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(First part can be found here)
So where were we? Oh yes, in Rock City, evading maniacal smoke machine operators and meteorite-mutated zombies and watching Birthday Massacre. Or rather trying to...
I prefer to be at the front of gigs, but often end up somewhere further back, as being tall I always feel bad for whatever poor sod gets stuck behind me, especially when I'm wearing a magnificent foam tiara headdress (which happens more often than you'd think.) Usually this isn't a problem, as tallness also means you can see over the heads of everyone in front (just as long as you strategically avoid the handful of other tall people in the room. However the stage in the small room at Rock City is very low. And the lead singer of Birthday Massacre is very very ickle indeed. All I could see for most of the gig was the occasional flash of hair when she poinged high enough.
So instead we just bounced along to the music (twitter review at the time = "Killer marionettes and twinkly stars" which I think still sums it up nicely) and played "guess which song they'll 'accidentally forget to play' until the completely unexpected encore". (We may be growing cynical in our old age.) Still was occasionally left with a lack of 'at a live gig' feeling in spite of the small venue, but the music more than made up for it. Was also entertained by the antics of the guitarist, who was far more visible than the singer and quite cute in a dead clown kind of way.
Was then rudely reminded just how much if a 24 hour city Nottingham isn't. Rock City kicked out at 10pm. Ten pee em! Ten! (We did speculate that it could be because for half the audience it was way past their bedtime, but still... 10pm!) Obviously we did the sensible grown-up thing at this point and legged it to the nearest pub for monkey-themed beer and red wine and proper catching up with people. Only to be rudely interrupted when the pub closed and kicked out at 11. This appeared to be a popular move, as all around us places were rushing to chuck out and lock up. It was a bit like sunset in a Transylvanian village, only far less picturesque. Even the fountains in the main square (that I had planned to go dancing in at midnight) had stopped.
At this point, the more wussy/sensible (delete as appropriate) members of our party opted for food and bed. (Although I did win the 'I broke Paul' prize before they left - "Seeded for his pleasure...") Patrick and I rebelled on the not unreasonable grounds that it was still only 11.15 and we'd normally be going out at that time, and besides, when meeting up with old friends one is legally and morally obliged to sit up drinking until silly o'clock in the morning talking nonsense and generally setting the world to rights. You mess with this natural order of things at your peril!
Therefore we dragged Chris on a magical mystery tour of Nottingham where the only signs of life were squawking harpies in fluorescent mini-skirts clustering round neon-lit buildings pumping out horrific cheesy dance. He finally tracked down one decent place to drink, a really nice laid back bar with high ceilings and comfy sofas that was brave enough to stay open until 1am. Gosh. We made the most of it and set as much of the world to rights as we could manage in the limited time available.
Headed back to Chris's where it seemed sensible to drink all the absinthe. Because it always does at the time. In this case all the absinthe turned out to be 'the little bit left at the bottom of the bottle' but still lead to much loud drunken reminiscing, twittering and shouting poetry at each other at 4 in the morning. Which generally counts as a successful night.
(That's all for today's installment. Tomorrow = potatoes and porn.)
Am off to the NIN/Jane's Addiction gig in Manchester tonight. At this rate will probably be writing that up sometime in 2010...
So where were we? Oh yes, in Rock City, evading maniacal smoke machine operators and meteorite-mutated zombies and watching Birthday Massacre. Or rather trying to...
I prefer to be at the front of gigs, but often end up somewhere further back, as being tall I always feel bad for whatever poor sod gets stuck behind me, especially when I'm wearing a magnificent foam tiara headdress (which happens more often than you'd think.) Usually this isn't a problem, as tallness also means you can see over the heads of everyone in front (just as long as you strategically avoid the handful of other tall people in the room. However the stage in the small room at Rock City is very low. And the lead singer of Birthday Massacre is very very ickle indeed. All I could see for most of the gig was the occasional flash of hair when she poinged high enough.
So instead we just bounced along to the music (twitter review at the time = "Killer marionettes and twinkly stars" which I think still sums it up nicely) and played "guess which song they'll 'accidentally forget to play' until the completely unexpected encore". (We may be growing cynical in our old age.) Still was occasionally left with a lack of 'at a live gig' feeling in spite of the small venue, but the music more than made up for it. Was also entertained by the antics of the guitarist, who was far more visible than the singer and quite cute in a dead clown kind of way.
Was then rudely reminded just how much if a 24 hour city Nottingham isn't. Rock City kicked out at 10pm. Ten pee em! Ten! (We did speculate that it could be because for half the audience it was way past their bedtime, but still... 10pm!) Obviously we did the sensible grown-up thing at this point and legged it to the nearest pub for monkey-themed beer and red wine and proper catching up with people. Only to be rudely interrupted when the pub closed and kicked out at 11. This appeared to be a popular move, as all around us places were rushing to chuck out and lock up. It was a bit like sunset in a Transylvanian village, only far less picturesque. Even the fountains in the main square (that I had planned to go dancing in at midnight) had stopped.
At this point, the more wussy/sensible (delete as appropriate) members of our party opted for food and bed. (Although I did win the 'I broke Paul' prize before they left - "Seeded for his pleasure...") Patrick and I rebelled on the not unreasonable grounds that it was still only 11.15 and we'd normally be going out at that time, and besides, when meeting up with old friends one is legally and morally obliged to sit up drinking until silly o'clock in the morning talking nonsense and generally setting the world to rights. You mess with this natural order of things at your peril!
Therefore we dragged Chris on a magical mystery tour of Nottingham where the only signs of life were squawking harpies in fluorescent mini-skirts clustering round neon-lit buildings pumping out horrific cheesy dance. He finally tracked down one decent place to drink, a really nice laid back bar with high ceilings and comfy sofas that was brave enough to stay open until 1am. Gosh. We made the most of it and set as much of the world to rights as we could manage in the limited time available.
Headed back to Chris's where it seemed sensible to drink all the absinthe. Because it always does at the time. In this case all the absinthe turned out to be 'the little bit left at the bottom of the bottle' but still lead to much loud drunken reminiscing, twittering and shouting poetry at each other at 4 in the morning. Which generally counts as a successful night.
(That's all for today's installment. Tomorrow = potatoes and porn.)
Am off to the NIN/Jane's Addiction gig in Manchester tonight. At this rate will probably be writing that up sometime in 2010...
