Rob Skipper once more forces me into a night out

The Hares and their line ups: 8.0

Hola. This be a blog about Thursday, in which me and Ant went to a gig up in the Old Queens Head pub near Angel in northern central London. Ant had become aware of its existence in the afternoon, which thus led to me coming home to only a quick wash before we headed out.

The pub is fairly tiny. About the size of a rich mans living room, but it had a high ceiling which gave it a more grandiose feeling, you will see from following pictures. The drinks were fairly extortionate but not too badly priced for the area and we were only having the one anyway, what with work the next day for me, and some attempted job hunting for Ant.

We passed the legendary Skipper on the way in, who seemed to be checking up on the attendance, I'm pretty sure he gave Ant a familiar smile but I cannot confirm. Skipper was organising the shindig and the acts appeared to be close friends who he was giving a chance to perform. Lovely man that he is.

We found a seat at the back and commenced watching, having come just in time for the first act which was apparently 45 mins behind anyway. Glorious.

1) Jay Brown was the opener. She was a pretty cool act, seemed very fresh and at ease on stage. Her songs were unorthodox and caught the attention straight away while at the same time being within the bounds of the mainstream indie. She also had a lovely voice:

Photogenic

At ease

View of the venue. Pretty cool place.

The last photo should give an idea of the look of the place. Looked very much like a Tudor room which had started to decay. Post modern the right words?

A vid of the last third of one of her songs is available for you to check out:

2) Next up were the Itchy Teeth, who were talented musicians to be sure, but definitely had a whiff of Ant and Dec about them. If Ant and Dec are your cup of tea, then you missed out. Their act seemed quite short, definitely more of a fun amateur band then up and coming methinks.

Yep

3) Sissi was act #3. Definitely appeared to be her first ever performance in front of a crowd and she handled it pretty well. She has a pretty amazing voice and she didn't falter in both her keyboard and guitar playing.

Observe le chic trainers

Ant pointed out (and I tend to agree) that the lyrics weren't amazing, but at her first gig I think quite a bit of talent otherwise shone through. You can see what I mean by the lyrics in this song which uses coffee a little too powerfully for my liking:

Here final song was a mellow one where she sat on the stage, I was quite impressed how the room quietened down for her to sing clearly.

4) The Lost Brothers were fourth and had flown in from Ireland especially for the gig. They played pretty mellow indie and played it well.

It was hot in the place and even hotter on  the stage. The guy in the hat must have been roasting.

Out of a choice of two videos of them I shall choose the shorter but more interesting one, as they invited Mr Skipper onto the stage to jam with them before playing a song he clearly had never heard before. It's a pretty cool test of his skill that he managed to play along with them despite not knowing anything about the tune:

5) Before the appearance there was enough time to see the final act - Babeshadow, who unfortunately I took only blurry photos of:

Blurry

Babeshadow were the most exciting band up to that point, the guy on the right of the photo looked about 6'8 and had a sense of humour. Their songs were catchy and upbeat.

Finally there were the mighty Hares. They were the headliners but nobly spent as much time on stage as the rest, which wasn't too long. By this time my battery was dying repeatedly so I couldn't take a video but my personal favourite and their final song was Barb Wire which ya can listen to on their myspace: http://www.myspace.com/haresband. Pink Radio is also a great one.

They lacked the fantastic bassist they had when I saw them for the first time in Camden a few months ago. They were also without the lead female singer. However the performance they put in was excellent and had the steadily growing crowd on their feet for the first time all night.

The Hares

Substitute lead female vocalist did a stand up job

They're worth checking out are ze Hares. They have lively upbeat songs that can't fail to turn a good night into a great one. I would thoroughly recommend!

P.S. Remembered I owed you a large video of 4MP singing Beatles songs but unfortunately it was on my laptop that crashed! :( Apologies!

A picture tells 1000 words

Or a picture is worth 1000 words? Old saying.

Uploading a few phone photos. My blackberry photos, while of poor quality, are usually interesting, interesting enough to blog about I hope. Taking a photo on your phone is usually a sign you don't have a camera but need to take a photo to capture the moment asap. Hence the importance. None of these are quite drastic but they'll be worth a look-see.

 1) The fireworks at parliament. Not content with taking half a thousand photos of these brilliant fireworks on my camera, I for some reason whipped out my phone to take another few snaps in a much lower quality. Don't ask me why. I was high on red wine and Ross Kemp/ John Bercow action.

2) Channel 4 studios. They're right next to the internship where I work. This cleaver illusion was identical to the adverts they show - walking to the right sees you looking at a random construction but from this angle its a 4. Great piece of art, if a bit pointless in this climate. I imagine they could have saved a lot more money with something cheaper. Still, I'm glad they made it.

3) Face made into my calzone at a posh pizza place in Central London. Was with my dad, can't quite remember why we were there. Moving on:

4) I do love a good sunset photo wherever I am. This was on my road walking somewhere. If only my camera was with me I could have taken one with much less light pollution.

5) Wimbledon Park. I have better ones on my facebook but this was a nice day.

 6) The Shard. Set to become Europe's tallest building. Took a photo when out with me dad I think.

7) Some Parliament photos. Big Ben with the London Eye in the background. Lower one has Big Ben in full but I like the top one too.

8) Fox on my road. I always wonder how they survive, especially with our coldest December since records began. Prefer to have a good quality one but my camera is never on me when I get a good sight of a fox.

9) My garden at the height of the snow.

 

10) Flowers at my nans funeral. She would have loved all the affection!
 

11) The box seats for the Bill Bailey performance at the Wyndhams theatre. From the box EVERYONE could see you. It was a little unnerving. Bill had a good banter with the front of  the crowd though, turned out to be a great show to watch from a box seat.

And that is all for now. Tune in again soon when I will put up more photos of hopefully more fun times on the way. Wedding next month of my former great roommates Dan and Steph, should make for some great photos!

Saturday

Uneventful name to go with an uneventful blog. Remembered another Bill Bailey joke though; he complains about the warnings on the side of pill bottles being too derogatory for the middle classes. "Don't use when operating heavy machinery? How dare you.. Why not don't use when doing pilates?"

So my future job at the internship place has been made official! Yay! Paid employment in the next few weeks. Looking forward to it ever so. 

One of the top things on my mind recently has been the offer of part time work from a family friend who knows someone. The work would be part time in the evening, 1 - 2 days a week, consisting of phoning people and asking about their opinions on organisations and companies.

The upside - a tad more money but mainly what would be a very impressive piece of work to have on a CV for any future work involving politics.

The downside - evening taken away but mainly the shear level of abuse I can expect to get when calling people in the middle of X-Factor.

The work would be unpleasant but that's the main reason its valued in a CV. Given that my work hours have me finishing at 6 it would also make getting to the place in time problematic. I'm 50/50 as to whether I will go for it. As I've said in the past, a good career and travelling are the main things on the agenda, but will the abuse be worth it? Seems like it should be... we will have to see.

I'm off to sleep, rest up compadres.

Bill Bailey: Dandelion Mind - Bill Bailey is a legend

Bill Bailey - Dandelion Mind - 9.4/10

Bill Bailey is quite the entertainer that's for damn sure.

Me and my dad went first to the Stockpot just outside Leicester Square. I'd recommend, does the most simple food known to humanity but it does it well and cheap. I had an omelet and chips and a Cappuccino. Odd mix I know and not one I plan to redo. We went afterwards to the Wellington, one of the gayest pubs in London where I downed a Kopperberg before we headed to the show at the Wyndham Theatre.

My dad had bought me Box tickets for Christmas. Turns out they were damn close to the front, we were about 10 feet from Mr Bailey himself. I could see the sweat on his brow during the second act.

Turns out he was everything I hoped for and more. He came on with his usual quirky murmurs and quickly  dubbed us "Thursday" - formal , but affectionate. He laid into us with the usual strange stories, bantering with the crowd. Asking if  any of us had ventured north and chastising us for not doing so. The songs were excellent. He play about 3 guitar relatives and played them well.

Its not an act you take many memorable quotes from, mainly because the best are hidden in what is usually a very very long and well executed ramble about something-or-other. I did remember the annoyance he had with the Saw  movies, a man who wakes up tired to a wolf and has to chew off his ears to fire a gun at a kitten that... goes on and on getting funnier and funnier. Also how you can get the ashes to relatives made in to jewelry for £3000. Why not a snow globe for £15? He never made it to Paris...oop now he has!

Turns out hes much better at improvising then I thought, having a good 15 minute banter with us over the fact that two people had shouted out "Balalaika", which turned out to be hilarious.

As always one of the best parts was his discussion of pictures on the big screen, this time pictures of the same scene, Jesus having the stab wound he has examined by one of his disciples. Bill managed to find something hilarious in each picture, a different quirk from each artist.

Only real problem I had all night was the urge to pee throughout most of it due to the damn Kopperburg and wine. Another learning experience, I will endeavour to dehydrate myself next time, and there will be a next time because he is too good not to see again. Absolute win getting that box seat.

Typing to you on me new laptop by-the-by! Love it already. Dell XPS's are a thing to behold. Apologies for not blogging for a while, I shall have to make up for it in the near future! This weekend. Its a date.

New Years Eve 2010

Amazing.

This night out for new years was supposed to be good, not this memorable.

The plan was, and has been since around December 28th, to go to the Tramshed, a pub in Tooting. It was an idea agreed upon by myself, Ant, a lad called Shane, and soon to be agreed upon by many more. However, as of this afternoon, it struck us that the Tramshed, not only was ticket-only, but has been sold out since December 22nd. Boo, I thought.

Plans to go with the guys to Kingston fell through, and soon I was at risk of having nothing to do on New Years Eve. Ant was off to a gig with his family, and I had but one choice - to fall back on the offer to visit Parliament with Siobhain and see some lovely fireworks in Central London. I've done it before, but it is something special.

I met with Siobhain, Margaret and Abby at 8:50pm, and we headed off to Westminster by Tube, only to find that Westminster station had been closed due to previous injury. Problem #1. We got to Embankment and headed over by foot. Surprisingly the crowd was generally pretty slim, except for the view by the London Eye, which was fairly chocka-block and rough, however we overcame and got to Parliament.

Fun ensued. We cleared security and went to the Terrace and the bar where the ever charitable Margaret bought me a bottle of Red Wine which I began drinking. We went outside and found the magnificent view of the London Eye.. but unfortunately no seats. Me and Mag swiped a table and the 4 of us stood drinking and chatting before Mag found out that none other then Duffy herself was present and would possibly be singing. We hurried over to the marquee and watched the marvelous 4MP (a band made up for 4 MP's) performing a host of brilliant songs for charity.

Unfortunately the song they played by the Beatles is too large to upload atm, once I get my new laptop in the post I will convert it and add asap!

The group is cross party, Labour, SNP and Conservative. After all the conflict that has ensued politically this year it was pretty refreshing see a joint band planning from different political spectrums (and no Lib Dems!) My favourite politician, controversial as it may seem, John Burcow, came and gave a lovely speech which made me feel even more like the night was going to be good. Observe the photo:

After the band was done it became apparent that Duffy would not be performing to which I BOO. But I did see and she looked lovely. By this point I had drunk most of my Red Wine and was fairly drunk.

I staggered back to the outside table, approached Siobhain and failed to realise until the last moment that the mighty Ross Kemp was standing next to her chatting. Ross Kemp, for those of you who don't know is a fairly high up British celebrity. We shook hands and he seemed fairly nice. His gorgeous Australian fiance stood opposite and was nice also. Many upper-class toffs came up to us over the course of the next 2 hours and asked Mr Kemp for photos and banter to which he, surprisingly in my view, said yes to.

By you would imagine through TV, Mr Kemp would not generally be thought of as the patient man in most occasions. However he genuinely impressed me tonight, using unnecessary patience to talk to complete strangers. Bravo!

Soon 2011 was upon us all and fireworks hit the town of London. Here are the best of the many shots I took:

Now it should be pointed out that I am a POOR red wine drinker. I have big lips. Thus henceforth all conversations I had on the night I had with the knowledge that I looked like I had just supped from the neck of a nearby human. However Margaret came and began moving our bottles over to the wall. I dutifully followed mine, turned and POW - John Burcow and Ross Kemp had inadvertently started a conversation and cornered me by the wall. Trapped is the wrong word, I definitely wasn't trying to escape this party. I spent the next 20 minutes watching this glorious conversation play out. It mostly consisted of Ross Kemp putting forward his points regarding the neglect of developing nations. Gotta say it was amazing. John Burcow did his best to take it in like me, it was quite a discussion.

After this mind blowing debate I sat talking with Abby over the events and we ended up in the final debate of the evening, with a group of smart, sophisticated young lobbyists. The intensity and complexity of the discussion scared me but looking back I believe I had a grasp of it. For my reference as much as yours, we discussed the Vince Cable scandal, about how the Telegraph first released the story of Cable badmouthing Rupert Murdock, but, that it had not released the more damaging parts of the discussion. However these details were leaked to the BBC, which did, resulting in an affray between the media outlets. I'll discuss these details in a later blog when I research them more.

We also discussed the BBC and its benefits over US media, being so impartial, but also how Sky, with subscribers, beats the BBC for funds many times over, leaving the BBC to claw as much money as possible. A sad state of affairs.

We left around 3AM and on the walk back we ran into a lady who asked us to point her in the direction of Vauxhall. We ended up walking her back there and I got to chatting to her for a good while. Turns out shes an aspiring 18 year old model (looked a lot like Rihanna). We discussed homophobia and her aspirations and Vauxhall friends amongst other things. Gotta remember she hangs out in Fire in Vauxhall, might be worth checking how shes doing. Too young for me but seemed like a lovely lass.

We helped 3 middle aged ladies in dresses I'd expect to see on teenagers find their way on the tube and made our way back. In all it was one of my life's most memorable nights so far. God willing there are many more to come!