Well, my weekend was busy. In summary we had:
A seeing off sally gathering
winterthing is off abroad soon... wait, maybe already actually. North america for a month and then south america for three. So seeing as I already hadn't seen her for ages and wouldn't for 4 months or more I thought I'd make sure I saw her at some point. So, Friday evening off to G&Ds. Got there with
quisalan to find
riksowden metaphorically asleep at his table. Sally turned up a while later and then a friend of hers who I think she said came all the way from manchester turned up.
We had ice cream or hot chocolates or whatever and then came up with a plan to decamp to my house which was empty for the duration. WE did this and people picked up alcohol on route. We played DoA3 and I lost which was embarrassing given its my game. :) Then we chatted lots and had Spaced DVD on in the background. I need to do virtual gunfights with my friends. Its cool. :)
I wussed out relatively early and crashed at 2AM. Others allegedly made it through to 6 before crashing.
Next morning I rolled out of bed late and started preparing and planning for the day ahead.
A wicked ace concert (and the leadup)
The journey there was not too bad. Krys and I stopped off at tesco to provision (lunch and krys was bright enought to suggest we might want food for after the gig). We drove down to london which went fine. We drove through london where we were fine until about camden area. After that the traffic was alright through holloway and then we got to the vicinity of Finsbury Park.
Now some of you might be already qondering why I drove and the reason is that I thought they would have made at least some provision for people driving. If they did though they gave no indication anywhere that I saw.
When we got there we drove past going "oooh, that's where we want to be" I thought "not long now". How foolish I was. We drove around and found plenty of parking. Mostly residents only. Or suspended. Or pay and display for maximum of two hours. All the while we were in heavy traffic and moving very slowly as we peered eagerly around for somewhere to leave the car. I toyed with the idea of going for "expensive pay and display". That is where you just park in the resident permit holders area and pay the parking ticket that you get. 30 quid for parking but at least less hastle. By the time I was seriously toying with this idea though we were a fair way from finsbury park and it seemed pointless to enact such a plan so far out.
I was getting thoroughly pissed off by this time. We were running late, there was no sign of parking and we were in heavy traffic, rapidly getting later and later. Luckily the first band I was really eager to see weren't for a while so it wasn't a huge issue.
By this time I was alreayd up with the plan of parking somewhere further away and tubing to finsbury park. A good plan but for the lack of parking still. In the end I stopped at a newsagent who gave me very ropey directions to some parking that left me asking at a garage who said "you can park here for free (on the road by the garage) and get a bus to wood green tube". Fucked off I just went "Yeah, that sounds good". And got krys out the car and grabbed stuff. Krys was being dejected by this time too having had to spend the last hour listening to me mutter darkly under my breath and be thoroughly bad company as we got further and further from the concert. Luckily we both perked up as we wandered to the bus and then got on the tube.
By the time we got there we were both quite bouncy again. We caught the end of the second band (Biffy Clyro) which I didn't think much of though to be fair we only caught there last two songs. We were puzzled by the layout since there seemed to be a front enclosure that we couldn't get access to, separated from the rest of the area by a 3 yard wide security guy area. We later discovered that the first 3,000 people to arrive got given wristbands that allowed them to get in there. We obviously weren't among those lot so we had no chance of getting within 50 yards of the stage. We wandered around the stalls that were set up and krys, looking at the tattoo-like stalls and the rather impressive artistry of at least one of the ladies there. Bit expensive though really.
InMe were the next band and they were pretty cool. I don't know much of their stuff but I really like what I do know and I like the other stuff now too. :) They played to a light rain of empty coke and water bottles and the like. Seems to be a tradition for these sorts of things in my experience. They took it quite well though, the singer commenting "There are bins around you know. But I guess I make a much easier target." (or words to that effect). Once their set finished we haeded for a bit more of a tour of the stalls to see what there was. Krys, getting cold, considered buying a top but didn't find one she liked.
Some chips and a drink later found us sitting on the ground, krys getting colder and both of us quite pissy at the whole not being excluded fromt eh front thing. Mainly by virtue of the fact that we might have left several hours earlier to get there for then if we'd known. Or at least could have mae the coscious choice not to and have therefore lost out by our own choice.
Cooper Temple Clause started playing at this point and we both sat there ignoring them for a bit. And then in a bout of enthusiasm born from years of forcing myself out of miserable moods and aided by a lightning strike of inspiration that getting into the crowd would be much warmer than where we were sitting we wandered up to the 50 yard barrier.
The band seemed a bit uninspired. They weren't bad but their songs all ran into one another and were very samey. We found ourselves a nice spot right up near the barrier so nobody blocking our view too much (or mine at least, six inches shorter krys might have had more issues). The bottle rain continued and it was about half way through the set that the people behind the fifty yard barrier realised they were never going to hit the stage so started aiming at the people in front of the barrier. The people in front did likewise and without a formal declaration (unless you count "You're shit! And you know you are!") war started and we settled into our trenches behind the metal barriers that marked the edge of the no-mans land were the security guards roamed.
It started as bottles, then water and beer and later on small amounts of chips and things of that nature. I feel quite sorry for Cooper Temple Clause who, by the end of their set, were looking at the backs of the heads of about 50% of the people in the front enclosure who were all facing back towards us. I think we won. We had numbers on our side and they had the disadvantage of space so that the security guards decided it would be easier to stop things from their side. A few of them got thrown out and there was one very comedy moments as one girl of a pair of really mouthy 15 year olds (at a guess) turned to pick up a bottle and turned back to us to start giving abuse and throw the bottle. She opened her mouth to shout and the arms wide in the "Bring it, I'm dead hard, me" gesture to find a security guard pretty much face to well, his chest, with her. It was funny to see the "hard" image break down quietly as she went back to young girl caught being naughty as she dropped the bottle and looked very sheepish. Luckily though she was back on form with her witty hand gestures (yeah, that was sarcasm, don't worry) before too long.
As you can tell from the write up, the war was much more interesting than Cooper Temple Clause. It also was quite amusing and put us in a much cheerier mood (as did the warmth of all the bodies around us).
We decided to stay there for the break before A came on and as a result managed to make our way to the barrier. A came on and were damn good. Don't know much of their music so can't comment on the songs and stuff really apart from to say they were very good. The singer was great and came running around the no-mans land bit right in front of us for one song. I found myself, much to my surprise, doign the fanboy reaching my hand outs to be touched, by this singer of a band I didn't even know that well.
After they finished the crowd was getting quite packed and we realised that if we left our spot by the barrier we'd probably not get it back. So we stayed. Now up til this point the concert had been running ahead of schedule. A must have finished at least a quarter of an hour before they were due to, probably a bit more than that. You might think this a good thing since it would mean main event sooner and an earlier finish to make homeward journeys easier. Alas, it was being broadcast live on MTV which meant that it *had* to start at 9. So we had more than an hours wait between bands. It was very full and boring and packed. We were already starting to get quite squashy before Limp Bizkit actually came out on stage.
After what seemed like forever they started their set to much cheering and gasping for breath. They played some damn good songs, most of which I knew which was nice considering I only own one of their albums. They had some ace stage effects which were both visually great and some of which appealed to my pyrotechnic side. Gouts of flame billowing up a good 40 feet behind the band and from the side of the stage on occasions as well as fireworks set up all over the stage scaffolding and lighting rig area things. Very cool when during "take a look around", the mission impossible 2 tune, they had a set of fireworks going "bang" in time with the heavy drumbeat (you know, the main MI theme bit).
Also Fred Durst, the singer for those unaware, was a good showman. Nice audience participation and spent a fair bit of time up against the crowd barriers, including the fifty yard barriers. He stopped at one point about 2 yards down from where we were. This was pretty cool and some girl we were with got me (as being a foot taller than her) to take some photos of him from that close. The pretty uncool thing about it was how everybody in the crowd surged towards where he was and as a result everybody close near on died. And of course, the people trying to get to him over the crowd landing on us as the level 3 security (I'll decscribe them later if I remember, if I don't prod me in comments) got them the hell away from the famous guy. :)
Again I did the fanboy "Touch my hand fred durst! Look, I'm really stretching it towards you!". Kind of embarrassing in the cold light of day but at the time it was so the thing to do. :)
AT 10PM, pretty much on the dot (I can say from the recording of it I scanned through this morning) he said "Goodnight and thankyou" and left the stage. We laughed a lot at all the concert newbies who started leaving and streaming out the exit as we waited for the encore. It was inevitable if for no other reason than they still had all the crowd lights turned off.
And lo, they did come back. A couple more songs including one of my favourites, their cover of "faith" by George Michael (Was by him originally, right?). Unfortunately after that it really was over. This time it wasn't the lights that gave it away, the crowd lights remained down for quite while, it was the MTV camera operator starting to dismantle his equipment. We figured that it would be more than his jobs worth to dismantle things before the end so we sighed and resigned ourselves to a concert that we enjoyed so damn much. :)
We hung around and chatted to a security guard and a couple of SJA medics for a while as we let the crowds clear and then started making our way out. Back to the car was so painless that it surprised me. Short walk to the underground (via a new t-shirt for a fiver), train arrives within about a minute of us getting to the platform and we wander up. Think about getting a bus back but realise that we weren't sure which one so ignored the bus that arrived before we'd even decided whether to get a bus or not. Got a taxicab from a place across the road almost instantly (the time it took for the bloke to take another sip of tea and put down his paper I think) and back to the car. Next stop was EHQ to meet nick and then back to his house for crash. Despite having no clue where I was going my instinctive knowledge of how to get around london worked again and we got there with relatively little trouble. Not that krys noticed since she was asleep most of the way there. :)
The rest is uninteresting so I will say no more than that it was nice to see people even if only for a bit and that Nick is a star and has a really nice shower. :)
Other things worthy of mention on the concert that I didn't mention anywhere else was cute girls. Nice lot of them around. Some of them provoked a later discussion on why the hell they felt the desire to take their tops off while sitting in people's shoulders. Anybody caring to offer an opinion please feel free.
The last is my observation of the security guys of clearly different XP levels. During most of the gig we saw two distinct classes of security guard. The blue shirts and the red shirts. Contrary to star trek laws none of the red-shirted security guys died at all (that I heard of) which was good. The blue shirted guys were the average mooks who were as much gofering as they were being big and hard. Especially considering there were some who wouldn't ahve given me trouble and its not like I'm big. The red guys were the "security supervisors" who were clearly older, more experienced and had gained the ability "don't mess with me look". Later on in the gig though we saw the guys that the red-shirts might get promoted to (the younger ones anyway).
When fred durst was coming round the cloud he had four black clad guys who looked absolutely hard as nails. The chinese looking guy who looked like he probably was too hard for the triad, the coloured guy with bandana who you got the impression ate babies for breakfast. The other two I couldn't see clearly but I'd guess were equally scary looking. Really men who you wouldn't ever mess with. It probably shows that I RP or computer game too much when I saw these as three experience levels of the security guard but it seemed to fit so well. :)
The latest Swordsmaster installment
Swordmaster on sunday was good. Shitty london traffic made me an hour late which was bloody embarrassing since I never seem to manage to get there on time any more. Really must try harder next weekend. The game was fun. I really like
bateleur and
chrestomancy's new characters and look forward to more stuff. The session as, dom already commented, didn't seem to get very far but I'm not sure I'd say it was slow, just a lot of distractions. This was not helped by the babies who I noticed more than I usually do which I am assuming is because they were being more distracting than usual.
We had a scary "near character death" moment which fate (points) spared us from. I think the character has had a hell of a scare from that. Also I'm feeling a bit lost in character again and have heard bad news from lathany in some ways. Fun though and looking forward to next session. Shame krys won't be there.
Visiting people who are back in oxford
In the evening after dropping krys off I wandered off to see
taigne,
luciefoulston and Brian (of no LJ that I am aware of) in their new house. Got a tour, chatted a bit, watched Galaxy Quest, chatted a whole lot more. Went home far too late. Was very nice to see people though so the fact that I once more failed to get up this morning doesn't bother me that much.
And that was the weekend. Apologies to anybody that feels slighted for not having been mentioned in more detail. Its just the limp bizkit was, I'm afraid, worthy of getting more than the lion's share of this entry. And I have spent far more time writing than I should ahve done alreayd so I do have to keep this short(!?).
The week ahead is going to be busy. Tonight St giles fair. Tomorrow intrusion. Wednesday not sure. Thursday meeting friend for a drink followed by Rock-it. Friday/saturday I've a feeling I have plans but no memory of what. Then sunday running dragon blooded. I'm not going to spend ages saying "ARGH! Need to prep for game" since I do know exactly what is going on. I just need to find time to write it down. So "ARGH! Need time to transcribe prep work for game!" :)
So there's a huge post to make up for such a lack of posts recently.
A seeing off sally gathering
We had ice cream or hot chocolates or whatever and then came up with a plan to decamp to my house which was empty for the duration. WE did this and people picked up alcohol on route. We played DoA3 and I lost which was embarrassing given its my game. :) Then we chatted lots and had Spaced DVD on in the background. I need to do virtual gunfights with my friends. Its cool. :)
I wussed out relatively early and crashed at 2AM. Others allegedly made it through to 6 before crashing.
Next morning I rolled out of bed late and started preparing and planning for the day ahead.
A wicked ace concert (and the leadup)
The journey there was not too bad. Krys and I stopped off at tesco to provision (lunch and krys was bright enought to suggest we might want food for after the gig). We drove down to london which went fine. We drove through london where we were fine until about camden area. After that the traffic was alright through holloway and then we got to the vicinity of Finsbury Park.
Now some of you might be already qondering why I drove and the reason is that I thought they would have made at least some provision for people driving. If they did though they gave no indication anywhere that I saw.
When we got there we drove past going "oooh, that's where we want to be" I thought "not long now". How foolish I was. We drove around and found plenty of parking. Mostly residents only. Or suspended. Or pay and display for maximum of two hours. All the while we were in heavy traffic and moving very slowly as we peered eagerly around for somewhere to leave the car. I toyed with the idea of going for "expensive pay and display". That is where you just park in the resident permit holders area and pay the parking ticket that you get. 30 quid for parking but at least less hastle. By the time I was seriously toying with this idea though we were a fair way from finsbury park and it seemed pointless to enact such a plan so far out.
I was getting thoroughly pissed off by this time. We were running late, there was no sign of parking and we were in heavy traffic, rapidly getting later and later. Luckily the first band I was really eager to see weren't for a while so it wasn't a huge issue.
By this time I was alreayd up with the plan of parking somewhere further away and tubing to finsbury park. A good plan but for the lack of parking still. In the end I stopped at a newsagent who gave me very ropey directions to some parking that left me asking at a garage who said "you can park here for free (on the road by the garage) and get a bus to wood green tube". Fucked off I just went "Yeah, that sounds good". And got krys out the car and grabbed stuff. Krys was being dejected by this time too having had to spend the last hour listening to me mutter darkly under my breath and be thoroughly bad company as we got further and further from the concert. Luckily we both perked up as we wandered to the bus and then got on the tube.
By the time we got there we were both quite bouncy again. We caught the end of the second band (Biffy Clyro) which I didn't think much of though to be fair we only caught there last two songs. We were puzzled by the layout since there seemed to be a front enclosure that we couldn't get access to, separated from the rest of the area by a 3 yard wide security guy area. We later discovered that the first 3,000 people to arrive got given wristbands that allowed them to get in there. We obviously weren't among those lot so we had no chance of getting within 50 yards of the stage. We wandered around the stalls that were set up and krys, looking at the tattoo-like stalls and the rather impressive artistry of at least one of the ladies there. Bit expensive though really.
InMe were the next band and they were pretty cool. I don't know much of their stuff but I really like what I do know and I like the other stuff now too. :) They played to a light rain of empty coke and water bottles and the like. Seems to be a tradition for these sorts of things in my experience. They took it quite well though, the singer commenting "There are bins around you know. But I guess I make a much easier target." (or words to that effect). Once their set finished we haeded for a bit more of a tour of the stalls to see what there was. Krys, getting cold, considered buying a top but didn't find one she liked.
Some chips and a drink later found us sitting on the ground, krys getting colder and both of us quite pissy at the whole not being excluded fromt eh front thing. Mainly by virtue of the fact that we might have left several hours earlier to get there for then if we'd known. Or at least could have mae the coscious choice not to and have therefore lost out by our own choice.
Cooper Temple Clause started playing at this point and we both sat there ignoring them for a bit. And then in a bout of enthusiasm born from years of forcing myself out of miserable moods and aided by a lightning strike of inspiration that getting into the crowd would be much warmer than where we were sitting we wandered up to the 50 yard barrier.
The band seemed a bit uninspired. They weren't bad but their songs all ran into one another and were very samey. We found ourselves a nice spot right up near the barrier so nobody blocking our view too much (or mine at least, six inches shorter krys might have had more issues). The bottle rain continued and it was about half way through the set that the people behind the fifty yard barrier realised they were never going to hit the stage so started aiming at the people in front of the barrier. The people in front did likewise and without a formal declaration (unless you count "You're shit! And you know you are!") war started and we settled into our trenches behind the metal barriers that marked the edge of the no-mans land were the security guards roamed.
It started as bottles, then water and beer and later on small amounts of chips and things of that nature. I feel quite sorry for Cooper Temple Clause who, by the end of their set, were looking at the backs of the heads of about 50% of the people in the front enclosure who were all facing back towards us. I think we won. We had numbers on our side and they had the disadvantage of space so that the security guards decided it would be easier to stop things from their side. A few of them got thrown out and there was one very comedy moments as one girl of a pair of really mouthy 15 year olds (at a guess) turned to pick up a bottle and turned back to us to start giving abuse and throw the bottle. She opened her mouth to shout and the arms wide in the "Bring it, I'm dead hard, me" gesture to find a security guard pretty much face to well, his chest, with her. It was funny to see the "hard" image break down quietly as she went back to young girl caught being naughty as she dropped the bottle and looked very sheepish. Luckily though she was back on form with her witty hand gestures (yeah, that was sarcasm, don't worry) before too long.
As you can tell from the write up, the war was much more interesting than Cooper Temple Clause. It also was quite amusing and put us in a much cheerier mood (as did the warmth of all the bodies around us).
We decided to stay there for the break before A came on and as a result managed to make our way to the barrier. A came on and were damn good. Don't know much of their music so can't comment on the songs and stuff really apart from to say they were very good. The singer was great and came running around the no-mans land bit right in front of us for one song. I found myself, much to my surprise, doign the fanboy reaching my hand outs to be touched, by this singer of a band I didn't even know that well.
After they finished the crowd was getting quite packed and we realised that if we left our spot by the barrier we'd probably not get it back. So we stayed. Now up til this point the concert had been running ahead of schedule. A must have finished at least a quarter of an hour before they were due to, probably a bit more than that. You might think this a good thing since it would mean main event sooner and an earlier finish to make homeward journeys easier. Alas, it was being broadcast live on MTV which meant that it *had* to start at 9. So we had more than an hours wait between bands. It was very full and boring and packed. We were already starting to get quite squashy before Limp Bizkit actually came out on stage.
After what seemed like forever they started their set to much cheering and gasping for breath. They played some damn good songs, most of which I knew which was nice considering I only own one of their albums. They had some ace stage effects which were both visually great and some of which appealed to my pyrotechnic side. Gouts of flame billowing up a good 40 feet behind the band and from the side of the stage on occasions as well as fireworks set up all over the stage scaffolding and lighting rig area things. Very cool when during "take a look around", the mission impossible 2 tune, they had a set of fireworks going "bang" in time with the heavy drumbeat (you know, the main MI theme bit).
Also Fred Durst, the singer for those unaware, was a good showman. Nice audience participation and spent a fair bit of time up against the crowd barriers, including the fifty yard barriers. He stopped at one point about 2 yards down from where we were. This was pretty cool and some girl we were with got me (as being a foot taller than her) to take some photos of him from that close. The pretty uncool thing about it was how everybody in the crowd surged towards where he was and as a result everybody close near on died. And of course, the people trying to get to him over the crowd landing on us as the level 3 security (I'll decscribe them later if I remember, if I don't prod me in comments) got them the hell away from the famous guy. :)
Again I did the fanboy "Touch my hand fred durst! Look, I'm really stretching it towards you!". Kind of embarrassing in the cold light of day but at the time it was so the thing to do. :)
AT 10PM, pretty much on the dot (I can say from the recording of it I scanned through this morning) he said "Goodnight and thankyou" and left the stage. We laughed a lot at all the concert newbies who started leaving and streaming out the exit as we waited for the encore. It was inevitable if for no other reason than they still had all the crowd lights turned off.
And lo, they did come back. A couple more songs including one of my favourites, their cover of "faith" by George Michael (Was by him originally, right?). Unfortunately after that it really was over. This time it wasn't the lights that gave it away, the crowd lights remained down for quite while, it was the MTV camera operator starting to dismantle his equipment. We figured that it would be more than his jobs worth to dismantle things before the end so we sighed and resigned ourselves to a concert that we enjoyed so damn much. :)
We hung around and chatted to a security guard and a couple of SJA medics for a while as we let the crowds clear and then started making our way out. Back to the car was so painless that it surprised me. Short walk to the underground (via a new t-shirt for a fiver), train arrives within about a minute of us getting to the platform and we wander up. Think about getting a bus back but realise that we weren't sure which one so ignored the bus that arrived before we'd even decided whether to get a bus or not. Got a taxicab from a place across the road almost instantly (the time it took for the bloke to take another sip of tea and put down his paper I think) and back to the car. Next stop was EHQ to meet nick and then back to his house for crash. Despite having no clue where I was going my instinctive knowledge of how to get around london worked again and we got there with relatively little trouble. Not that krys noticed since she was asleep most of the way there. :)
The rest is uninteresting so I will say no more than that it was nice to see people even if only for a bit and that Nick is a star and has a really nice shower. :)
Other things worthy of mention on the concert that I didn't mention anywhere else was cute girls. Nice lot of them around. Some of them provoked a later discussion on why the hell they felt the desire to take their tops off while sitting in people's shoulders. Anybody caring to offer an opinion please feel free.
The last is my observation of the security guys of clearly different XP levels. During most of the gig we saw two distinct classes of security guard. The blue shirts and the red shirts. Contrary to star trek laws none of the red-shirted security guys died at all (that I heard of) which was good. The blue shirted guys were the average mooks who were as much gofering as they were being big and hard. Especially considering there were some who wouldn't ahve given me trouble and its not like I'm big. The red guys were the "security supervisors" who were clearly older, more experienced and had gained the ability "don't mess with me look". Later on in the gig though we saw the guys that the red-shirts might get promoted to (the younger ones anyway).
When fred durst was coming round the cloud he had four black clad guys who looked absolutely hard as nails. The chinese looking guy who looked like he probably was too hard for the triad, the coloured guy with bandana who you got the impression ate babies for breakfast. The other two I couldn't see clearly but I'd guess were equally scary looking. Really men who you wouldn't ever mess with. It probably shows that I RP or computer game too much when I saw these as three experience levels of the security guard but it seemed to fit so well. :)
The latest Swordsmaster installment
Swordmaster on sunday was good. Shitty london traffic made me an hour late which was bloody embarrassing since I never seem to manage to get there on time any more. Really must try harder next weekend. The game was fun. I really like
We had a scary "near character death" moment which fate (points) spared us from. I think the character has had a hell of a scare from that. Also I'm feeling a bit lost in character again and have heard bad news from lathany in some ways. Fun though and looking forward to next session. Shame krys won't be there.
Visiting people who are back in oxford
In the evening after dropping krys off I wandered off to see
And that was the weekend. Apologies to anybody that feels slighted for not having been mentioned in more detail. Its just the limp bizkit was, I'm afraid, worthy of getting more than the lion's share of this entry. And I have spent far more time writing than I should ahve done alreayd so I do have to keep this short(!?).
The week ahead is going to be busy. Tonight St giles fair. Tomorrow intrusion. Wednesday not sure. Thursday meeting friend for a drink followed by Rock-it. Friday/saturday I've a feeling I have plans but no memory of what. Then sunday running dragon blooded. I'm not going to spend ages saying "ARGH! Need to prep for game" since I do know exactly what is going on. I just need to find time to write it down. So "ARGH! Need time to transcribe prep work for game!" :)
So there's a huge post to make up for such a lack of posts recently.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-08 07:12 am (UTC)Erm, and there was that fighting game which i managed to actually beat Ben at once...just once...
(no subject)