by Gareth

A busy Christmas week

It’s that funny time between Christmas and New Year when generally nothing really happens – so the ideal time to do a blog update!  And since I last posted a week and a half ago, I’ve actually done quite a lot of stuff in that time!

Last Wednesday night, I went over to Liverpool with John Roberts to see a production of ‘The 39 Steps‘ at the Liverpool Playhouse.  He runs a theatre reviews website called The Public Reviews, so we we got free tickets which was pretty cool!  It was actually a really good show – it’s a comedy and was performed by just 4 actors, who changed roles continuously throughout the play, which surprised me at how well it worked!

The show culminated in fake snow being showered on the audience, and then as we left the theatre, we discovered that there was real snow falling – and I’d have been really impressed if that was part of the show as well!  We’d already had a bit of snow in Manchester a couple of days earlier, but there was none in Liverpool when we arrived.

liverpool_snow_drive

We got back to the car, and within a few minutes we were driving through a pretty intense blizzard, and the snow really started to build up on the roads.

Continue reading →

by Gareth

Pre-Christmas catch-up

Just thought I’d do a quick catch up before Christmas. I’m currently at James and Helen’s house babysitting Jess, and there’s nothing decent on TV so I thought I’d do this!

macc_forest

We’ve had quite a bit of snow these last few days, and yesterday a few of us went for a walk in Macclesfield Forest. It was freezing cold, and we walked quite a way – and seemed to be going uphill a lot more than downhill – but it was a really great afternoon.

We were kind of busking it a little bit, since we didn’t have a map or anything, and the cloud came down quite quickly as we made it to the top of one of the hills – but Penny had been to the forest before, so had a rough idea of where we needed to go! Though there were times when I wasn’t convinced we were ever going to make it back to the cars, especially when we’d been walking so long that it got dark!!

There are some photos I took of our walk here.

Work’s been quite busy recently, and we’re trying to wrap some jobs up before we finish for Christmas. We’re working on graphics for two shows on that will be on Channel 5 early next year, so really need to try and get them pretty much sorted by Wednesday at the latest.

Continue reading →

by Gareth

First Reach

10 years today that I went to Reach for the very first time… 12th December 1999. That’s pretty crazy… TEN YEARS!! Now I’m feeling old because it really doesn’t feel that long ago!

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I moved to Manchester at the end of November 1999, and it was the 2nd week here that I went (which was also the last one before Christmas). It’s really weird, ‘cos I can quite clearly remember the people I spoke to afterwards as though it was much more recent – Andy Knox, Dan Plagerson, Neil Cornthwaite and Sarah Smith.

I still have my Reach sampler cassette and copy of ‘Lift’ that I got that night, and I guess even with how things have turned out, it’s still had quite an impact on my life because a lot of the people outside of work that I know in Manchester are through Reach, and of course that’s where I met James, who I now run doodledoMOTION with, so that’s obviously quite a big thing!

by Gareth

Delirious – Fabula Est Vestri

dsc01393

I was down in London yesterday so I could be at Delirious’ last ever gig at the Hammersmith Apollo. I saw them in Liverpool just over a year ago, and I thought then that that would be the last time I’d see them, but obviously they announced this final goodbye tour, and so I decided I wanted to be at the very last one.

Anyway, I made it into the venue at about 6.30pm and got my position about 10 rows from the front. First up, they all appeared on stage as ‘The Cutting Edge Band’ – which is how they started back in 1993. Everything about it was amazing.

dsc01402

I first saw them back at the start of 1995 at Spring Harvest, and then many times in the next few years in school halls and often other smallish venues, and the whole of this ‘support act’ set brought all those great memories back.

And at the end of this, they did the whole ‘There is a light’ section that they used to do to end their gigs, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

It was all just so beautiful – I really can’t think of another word to describe it, it really did feel special.

Continue reading →

by Gareth

Birthday football!

dsc01325

Yesterday was my birthday – something I’m generally not to keen to celebrate, but James insisted that he and Helen take me for a birthday lunch at Kro, so I couldn’t really make up an excuse to get out of it!

It was nice actually – I got to see Jess, who’d changed so much since the last time I’d seen her back in July at Soul Survivor. She looks so much more grown up, and she’s now trying to walk, although it’s more a case of manoeuvring herself around things that she can hold onto!

The food was good – I had a steak ciabatta and chips, and it was much better than my usual Morrisons sandwich – so thanks to the Torrys for a really nice birthday lunch!

Then in the evening, I went to Hillsborough with James to see Sheffield Wednesday take on Preston! He mentioned in the afternoon that there was a ‘friends for a fiver’ night, and wondered if I’d be up for it, so I said yes!

We left straight from work (which unfortunately meant I couldn’t get changed into warmer clothes, and it was quite a cold night!) but it took us a while to get over to Sheffield, so by the time we got to our seats, the game had already been going for about 5 minutes.

dsc01344

Preston scored first after about 15 minutes, but Wednesday hit back with a goal not too long before the end of the first half. Then, not long into the second half, Preston scored again, and the score unfortunately didn’t change for the rest of the game. Wednesday had loads of chances, and it was really disappointing that they lost, but I could see that Preston were really lucky to get a win.

Continue reading →

by Gareth

Turkey

I’ve just got back from my first proper holiday in many years (I’m not counting Anglesey over new year!). Quite a few of my family were on holiday in Turkey staggered over a couple of weeks, so I managed to get some time off work and join them over there for a week.

I’d never been there before, but my mum and dad started going over there on and off for holidays about 10 years ago, and both my brother and sister had been there quite a few times as well.

Anyway, I headed over there from Manchester Airport with my cousin Sam and her husband Matt, and we got into Bodrum airport at about 5am, after having been awake since the morning before! Then it was onto a mini-bus for me, whilst Sam and Matt went onto a Thomas Cook coach (I’d booked with a small travel company, so my transfer was with a local company), and the journey from the airport to Altinkum seemed to take forever – the roads we pretty ropey, as was some of the driving! I eventually got to the apartments for 7.30am, and then crashed down for a few hours sleep.

Venturing out around lunchtime, the first thing I noticed was how much warmer it was than the weather I’d just come from! To the locals, it wasn’t hot at all, but to me, it was just about right!

Continue reading →

by Gareth

Loads of great music…

rainbow

Well, after seeing U2 last month (which was amazing by the way… have I mentioned that?!) I’ve experienced some more great bands in the last few weeks.

I went to Greenbelt over the August Bank Holiday weekend with Ali and her mates from Bristol. Because she was working on the set-up team, it meant we were able to camp a lot closer to the main area, which was much better than the last time I went, when we were camped so far away!

There was a great variety of music over the weekend: Athlete, Röyksopp, Sixpence None The Richer, Cornershop, yFriday, plus lots of smaller artists as well.

dscn4104

dsc04022

Listening to Rob Bell.

Also, I got to hear a bit of Rob Bell too, which was really interesting. I’ve got a few of his books, but I’ve yet to read them – that’s something I need to do when I get a bit more time! He was doing a Q&A session, so covered quite a few subjects. He did a couple of specific talks as well, but unfortunately I didn’t manage to get into those because the queues were so long that people got turned away. I need to get an MP3 of them!

Continue reading →

by Gareth

Wow!

dsc03598

U2 yesterday… amazing. Definitely the best gig I’ve ever been to!

I picked Phil up at 11am and we drove over to Sheffield and grabbed some lunch at Meadowhall, before taking the tram to the Don Valley stadium in good time.

We joined the back of a queue, which one of the stewards said had nearly 2,000 people in already! Before long, we heard other people in the queue talking about how the first couple of thousand people through were guaranteed a space in the inner circle – basically the small section between the stage and the outer walkways. And when we finally got in at 5pm, that turned out to be the case!

dsc03554

First off, the stage was amazing – it was a massive ‘claw’, with a circular stage in the centre, then had a walkway forming an outer ring, and a bridge either side linking the two together.

I’d really never expected us to be able to get so close to the front, but we were literally a few metres away from the stage! I’d always assumed that the people in those areas at gigs had paid loads more money to be there, so it was a really good surprise to discover that’s not the case!

We had a bit of rain as we were waiting for it to start, but it cleared up leaving a nice summer’s night. The first support act was The Hours, who I wasn’t that fussed with to be honest, but then the second one was Elbow, who I do really like. The music’s quite chilled at times, and I really like the quirkiness of their stuff.

Then the main event – and wow – U2 certainly know how to put on a show!

Continue reading →

by Gareth

August catch-up

Thought I’d better do a bit of a catch-up…

It’s been a busy few weeks – we’ve had a lot on at work, which is obviously a good thing, but it would be nice to take a decent break at some point!

dsc03395

Jess, Helen and James.

A few weeks ago, I went down to Soul Survivor North in Stafford as a day visitor. James and Helen had taken the Vinelife youth there for the week, so I met up with them as they were dishing up tea to a crowd of teenagers in very wet conditions! They’d taken Jess with them, which must have been interesting for them, but she seemed to be really enjoying herself, and I got to feed her a bowl of pasta which she wolfed down! It was just a shame the weather was so poor, because camping’s much better when the sun’s out!

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been to Soul Survivor, when I was working down in Shepton Mallet venue doing visuals in the Underground venue. It actually felt a bit weird being there as a punter – you kind of can’t switch off from being aware of all the behind-the-scenes stuff that’s happening!

Then that weekend it was John and Carolyn’s wedding up in South Shields.

I won the prize of being the driver for the trip, so it was a full car that set off from Manchester at 7am on the Friday morning up to the North East. Me, Dave, John, Jimmy and Mike were all crammed into my Focus, but luckily we actually had a really clear run up there, and it was a good laugh!

Continue reading →

by Gareth

Brandon & Chloe walking!

brandoncholejune2009

Brandon and Chloe.

Yesterday I was down in Tamworth and got to spend some time with Brandon and Chloe. I think it’s been about 3 months since I was last down there, so I could really see how much they’ve developed.

They’re now walking (and running!) and it really does make a difference. It’s kind of strange to see!

They seem so much more independent now, and they’re pretty chatty, even though you can’t make sense of anything they say other than the odd word! They’ve got such character, and are really cute! Obviously I’m biased because they’re my nephew and niece, but they really are the best kids in the world!

dsc00042

Brandon and Chloe.

Continue reading →

by Gareth

Music and pain

A couple of weeks ago, me and James went down to London for two days to do a shoot with the 29th Chapter for their new music video.

It was a pretty manic couple of days – we headed down late on the Tuesday night and stayed in a Travelodge on the M1, and then arrived in Ealing for about 10 o’clock. The shooting was split into 2 blocks – the first day was a chromakey day, and the second was a live performance.

dsc03133

James.

The greenscreen that had been hired for the shoot was massive! We spent the morning rigging it up, then tried to light it evenly which was easier said than done! Then the guys got into their costumes (which I won’t reveal at this stage – I’ll wait until they’ve announced what single they’re releasing!) and we spent the rest of the day filming various set pieces and individual verses. It was a pretty long day… we wrapped around 10.30pm and then had a bit of a drive to a really nice hotel in some other part of London (I have no idea where!)

Continue reading →

by Gareth

Bank Holiday and Fawlty Towers

Well it’s been quite a busy weekend – on Friday I was over in Liverpool shooting a live music video for thebandwithnoname and LZ7. They’ve done a joint track and need some kind of promo video to go with it, so I organised a 9 camera set-up at the monthly ‘Space’ event. I dragged Dave Bateman and Bruce from The Message along to operate cameras, and then used a few guys from the event itself, so I’m going to have a lot of footage to go through! The only downside of it really was that the stage was tiny, and it was really cramped with effectively 2 bands on there at the same time, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Then on Sunday, I went over to Rob’s in Ramsbottom (because he’d lent me some cameras for Friday’s shoot and I had to return them) and we ended up having a bit of an impromptu barbeque which was pretty cool.

dsc03075

Clare and Rob.

We tried to get Rob’s reclaimed gas barbeque working, but even though we could hear gas coming out from somewhere, it just wouldn’t light. Eventually we gave up, thus averting an explosive disaster(!), and used some disposable ones instead! Clare made burgers from fresh minced beef and onions, which I’ve never done before, and they tasted really good. Next time I have a barbeque, I think I’ll give the frozen ones a miss and make my own!

Continue reading →

by Gareth

Star Trek rebooted

Went to see the new Star Trek film this afternoon on the IMAX in town, and I thought it was awesome! Visually, it’s stunning, and the casting is spot on (and after a minute or so, I forgot about Sylar and just saw Zac Quinto as Spock!) And watching it on such a big screen was just amazing.

It’s a very clever re-boot from JJ Abrams, there are lots of nods to the original TV show, but it’s very much a mainstream-type movie, rather than being a total geek-fest! As well as great characterisation and effects, I thought there were some clever twists in the plot.

One thing I really liked was the cinematography, and the way that they made such use of lens flares throughout the film. I originally thought that it was post-production thing, but apparently, unless it was a CG scene they were all done in camera by shining lights straight down the lens! I guess some people will have really disliked them, and I’ll admit that maybe they went a bit over the top occasionally, but generally I thought it was a very clever device to give the film a very distinctive look.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen it yet, I’d definitely recommend it, and I can’t wait for the sequel!

by Gareth

Whodunnit?

dsc02918

Dave, Dan, Jimmy, Ralph, Jason and Chris.

Well, another bank holiday yesterday – it only seems a few weeks since the last one!!

I went for a walk in the afternoon with some guys from Reach – we drove over to the Peak District and parked up by Derwent Reservoir, just off the Snake Pass. It’s actually where I went with Jamie a couple of years ago for my first bike ride in 16 years(!), and I’ve realised it’s certainly a lot quicker to go round on 2 wheels rather than walking!

We only did about 4 miles – we got quite a bit round one side of the reservoir, but soon realised that it would take us ages to get round the next one and back down to the car! So after examining if there was anywhere else where we could cross, we turned around and walked back pretty much the way we came.

dsc02926

Continue reading →