wake and work and home and whatever. the door has come off the washing machine so i do some cleaning of clothes in the bath. the tumble dryers okay so i just hand wash some stuff for work and a pair of jeans and i do my car floor mats as well as a job lot. go see rob for a while then head off from rob's to the birmingham gig which is at the sanctuary.
park the car around the side and the bus is there and get in without any hassles and find the dressing room. the dudes are all there. martin or john or someone is reading the nme which they are in this week (article and live review and keith was saying last night about how once again the nme refused to put them on the cover). still, things are cool and pretty soon after tv disturbo are on.
now these guys take some explaining. it's a glasgow duet featuring another person whose name i don't know on voice and another dude on guitar. they are incredible and get a very good response from the crowd. there was a song called contradiction. the lyrics were what you just said does not compare to what you said 10 minutes ago. contradiction (or something like that). there's also a song about saving animals and one that the lyrics are forgotten to and stuart has to remind the singer.
everyone enjoys them (everyone is laughing about it and i'm by ally, john, mick, dominic, everyone is out watching them. stuart said that they haven't played live for about a year, so it seems it's quite an event). they are good. strange but very much part of the way the night was.
another thing i find out is that it's ally's 21st birthday today. he kept it very quiet. he says he likes it that way. happy birthday ally.
the guys are going on soon so i head out into the venue to meet graham. rachel and paul are there as well (no joel though) and i talk to rachel about stuff, and then the band come on. we're by the t shirt thing and valerie is there doing her thing as well. some guy comes over and hassles her but she deals with this dude accordingly.
they come on and the show is excellent. it's really mellow, the most calm i've ever seen them, but in a laid back easy going positive excellent relaxing thought provoking way. all the songs are slow, really quiet and sensitive apart from xmas steps (it turns out that ally's present was he chose the songs and he chose a quiet set on purpose).
anyway, john's using my amp today. he blew his up. after he says how good it sounds. dom said it was bassy. but that didn't seem to be a bad thing. watch the end bit of the set sat on the bar bit by the t shirts, which was cool. split backstage afterwards and the dudes have to go. chill in the dressing room and stuff and people are starting to feel kinda up about things. except for barry who is always up. he is incredible really. i've never heard him shut up. i'm glad he's never quiet.
then we head to the bus. there's a few friends of the band in who travelled down and there's music on and nine inch nails are on for a bit (sounds rather good) and dom is changing cd's and i'm by john, john is in the corner, then there's barry by him and keith and then stuart. everyone's lying all over each other, it's pretty funny i guess. everyone's wasted. stuart's talking to his friends asking how their band is and stuff.
these dudes seem tired but it's okay. the cd gets changed to 'party music' so we listen to depeche mode and everyone's singing personal jesus and stuff, everyone knows the words and there's such a cool mood. and then dom puts on the pumpkins version of never let me down and that was cool - d.m's version came on and i was going to say about the pumpkins version when dom said it right as i was going to. so i said i was going to say that.
mick comes in and falls over everyone on purpose. the load out has been done and it's like 2.00am and time for home pretty soon after. stuart asks if i'm okay to drive home and i say yes i'll be fine. see everyone and split. fucking brilliant night. home. sleep.
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