Posted by Alan on May 31, 2010
Today we headed out to the Southend Air Show. It was bloody hard work getting there – thanks to strategically placed engineering works by all operators, but I’ve just about got over that! Once there we saw lots of ugg boots, white shoes and a few planes. Here’s the best few of the pics.
I wish I had a zoom lens right now
Curve above the pier
Bi-plans and dark skies
Bi-Planes above the pier
Posted in Photography, Transport Rant | Tagged: Air Show, EOS 500D, Essex, festival, Southend | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Alan on January 25, 2010
I really am falling behind with this blogging lark. There’s still stuff from Christmas that I want to write about. Oh well… it obviously can wait a little bit longer yet.
This Friday I had the afternoon off. Straight to the train and by 4.30 I was at the Winter Ales beer festival in Manchester. For a long time this was in the convenient New Century Hall, but apparently that needs refurbishing so is no longer available. Hence we meandered on the bus up to Miles Platting, just short of Collyhurst where Shameless is meant to be set.
Even at half 4 it was standing room only.
Winter Ales - Dan on the Floor, and just ½pt no. 1!
Some bloke (who later turned out to be deputy organiser!) wheeled out some extra chairs making a joke about how just because the venue was in Beirut, the young ‘uns on the floor should stop making it look so! Eventually we found two chairs at a table and gradually invaded…
Old Tom - Best Ale? We disagree vehemently!
Beer, drunk best in halfs or nips (1/3rd pint)
By the end of the evening someone had balloons. Just some random person.
Balloons + beer = comedy balloon shapes & animals.
Balloons can be made into many things. Or not.
This was also the first social trip out for the EOS 500D. I’m starting to like it a lot and I think I really need to get out into the City and shoot a few of the more beautiful parts. And maybe clock up how many S44 Stop and Search I can collect in an hour!
* * *
Winter ales wasn’t the first beery outing this week though. On Thursday, I took a trip out to Old St to check out a crawl for ELAC with Dickie. We had fun (sticking just to halves again – it was a school night after all). Found some places to drink and one not to drink.
The journey was: Old Fountain, Wenlock Arms, William IV, Eagle (“Hoxton”), Bavarian Beerhouse, Artillary Arms. Each pub had it’s own merits – the Wenlock full of character (and characters), the William IV with pretty good Jazz but the Bavarian Beerhouse was a bit disappointment to say the least. £3 got you ‘0.3l’ of beer (of any sort) – though the glass was lined at ½pt (less than 0.3l!). If you felt flush you could spend £8.10 on a stein (1l). Whilst there were saw at least 4 smashed which is perhaps why they cost £8.10!
That’s enough for now… I will get back to older news (olds?) later in the week…
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: beer, camra, ELAC, EOS 500D, festival, London, manchester, Old St, pub crawl, Winter Ales | 1 Comment »
Posted by Alan on August 1, 2009
Second festival of 2009 for me, Field Day in Victoria Park near Bow. It was a pretty good idea but a bit of a washout.
There were a few OK bands but sound quality wasn’t awesome at any of the stages. And it rained. Quite a lot. Never mind… could have been much worse. However, by MOGWAI they had fixed the sound problems on the main stage and the event bowed out with an awesome Glasgow Mega-Snake. Can’t be bothered with a proper review like… so here are some pictorial highlights 🙂
Final Fantasy
The Thing - Not My Thing!
The Horrors
Rainbow over Bow
Mogwai
——————————————————————
List of Bands
Posted in Culture | Tagged: 2009, C913, festival, field day, final fantasy, Four Tet, Juana Molina, London, Malcolm Middleton, mogwai, Mumford and Sons, Santigold, The Horrors, The Thing, Wet Paint, Wood Pigeon | 1 Comment »
Posted by Alan on July 9, 2009
Sunday was chilled out even more. There weren’t really any bands I was that bothered about, with the exception of Blur. And that wasn’t really a must go see but a nice to be able to say I’ve done in a few years time kind of want.
So… a very lazy start saw Status Quo on the pyramid stage. More morning cheese 🙂
From there I went up to the Acoustic Tent where amongst other bands, I saw a singer/songwriter called Kate Walsh who was excellent and Penguin Cafe Orchestra who made me angry. PCO have soundtracked a few adverts it would seem and that was pretty much all they played. They took around 30 minutes to soundcheck as well due to the sheer number of instruments. Rubbish!
Kate Walsh (Acoustic Tent)
To wake myself up again from the calm of the acoustic tent I headed off to the queens head. It was pretty empty – which was a shame – next up was The Capitol Years from Philidelphia, US. Quite good…
The Capitol Years (Queens Head)
Next up – Madness. Who put on a really good show. But the best bit I thought was at the end the put loads of randoms on stage. Let some lad have the mic at the end – who gladly said “thank you and good night Glastonbury”. At which point the engineer cut the sound, leaving Suggs holding a dead mic. He didn’t look best pleased…
I heard Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds from the solidarity bar where I had bumped into a colleague.
Then finally Blur. Nice gig to come down from all the excitement of the past few days.
Damian Albarn (Pyramid Stage)
I didn’t watch the whole set due to nature calling mid-way through the set (4 pints in the solidarity bar… didn’t bode well for a 2 hour set). But this presented a great opportunity for chips!
So I finished off Blur with chips and curry from a burger van. Marvellous!
A slightly blurry Blur on the Pyramid Stage
And so that’s it Glasto 2009.
Bring on 2010!
Posted in Culture | Tagged: blur, C913, festival, folk, Food, Glastonbury, Kate Walsh, Madness, Status Quo | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Alan on July 8, 2009
Saturday was a little bit less mental than Friday; I guess I was kinda worn out!
Starting in the speakers forum where I picked up some enviromental poetry whilst waiting for Mark Thomas. Very enjoyable – recommend checking out Danny Chivers.
Mark Thomas (Speakers Forum)
After Mark I walked down to see Eagles of Death Metal via Rolf Harris. Except 60,000 people had had the same idea so getting so see any of Rolf wasn’t going to happen. Great time to use the cash point though! Eagles were good but not awesome. Perhaps it was the fact they’d played at 0215 the previous morning…
I then went up to the acoustic tent to chill out a little. You can sit down in there and it never seems to be too muddy no matter the weather outside.
After a food break and stocking up with some tinnies from the tent I headed over for a night of other stage headliners. Plan was to hang round the back for Maximo Park (having seen them in Glasto 07 anyway) then move forward through the crowd through Pendulum for Franz. By the time Pendulum came on I was already pretty close to the front…
Pendulum
The crowd was mental. Being quite fat and unfit I actually had to duck out after a few songs. Just too energetic for me… how rubbish is that eh? Oh well. Maybe next time I might be in better shape! So I headed off for the bar to avoid the unidentified flying liquids etc. Not too long after I could see people lighting fireworks and flares for the crowd.
Finally, Saturday headliner for me was Franz Ferdinand. I wasn’t expecting great things having heard previous live material. But it was pretty damn good, especially the extended version of Lucid Dreams (Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, 2009), featuring a lengthy electronic noise solo and the ending of Outsiders where all the band were playing a single drum kit!
Franz Ferdinand
To be continued…
Posted in Culture | Tagged: 2009, C913, Environment, festival, franz ferdinand, Glasto, Glastonbury, Mark Thomas, Pendulum, Poetry | 1 Comment »
Posted by Alan on June 30, 2009
So was it worth all the mud? Hell yeah. Glastonbury was, as ever, an awesome experience. It did take me a while to drop out of real life and tune in… but that can only be expected now I’m a real person instead of student layabout.
Owing to the whole holiday thing, it’s going to take me ages to go through the photos and review stuff properly so here is just a list of what I saw.
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
And a quick few pix- was well worth taking a camera with a glass lens over a mobile!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: 2009, awesome, blur, C913, festival, franz ferdinand, Glasto, Glastonbury, liz green, Mud, music, somerset | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Alan on June 21, 2009
On Tuesday, I’m off to Glastonbury festival. This is my second time – the first being in the gap between studenthood and paid employment.
So… I thought it might be nice to put up a quick reminder of last time to help get me in the mood 🙂
Glastonbury 2007…
Friday
|
||
 |
 |
 |
Saturday
|
||
 |
 |
 |
Sunday
|
|
 |
 |
Wonder what I’ll see this time…
Posted in Culture, General Meh | Tagged: 2007, arcade fire, awesome, bellowhead, comedy, festival, folk, Glasto, Glastonbury, k750i, manic street preachers, maximo park, music | 1 Comment »
A Grim North 