by Gareth

Blossoms cinema screening

Last night, I was at the Savoy Cinema in Heaton Moor to watch two Blossoms films – ‘Ribbon Around The Bomb – a short film by Edwin Burdis’ and ‘Complete at 23 – The Making of Ribbon Around The Bomb’. I’d seen them promoting it on Twitter earlier in the week, so I decided to get a ticket for last night’s showing.

I’d seen the first film at the Plaza a couple of weeks ago (albeit with a break for the fire alarm!), but hadn’t seen the ‘making of’ film before, so was looking forward to seeing that. Also, the band themselves were in the audience watching it too, so that was pretty cool.

‘Complete at 23 – The Making of Ribbon Around The Bomb’ – watching at The Savoy Heaton Moor with the band.

I was really glad I went along to this, because I wasn’t 100% sure what to make of the main ‘Ribbon Around The Bomb’ film when I first saw it the other week, but seeing it for a second time really made me appreciate it much more – I think watching it with a cinema audience definitely helped. And I also found the making-of-the-album film, actually edited by Tom from the band, really fascinating. It was interesting watching the album take shape in the studio, and how the tracks evolve as they all try different things, under the eye of producer James Skelly (frontman of The Coral). It was pretty funny having the band sitting a few rows in front of me reacting to it all – with quite a lot of laughter and the occasional mild heckling! A really fun evening!

by Gareth

Finally got my workspace sorted

So my office space / guest room is now pretty much finished! I put down some laminate flooring last weekend, and I’d bought the sofa bed a few months ago, and it’s been stored downstairs in its box until Lee popped over last Tuesday morning to help me get it up the stairs and into the room. I’ve still got to put some trim down where the flooring meets the skirting boards, plus get some shelves to put into one of the alcoves to store my camera kit.

My office / guest room.

Office work area.

The main impetus that got me to finish the room is that mum came up to visit last week – her first time since Covid – and I wanted to make sure she had somewhere decent to sleep! She came up to stay for a few days at the end of 2019, but that time I had to put a dust sheet down over a really trashed carpet, along with a blow-up bed that had a very slow puncture!

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by Gareth

Blogging for twenty years!

As I was sorting out last night’s update, I realised that this blog has hit a bit of a milestone!

I first started posting on this back in March 2002, exactly TWENTY YEARS AGO!! The first couple of posts – about needing to move out of my rental house, and also going to see a new band called ‘thebandwithnoname'(!) – were actually written on the 13th March, so I’m a week late in commemorating it, but it’s weird to think I’ve been posting on here for so long!

When I first started it, I was doing it using ‘Blogger’ – not sure if that’s still really going anymore… I converted it into a WordPress blog when Google stopped letting Blogger host it on your own site, and I think it’s been through a couple of different looks before settling on how it appears now.

My updates have often been somewhat sporadic, but I’ve always posted at least a few times each year, so it probably is a reasonably good record of my life for the past two decades. I’m sure looking back on some of the stuff I’ve written in the past would make me cringe, especially with the way a lot of things have turned out, but I’m of the mind that it’s what I was thinking at the time, so it stays there!

Something I have noticed more recently is that it seems like I’m off out all time on nights out, which certainly isn’t the case! It’s just that so little else has been happening that when I do go out, I usually post about it, so it makes it seem more of a thing than it actually is! I probably need to start blogging about more mundane stuff as well!!

Anyway, I’d be very surprised if this blog goes on for another 20 years, but I’ll keep posting for as long as I’m able to!

by Gareth

Recent shows

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been out to a couple of live shows in Manchester – the first one was just over a week ago, when I went to see the National Theatre production of ‘The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time‘ at the Opera House.

‘The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time’ at the Opera House.

I first heard about it a while back – I think it debuted about 10 years ago, but it came to my attentions because of its good reviews, and also the fact that it uses projection mapping to use video imagery as part of the set to tell the story, so that had also been a factor in me wanting to see it.

Connor Curren as Christopher.

I was also interested in the fact that the lead character has autistic traits, and that the video content was used to reflect what’s going on inside his brain, and wanted to see how that was all handled.

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by Gareth

Weekend in the Cairngorms

Last weekend I spent a few days up in Scotland, way up north in the Cairngorms. Steve Black had mentioned a while back that he and Tanya were heading up there this month and invited me along… so I thought ‘what the heck!’

It was a bit of a trek up there – I was making the journey up to Glasgow by train on the Thursday morning to meet up with Steve at lunchtime, and then he was to drive the rest of the way up to where we’d be staying just south of Aviemore. However, as the date got closer, there was news of three major storms hitting the UK – Dudley, Eunice and Franklin – which meant travel was a bit of a nightmare! All the train companies were basically telling people not to travel north on the Wednesday evening until after about 9am on the Thursday, and not at all on the Friday! I managed to get the train from Stockport just after nine to meet up with my connecting train at Preston (which was running), and for a time, all went to plan.

However, when we got to Carlisle, we didn’t move for a while, and then were eventually told that a train had recently fallen onto the overhead cables – the train before us had just managed to get past it, but our train was basically cancelled from that point onwards!

No trains past Carlisle.

So I then had to stand in a queue to wait 3 hours for coaches to turn up to take the ever-growing group of people to Glasgow! I was the last to get on my particular coach, which meant I had no choice of where to sit, and of course that meant I had to sit next to a guy who was so large that he basically took up half of my seat as well as his own, so I was having to perch on the edge of it! Not ideal for a two hour journey, and not helped by the fact the guy was chain-drinking bottles of lager!

I was supposed to meet Steve at 1pm, but I eventually got into Glasgow at five o’clock. I found Steve parked nearby and we started the 125 mile journey up to Kincraig in the Highlands. When we got there, we unloaded our bags before going into Aviemore for a much needed meal at the Cairngorms Hotel. Weather-wise, it was pretty cold and icy, but there was no sign yet of the snow that had been forecast.

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by Gareth

BRITs winners

I just thought I’d do a quick post about this year’s BRITs winners, after seeing a tweet from old uni-mate / housemate Robin asking why Liam Gallagher was on it, and I got into a little chat on there about it (I actually don’t mind LG’s newer stuff, but not to the extent that I’d buy it!), and I guess he does have a bit of a point!

Anyway, as part of the conversation, I thought I’d take a quick look at who this year’s winners are, and more importantly, how many whose music I’m aware of!

The full list is here, and out of the 13 individual winners, I’m actually quite pleased that I actually know the music of 7 of them – Adele, Wolf Alice, Billie Eilish, Sam Fender, Dua Lipa, Dave and Ed Sheeran, and there are only 3 that I’ve never heard of!

It also led me to think about the wide range of artists I’ve seen live over the last 5 years (obviously taking 2 years of Covid into account, plus a few still to come this year!), and that’s quite an eclectic mix: Army Of Bones, Blossoms, Deacon Blue, Dido, Elbow, Emili Sande, Foo Fighters (June ’22), Frank Turner, Freya Ridings, James Morrison, Mumford and Sons, Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott, Rend Collective, Rod Stewart, Shed Seven, Snow Patrol, Stereophonics, Supergrass, The Coral, The Killers (June ’22), The Pet Shop Boys (May ’22), Travis and U2!

by Gareth

Films 2021

Another shorter movie-viewing year due to Covid, but even so, I still got to see quite a lot of films (both old and new) at the cinema in 2021!

May

Godzilla vs Kong (3/10)
Judas and the Black Messiah (8/10)
Nomadland (8/10)
Glastonbury – Live At Worthy Farm (7/10)
A Quiet Place II (8/10)
Cruella (7/10)

June

The Father (8/10)
Dream Horse (7/10)
In The Heights (9/10)
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (8/10)
Another Round (7/10)

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by Gareth

Last shows of the year

This week I went to my last live gig of the year last night, and to be honest I nearly didn’t go!

I bought a ticket to see Shed Seven on their ‘Shedcember Tour’ back in April, when it looked like things might be getting back to normal a bit, but over this last week or so, there’s been a lot in the news about the new Omicron strain of the virus, and how it’s spreading much faster than previous variants. I’d been following some stuff on Twitter and saw that quite a few other bands had decided to postpone their gigs in the run up to Christmas, but not Shed Seven! I understand that they’re probably in a ridiculously difficult position that rearranging dates would probably cost them a lot of money, but I was hoping they’d take the decision away from me by rescheduling!

Anyway, I decided to go – but to try and not get to close to other people, and to obviously wear my mask the whole time! For some reason, I originally actually went to the wrong venue! I’m so used to going to gigs at the Apollo that I went there, parked up, and then wondered why it was so quiet, and then saw the shutters were down on the doors! At that point, I took a look at my ticket and realised the gig was actually at Manchester Academy by the university – somewhere I’ve not been to for nearly 10 years!

Shed Seven.

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by Gareth

More nights out and a weekend away

Last month saw some more rescheduled shows take place, so I’ve been able to enjoy a few more nights out which is cool.

During the first week of October, I spent 2 consecutive evenings at the Lowry Studio Theatre, and first up was comedy magician John Archer. I’ve seen him as support a couple of times for Tim Vine, as well as on BGT, and also got to see him do a set at NSN back in July 2019 – but this was my first time seeing him do a full-length show, so I got to see some more of his act that I hadn’t seen before.

John Archer.

I think he’s really good, and very funny too, although having seen him before, I did know some of the things that were coming ! Also, I ended up sitting just in front of Ian Rowbottom and his family, and I hadn’t seen him in ages, so it was nice to catch up beforehand and during the interval.

Then the night night I was back there to see ‘Jonny Awsum Is Comes To Town’. Again, I’ve seen him do some support stuff before, as well as seeing him perform a show at the Edinburgh Fringe a few years ago, so was looking forward to eventually seeing his new show!

Jonny Awsum.

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by Gareth

Live music returns

With various restrictions being relaxed, various gigs that were postponed due to Covid have been taking place, so last month I got see three great bands – Blossoms, Snow Patrol and Elbow.

Blossoms gig at Manchester Arena, with ticket showing the original date.

A couple of weekends ago saw my first music gig since March 2020 (when I saw Stereophonics at the Manchester Arena a few days before everything started shutting down). This gig was also at the Arena, where Blossoms were finally getting to play their Manchester gig, postponed from that first weekend of lockdown!

I arrived wearing my mask, and I was a bit wary of the whole thing because it was the first time I’d been around so many people for about 18 months, and most people there weren’t actually wearing any face coverings! But it didn’t feel totally packed in which I’m glad of, and I was able to move around a bit, keeping pretty close to the front, but more to the side of the stage.

Blossoms.

Blossoms.

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by Gareth

Meeting up with Steve

This week I caught up with an old uni mate here in Manchester! Steve Black was making a brief trip down from Glasgow for a change of scenery, before meeting up with his parents for a meal in the Lake District. So on Tuesday he make a visit to the Trafford Centre to do some shopping, and I headed over there to meet him, and we grabbed a burger at ‘Five Guys’ (expensive but nice!) where we chatted for a bit, and then I left him so he could look round the shops properly!

Steve (and my dinner).

He was staying at a Premier Inn in Sale, so in the evening we went out to a pub just a couple of miles away – The March Hare – and it was actually really nice! I’d not been there before, but it’s definitely on my list of good places to eat at! It was good to catch up with Steve – we hadn’t spoken so in depth for a pretty long time, and I don’t think I’ve actually seen him since 2017. The next morning we went for a short walk around Sale Water Park (which I don’t think I’ve ever done before), and it’s quite nice around there. We walked around the main lake, and also along a bit of the Mersey, before heading back towards our starting point, stopping off at the cafe for a coffee and a bacon sandwich!

Steve and Me at Sale Water Park.

Also, a couple of weekends ago, I went down to Leek with Lee to shoot some footage of one of Gag Reflex’s outdoor comedy events they’ve been doing since Covid. There was quite a decent crowd in the end – it wasn’t the warmest of evenings, but it did stay dry which was good!

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by Gareth

Summer of Soul

Last night I was at the Savoy Cinema in Heaton Moor – it’s a single-screen independent boutique cinema just near the border to Manchester, and I’ve been there a few times to see films that haven’t been given a showing at Cineworld (where I normally go because I have an Unlimited card).

Anyway, I went yesterday to see a new documentary film about the Harlem Cultural Festival from 1969 called ‘Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)’, which at the time was recorded with a multi-camera set-up onto videotape, but after it was done, no TV network was interested in showing it, despite there being some pretty big names performing at it. So over 50 years later, these recorded performances are finally being seen, along with talking heads of those that either performed, or were in the audience.

It was a really interesting film, with some great music and restoration of the video footage really held up well on the big screen. It was also pretty educational seeing all this in the context of the racial tensions taking place in the US at the same time, which the documentary showed using archive news footage from the 60s.

The other reason for going to last night’s showing is that the Savoy preceded it with some live music, which made the evening more of an event. A local singer called Jermaine Peterson along with Troy his guitarist performed a set of soul covers and some original songs, and it was really good. It was basically just the guitar plugged into an amp and the vocal mic straight into the PA, and the only thing missing was a bit of reverb on the voice, but it sounded surprisingly good since no-one was actually mixing it!

Troy the guitarist & Jermaine Peterson

One bizarre thing about the night was who I was sitting next to… I’d had to buy a luxury seat because all the regular seats had sold out, so I was directed to a block of 4 seats, where two women were already sitting at the aisle end, so I went past them and sat in the end seat, leaving the single seat in-between for social distancing. After sitting down, I had the slight feeling that I’d recognised the older lady as I passed, and a couple of minutes later I overheard her say that she’d written an article for the Daily Mail that week, and at that point I also placed the voice and realised I was sitting next to former Conservative MP and Government minister, Edwina Currie!

Strangely, I actually met her way back in the 90s when I had to film an interview with her at some conference – I think it might have been the WI – but the one thing I remember about it is that she really wasn’t very nice! We were backstage in a small room at the venue, and she was all smiles when the camera was rolling, but I thought she was very rude to everyone the rest of the time!

by Gareth

Socially distanced comedy

As the world tries to get back to some kind of normal, the entertainments industry has started doing stuff again. I’ve been to the cinema quite a bit since they opened back up in May, and more recently I’ve been out to see some live comedy!

Tonight I’ve been at Homeground in Manchester, which is an outdoor venue created by Home to allow for social distancing. It was supposed to be a show with Barbara Nice and Lucy Beaumont, but in the end it was just Barbara because Lucy had been pinged by the Track & Trace app so couldn’t attend!

Barbara Nice at Homeground

I took the tram into town, which was a bit noisier than usual because there were quite quite a few football fans heading into town to watch the Euro finals (I’m not really that bothered by it all, and haven’t actually seen any games throughout the tournament!). I headed over to Home, not realising they had a second venue, so after a bit of confusion, took the short walk over to Homeground. They’ve got a really cool set-up, with a bit of a dystopian fairground flavour(!), with a main stage area where you’re pretty spaced out around tables made from big wooden cable drums.

Because Barbara’s one of Lee’s acts, I’ve seen her live a few times before, and it’s fair to say her shows are pretty random! And since Lucy wasn’t there, it ended up being just an hour long, and involved some questionable karaoke from some members of the audience, but it was pretty funny. And the weather held until the end, when the clouds came over and started to rain over the last bit where the band were playing.

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by Gareth

35 years ago!

One of the things I’ve been doing over the last couple of years is scanning loads of old photos and other bits from years gone by! And one of the those things has been old issues of the school magazine I used to produce with Tom, back when we were at secondary school.

One time we ran a competition to take one of the readers to visit BBC Pebble Mill in Birmingham (in all honesty, the main reason was because we wanted to go there ourselves!) One of our team’s dad worked there, so we managed to get her to ask him to take us all, which we did on the May bank holiday in 1986 when there were a lot less people there. Sadly, the studios were demolished in 2005, but back in the 80s they were producing quite a lot of TV – so to someone like me who has always been obsessed with TV and production stuff, it was a dream come true!

The article in the July 1986 issue of Mercian Madness.

What is quite scary though is that we visited the studios exactly 35 years ago today!

I do have some memories of going there, but after all this time it is a bit hazy. I remember thinking how small the ‘Pebble Mill at One’ studio was, and learning that bits of it were pre-recorded to make it seem like they had more space, and allow them to move stuff around during a show, and also we did try and visit the radio area, but because it was a Bank Holiday Monday, there was no-one working there so it was all locked up. Interestingly, ‘Pebble Mill at One’ was cancelled between us visiting and the article being published, hence the RIP reference!

Also, for some bizarre reason, we wanted to brand Jo’s dad’s car with the ‘Mercian Madness’ logo – but using poster paint! Unsurprisingly, this never actually happened! And I’m quite sad that we didn’t take many photos at all – we did have a camera with us because there’s the photo that’s in the magazine, but for some reason, we didn’t really take any others (or none that came out anyway!)

Here’s the article that appeared in the July 1986 issue of the magazine (remember we were all only 13 when we wrote this!):

In the last issue, we ran a competition, and the winner was to go with us to the B.B.C. Read on to find out what happened when we visited…

PEBBLE MILL

AN EXCLUSIVE REPORT BY: BEN COOKE, JO CRAWLEY, TOM GREEN & GARETH HARRISON

MONDAY 5th MAY 1986
Josephine Crawley Reporting:

4.00pm
The motley crew, sorry, the Mercian Madness reporting team arrived. With them was the winner of the competition, Kevin Lee. First year Kevin was very excited about the trip. “It’s the first time I’ve won anything!” he said.

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by Gareth

One year on

So who’d have thought that all this virus madness would still be around a year later?! I remember thinking back at the start of March last year, when the Photography and Video Show at the NEC was cancelled, that the organisers were probably overreacting and there was no way that there’d be any kind of lockdown! And then a few days after that weekend, the government announced that everything would shut down for at least the next 12 weeks – and that seemed like a really long time back then!

In the end, I didn’t leave the house until the end of August (apart from 2 trips to the doctor’s for blood tests), and then in the months since then, I ventured to the cinema when they opened up again for a bit in September and October, and I’ve also been doing a walk around the local area a couple of times a week (well, maybe not always quite as regular as that!)

Walk alongside the River Mersey.

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