a variety of old and new songs, I guess the older ones are more emotional and raw but my favourite...hmm...is probably Every Day is Exactly the Same.

Needless to say I have a new found respect that runs deeper than it had before, and being at the front it was really intense watching Trent perform these songs that are little pieces of his soul. It felt like a privilege to be totally honest.

Here are my photos anyway. Sorry there are so many, I couldn't narrow them down much!!




























































































































I love that the double-Trent photo was actually taken during Copy of A lol. And I'm in awe that Trent still gets really emotional during Hurt. After all these years. That it means so much to him still. It's lovely.

I'm so happy that Kev got to see them finally, I was just so excited for him and he enjoyed every second of it and he was so happy! Like so so happy! It was amazing <3

We bought fake t-shirts outside (because the official ones were £25!) and then headed back to the train station. Amazing night over and done. :) <3