Tag / Gigs

by Gareth

Gig stuff

Been to a couple of pretty big gigs over the last two weeks. First off was last week when I finally got to see Foo Fighters live!

I’d originally bought a ticket to see them play in 2022, but obviously with the sad death of their drummer Taylor Hawkins, the whole of that tour was cancelled. Anyway, I bought some tickets when this new tour was announced last summer, so had been looking forward to it for quite a while!

I bought 4 tickets in total, so a few weeks beforehand, Abhi took a couple of tickets off me for him and his friend Caz, and then Ali travelled up from Bristol to come along as well!

Ali, me, Abhi and Caz.

We all took the tram in together from East Didsbury, and arrived at Old Trafford Cricket Ground whilst the first of the two support acts was playing. I’d not heard of the first group, but the second support was from Wet Leg, and I do know a few of their songs. During this, the heavens opened, and we all got a bit wet – the weather forecast for the evening had said there’d be rain, but was supposed to clear by the time the Foo Fighters were to appear, and luckily it did!

Foo Fighters at Old Trafford.

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by Gareth

Music and videogames

Bit of a catch-up…

Had a few good nights out over the last few months. Back in February I got to see Rend Collective play at the O2 Ritz in Manchester.

Rend Collective.

I actually thought I’d left a decent amount of time to get to the show. I’d not been to the Ritz before, so was quite surprised to see the queue to get in going from Whitworth Street, right round onto Oxford Road, stretching back quite a way. I originally thought it was a queue for Hamilton over the road at the Palace, but soon discovered it was the queue I needed to be in so joined the back of it. The staff were really slow getting people in, and it took ages to make my way down to the entrance. The support act was just starting as I arrived, so I moved towards the stage to get a good position.

Rend Collective.

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by Gareth

Sounds of the City

This week, I went to ‘Sounds In The City’ to see the Inspiral Carpets and Blossoms play at the Castlefield Bowl. I saw Snow Patrol play there last year, so was hoping for an equally decent gig this time!

Inspiral Carpets.

There was an extra support act before the Inspiral Carpets, but I didn’t make it there in time to see them! Anyway, I got myself a decent position, and when the Inspirals canme on, I hadn’t realised how many of their songs I actually knew! I haven’t listened to them loads in recent years – obviously I heard them quite a bit on TV and radio during the late 80s and early 90s, just as I was finishing school and starting uni – but the memory was still there!

Inspiral Carpets setlist:

Joe
She Comes in the Fall
This Is How It Feels
Two Worlds Collide
Find Out Why
Move
I Want You
Dragging Me Down
Saturn 5

Before Blossoms came on, there was an idiot not too far away from me that though it’d be fun to throw pints over the crowd, which he found hilarious, but others less so! At one point, someone who’d got hit by one pushed his way through the crowd and tried to deck him! Even after this, he was very arrogant about it, and carried on with it… but there was a real sense of justice when security eventually came over and took him away!

Blossoms.

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by Gareth

Music Of The Spheres

I saw Coldplay live this week and they were awesome!

I bought tickets when they went on sale last year, and it was really difficult getting any! The last 3 times I’ve seen them, I’ve been able to get a spot down on the main floor, but by the time I did manage to get through to buy some, there were only a few seats left up in the highest tiers, so I ended up buying 3 seated tickets pretty close to the stage, but way high up in the top section.

So about five or six weeks ago, I mentioned on Facebook that I had a couple of spare tickets for Thursday’s gig, and the first to respond was Ali, closely followed by Jon (who actually came with me to see them back in 2012!)

Me, Ali and Jon waiting for Coldplay!

Both Ali and Jon arrived in Stockport in the afternoon – Ali drove up from Bristol, and Jon came from Bedford via a combination of buses and trains after his National Express bus left without him (just to add some jeopardy into the day!)

We then took the tram to the Etihad Stadium, and got there just before seven o’clock, so decided to buy some food before going in, so we bought pie and chips for tea! We made it to our seats just in time for a support set from the band Chvrches. I don’t know loads of their stuff, but what I have heard I do like, so had been keen to see them play before Coldplay.


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by Gareth

Christmassy stuff

It’s that weird time between Christmas and New Year, so an ideal time for an update!

Mum came up to stay for a few days a couple of weeks ago. She arrived by train on the Monday, and we then spent a chunk of the afternoon traipsing around looking to buy an artificial Christmas tree. Ever since I’ve been in this house, it’s never really been in a state to have Christmas decorations, so this year I thought it was finally time. I hadn’t realised how expensive artificial trees are though – most I was seeing were well over £100, and some quite a lot over that! I’d kind of resigned myself to having to spend a lot more than I wanted, but then saw some in ASDA that were much cheaper, but still looked decent, so that’s what I bought! I got all the tree decorations from IKEA (we went the next day), and also managed to get the glass sliding doors for my new wardrobe. Took a while to construct them, but now they’re on, it really looks great!

On the Thursday, we went into Manchester on the tram to check out the Christmas Markets. It was definitely a lot smaller this year (mainly due to Albert Square being out of us due to the town hall renovations), but also there wasn’t really much that stood out. Also, it was absolutely freezing – the weather had gone really cold (especially at night), so we probably ended up spending more time indoors in the Arndale!

That evening I cooked an early Christmas dinner for us both which turned out really great – to be fair, roast dinner is my favourite so I’ve had practice making it over the years!

Early Christmas dinner with mum.

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by Gareth

3rd Blossoms gig of the year!

Last night I was at my 3rd Blossoms gig of the year – which is probably a big excessive! I saw them at the Plaza back in May, and then in June they were supporting the Killers in – 3rd time… plus there was the film screening at the Savoy Cinema!

I arrived quite early, because it turned out that England’s World Cup quarter final game against France was also taking place last night and they’d decided to show it on a big screen, meaning the support act, Brooke Combe, had her set-time moved to just after 6pm! I do generally like to check out support acts at gigs, and I thought I could then also watch my first match of the World Cup with a crowd.

The screen came down at 7pm to show the match, with the plan that the band would then start their set at 9pm, but of course the game ended a draw which meant that it went into extra time! It was a pretty tense half hour, but the game eventually ended with a score of England 1-2 France, and I reckon I was probably the only person not hoping for it to go to penalties, because I wanted the gig to not be delayed anymore, knowing that there’d be a cut-off time later they’d have to stop at!

Blossoms gig at the Stockport Plaza.

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by Gareth

Weekend away, and more live music

At the start of the month, it was time for what has become our annual UCECU reunion, coinciding with Bonfire night. I got a lift down with Steve and Tanya – they drove down from Glasgow, stopping in Manchester on Friday night when I went out for food with them – and we arrived down at Phil & Mary’s in Worcestershire early afternoon. There weren’t as many of us this year because Helen and her two kids had car issues, so had to bail at the last minute, but it was still nice to get a few of us together.

In the evening we went to see a fireworks display at the Astwood Bank Cricket Club, which as usual had a really good turnout. It was pretty cold – it caused me to get get quite breathless on the walk there, but I pretty much recovered once we were just standing around in the field.

Fireworks at the Astwood Bank Cricket Club.

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by Gareth

Unwanted birthday

So it was my birthday last week, and I hit a milestone which wasn’t particularly wanted! For my 40th, I travelled to America and spent my actual birthday in New York which was pretty cool, but for my 50th I didn’t really want to do anything to celebrate! Anyway, back to that in a minute!

Mum came up to stay for a few days on Tuesday, with the main idea to clear out the planter in my back garden and put some new plants in there. We hit a slight issue quite early on due to the fact that the plant that was already in there didn’t want to come out! I was given a couple of pot plants as a birthday present about 9 or 10 years ago, and I stuck them outside in the planter because I didn’t have anywhere in the house to put them at the time, but since then, they’d exploded from their pots and grown to a ridiculous size!

So it actually took quite a few days to hack away at it, and once we’d removed most of the leaves, found that it had become a massive stump that had roots that had spread throughout all of the soil! It was really difficult to get out because it was so big and heavy, and also because of the space it was in made it really difficult to manoeuvre.

Mum tackling the overgrown plant!

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by Gareth

House guests and another gig

I moved into my house in 2002, and it’s been in a state of renovation and decoration ever since then! In 2014, the carpet in my bedroom was removed after having the whole room replastered, so I’ve just had bare floorboards since then, and there’s been none downstairs or on the stairs & landing for 18 years!

But now, I finally have new carpets throughout the house! It’s amazing how much it changes the feel of the place – it really does mean my house is finally starting to feel more like a home!

New carpet in dining room.

And on top of that, I also have a decent bed! For years I’ve been making do with basic single bed whilst I’ve been sorting stuff out (at one point I spent months just sleeping on a mattress on the floor!), but now I have a really nice ottoman bed with a reasonably expensive(!) memory-foam topped mattress, so it really feels like I’m now living in luxury!

New carpet and bed.

To be honest, it did take something to kickstart all this after living so long without carpets and a decent bed! Basically, Ali rang me a few weeks ago saying that she and the kids were going to be on a family holiday in north Wales, and was wondering if I’d be able to put them up for a few days if they came back via Manchester (so they also could visit some friends in Buxton). I said yes, knowing the house wasn’t ideal – especially for kids(!) – so it forced me into going out and choosing what carpet to have, and then arranging to get it fitted just a few days before they arrived! Also, I’d put off getting a new bed until I had carpet down, so it meant I could then buy a new bed from Dreams and arrange to get it delivered on the Monday, with my guests arriving on the Tuesday.

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by Gareth

Even more live shows!

I know I said a while back that I need to post more everyday stuff because it makes it seem like I’m just going out all the time, but this last week has been pretty busy with two gigs that had been postponed by Covid taking place, plus an impromptu trip to the Lowry last Sunday night for some comedy!

So first off, last Saturday I spotted a tweet about Bill Bailey having played at the Lowry the previous night, and there was also mention of him playing a second show on the Sunday night. So on Sunday morning, I bought a ticket for that night’s performance!

Bill Bailey at The Lowry.

I’d previously seen Bill Bailey live a few years ago at the Apollo, and it was really good, although I had seen some bits of that show on various video clips, so parts of it didn’t have quite the impact they would’ve done having seen them for the first time. But with this new show – ‘En Route To Normal’ – it was pretty much all new stuff, and it was hilarious. And the guy is such a top-class musician, and I really love the way he incorporates it so well with the comedy.

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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

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

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

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

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!