Love Motion

So HANDS. And also HANDS. And did I mention frickin’ *HANDS*?

So, in case that wasn’t enough of a hint… The Last Carnival released their latest video yesterday. There are HANDS. I am happy.

In fact, it’s rather nice to know I can still be this happy over it, as in beaming-at-my-screen-like-a-loon happy, especially after the way I’ve felt for the best part of the last four months. It will probably never quite be the same as it once was – I guess I’m still a little broken (and being almost entirely ignored by someone really isn’t helping to fix that. You’d think I’d be used to it by now and I know it shouldn’t still hurt this damn much, but oddly enough, knowing I’m an idiot doesn’t actually make me feel better. Meh), however I do seem to have finally managed, after a fashion, to pull myself back together again. The cracks are definitely visible, in fact, I’m positively crazed (geddit?!), but I can function. Well, except when there are HANDS. Then I occasionally have a little trouble… 😉

I wasn’t quite sure what to think when they first announced the comic book concept for this one. I wasn’t exactly expecting a Take On Me style creation, but I was hoping for more than a handfull of stills and some fancy animation. Fortunately, I got what I hoped for and I like it a lot. I know, shocking, right? I like a Last Carnival video, who’d have thunk it?! Anyway, the point is, there’s a lot more to it than I was half expecting and I really enjoyed watching it. It’s been brilliantly shot and edited and there are some very nice effects used too, which enhance the live performance footage rather than detracting from it. I love the snippets of lyrics (partly because a good chunk of them I hadn’t been able to quite make out before) and the mix of straight footage interspersed with edited/colourised frames and effects.

So, can we begin by taking a moment to appreciate Russ’s awesomeness? Yes? Good. Russ is awesome. See? First shot. Proof.

Russ Is Awesome

Ok, so technically it’s not the first shot, there’s a blurry-ish frame of the band just before this in the earlier part of 0:05, but I think my point still stands. Anyhoo, we then fly straight into a nicely edited mash-up of band footage and coloured, comic book style stills with Russ continuing to be awesome throughout. Far too cool for school, that boy. There’s even a HANDS shot at 0:12. And yes, I know it’s not Justin. Shut up. Although… on the other side of the pretty pink bit… *coughs*… 0:15 isn’t bad really… I like the effect on the video… *looks shifty*

HANDS

Pretty Pink Bit

HANDS

So. Umm. 0:18. The vocals start and I’m still on my Russ is awesome trip, just so you’re aware. See? He’s just cool. However, can we take an additional moment to check out Kieran? Suave, man, very suave. Not even playing, but he’s there. He’s on it. Or ‘nailed it’ as he might say (before coming out with something completely inappropriate… Perhaps we should move on…).

Nailed It

Although before we do (there’s another great Russ shot coming up, just wait for it) I do have to mention the band footage at 0:22. Kieran, still not playing, just styling it out on his piano stool… :P. However, I do think Mike may steal the suave prize in that frame. He looks very beardy. More so than on tour perhaps? Or maybe it’s just lighting. Anyway, I’m not usually a beard fan, to be honest, but I really rather like it. Speaking of which and while I’m on the subject of style in general – Russ and Adam look so odd in t-shirts! I can’t even remember the last time I saw Russ dressed that casually. Before the smarter look of the past tour he was all about the leather jackets. I guess the fact Mike and Kieran are still rocking the shirts and waistcoat/braces look emphasises the difference even more. Then there’s Justin, bopping along in his New Rocks and Bowie embroidered jacket, looking much the same as always. He apparently didn’t get the memo re:dress code on the last tour either :P. Anyhoo, if Jus and Russ could lose the sunglasses, that would be fine too, but Russ does look rather smooth with his on, so I suppose they can stay.

Moving on, as I mentioned, there’s a nice shot of Russ after that, which morphs into a comic strip partway through. It looks ace and was particularly amusing because I inadvertently paused it on the below frame… whilst typing up the line about Kieran being inappropriate. I’m sure he could do plenty with this one…!

Fill in the gap…

So. 0:33. HANDS. Comic-ified HANDS, real HANDS, Mike HANDS… And then just in case that wasn’t enough, at 0:43 there’s more. And a knee. I’d kinda forgotten about the knee thing.

HANDS…

HANDS…

HANDS… & Knee

There’s even more at 0:45. And then, then, umm, more…

More…

Seriously though, so many HANDS. Before I watched it through for the second time, I figured I’d just been a bit dazzled the first time and perhaps over-estimated the HANDS to everything else ratio, but nope, there’s just loads of it. In fact, if I’d edited the video myself I wouldn’t have added much more. To be fair, I was expecting it a little after the promo screencaps they posted in the run up to release, but still…! Anyhoo, I haven’t mentioned the awesomeness of Russ in a while so here’s a nice shot from 0:48. I’ll gloss over the rapid movement a second later that I’m tempted to add here, but can’t quite capture and instead I’ll post one of Adam. Hiiii, Adam *waves*.

The Awesomeness Of Russ

Adaaaaaaaaaaam

I should probably mention the Mike HANDS at 0:53 just cos, however for lack of easily cap-able moments I’m just gonna stick a band shot here because I like it, so there. Deal with it. Plus in retrospect it does seem a tad overdue…

The Last Carnival

Of course, then there’s 0:56… And I mean, you didn’t really think I was going to stop with this, did you…?! As you may have realised by now, the awesomeness of Russ is not the overarching theme of this post. Although he is, in fact, awesome. Anyway, here’s a guitar. With some cuffs and a sleeve. Fascinating stuff, eh?

HANDS

And a guitar…

So you probably feel like you’ve been reading this forever? Can’t even remember a time before you were being inundated with inane commentary and too many slightly blurred screencaps of HANDS? Have forgotten that HANDS is normally a lowercase word? Well sit tight, because we’re actually only a minute in. It ain’t over yet… 😉 Seriously, though (well ish), I’m going to start skipping (through the video, not around the room) or we really will be here forever…

I love the section that starts around the 1:00 mark, with the golden accents picking up the guitars in the otherwise black and white footage and the split screen, comic book layout. It’s a nice tie in between the straight live footage and the comic-ified parts, as well as just being visually pleasing to me. The fact that it’s the guitars which are highlighted by the colour filter just makes it better; I do love a pretty instrument. (And yes, yes, the guitarist HANDS help, but it’s not just about that, honest. I mean, there’s a Kieran HAND too :P).

Golden Boys

And golden HANDS

I’m also still liking the way they flick smoothly between effects over the live action, as in the below example from 1:13, which I chose completely at random and not at all because at that exact moment it appears as though the Strand Of Torment has returned. I’ll make no pretences about the third cap, however, I just like it. Raargh. Also, I was amused by Russ’s pointing for no apparent reason.

Before

After

Raargh

And speaking of raargh (although, quick heads up, HANDS, 1:15, you’re welcome)… Whenever I listen to this one on Jukebox Medicine, I have a little mental Justin rock screaming over every wail of the guitar (as in, a mini Justin image in my head, not an insane guitarist shouting at me…). I’m not even sure where I got that from as I don’t specifically recall him doing that on tour. Although maybe he did and I just didn’t actively notice? Or maybe I simply picked it up from the Beat Inside video and merged it with the rest of the tracks on the EP. Either way, the mental image is always there with no obvious source. Now I still don’t have a source (except a possible hint at 0:15 not even strong enough to warrant a screencap), but still, it seemed like a relevant point to make. And it gave everyone a temporary break from HANDS. Raargh.

Anyhoo, there’s a lovely little sequence around 1:25 that I’m just going to leave here… We begin, we go up, we come back down, we dream…

I’m…

Dreaming…

Baby

And then there’s a moment at 1:31 that made me giggle from the start, but even more so since I watched it in slow motion for screen-capping purposes. I’m not quite sure what was behind it (wild guess: nothing), but it does look a tad like Justin’s shaking his head at his guitar in the same manner one might address a beloved pet – ‘Aren’t you a good boy? Yesh, yesh you are, you’re a very good boy’… But who am I to judge a man’s relationship with his instrument?! (I’m not even sorry for that crack – although I’m slightly sorry for not being sorry for it, so sorry). The duck face just makes it even more brilliant.

Who’s a good boy?

Anyway, I really am going to start skipping through now because even I’m beginning to forget there is life outside of this video. We continue on in much the same vein as we have up until now. There’s live stuff and comic-ified stuff and HANDS and awesome Russ. There’s also this effect from 1:47 I just happened to catch by accident and really rather liked, plus Mike looking exceptionally dashing a couple of seconds later.

Shaking to…

The Beat

*swoon*

For about 10 seconds from around the 1:56 mark, we get some nice close ups of Ads and Kieran.

Bang Bang

Plink Plink

Plinkedy Plink

And HANDS. Can’t forget the HANDS. There’s also a nice silhouette just before that – although the poses and positions do amuse me slightly more than they necessarily should… And an even nicer comic book freeze frame at 2:15

HANDS

Silhouette in Blue

Mmmmm

At 2:20 we get the solo, which is awesome anyway (Russ. Awesome. I’m sure you get the picture by now), but I love the way it’s been filmed/edited too. The silhouetted live action looks very effective and I like the way the edges (the hair and the glasses) and the highlighting (Justin’s guitar strap) give it a bit of depth and texture. In fact, this isn’t the first time they use that effect and I was going to mention a few lines earlier but thought it fitted better here. Moving on from there, I like the various filters and effects used on the same footage – the sideways scroll past multiple solo-playing Russes and then the same again with the coloured split frames.

Paint…

With…

All the…

Colours

Then there’s the bit that I really love at around 2:28. In fact, it jumped out at me the very first time I watched the video; it looks awesome. It’s hard to explain, but I love the sort of strobe effect on the silhouettes with live action footage within the shadows. Ok, that makes no sense. This. This is what I mean:

The added HANDS makes it that bit better, but to be honest I didn’t even notice them properly until I started capping. Still, I ain’t complainin’. Speaking of which… 2:38. HANDS, knee, yum. And incidentally, the shakey head thing (with pout) is apparently less amusing when I’ve just been HANDS-dazzled. That’s a thing now. Although it’s not a valid Scrabble word as it’s hyphenated (just so we’re clear). Anyhoo, the bouncy, golden guitar-ed HANDS a few seconds later are also fairly spectacular and only improved by a multi-HANDS split screen.

HANDS

Kiss The Air

Pure Gold HANDS

Before I move on, however, I’d like to backtrack a second or two, to 2:41. Now, you’d never notice it whilst watching normally because it can’t be more than about 5 frames worth. It whizzes past faster than you can focus on it, but the thing about doing these breakdowns is that I skip back and forth a lot, frame by frame, in the hunt for the perfect screencaps. So, we slide down from a red backgrounded Russ to Adam at the start of the gold highlighted sequence mentioned in the above paragraph… via a shot of Justin. It’s like subliminal messaging or something and felt just slightly weird once I noticed it. Like I wasn’t meant to, somehow. Incidentally, I also don’t think I need any help implanting guitarists into my thoughts… Anyhoo, more awesome Russ at 2:52 (it’s all about the eyebrows) followed by a cool blue silhouette a second later. Although when Russ gets the cool blue treatment, he turns it pink – which is naturally better.

Cool Blue

Hot Pink

3:00. Mike. Hells yeah. And then, you know, HANDS, but that’s not important… Well it’s important enough for a screencap, but otherwise, not important. *cough*.

Magic Mike

HANDS

And then there’s just a little bit more of everything; More Russ is awesome. More band. More cool blue. And more frickin’ HANDS. I do love this video so very, very much.

Russ Is Awesome

HANDS

And finally, more HANDS

Love Motion

Happy new year all!

Peace, loVe loVe and HANDS,
K xx

Jukebox Medicine

So, having been told by several people that the EPs had been posted already, I was somewhat disappointed not to arrive home to my copy on Friday night. And yet, despite waking up to find it waiting for me on Saturday, it wasn’t until the early hours of Sunday morning that I finally found the time to sit down and give it my full attention. I suspect if it had arrived earlier in the week, my response might have been speedier, but after Friday, there wasn’t anything entirely new on it to motivate me to squeeze in the time to listen to it. Still, I was keen enough to stay up until 5am once I finally hit play, so I could give myself time to fully appreciate each individual track, as well as getting my initial thoughts in order while they were fresh. On the flip side, I’m not sure how much sense some of it makes, but I tried :P.

There seems to have been an unexpected amount of interest in my reactions on this one and having specifically promised Mike, Adam & Russ on separate occasions that I would let them know what I think of it, a blog on the subject was inevitable. In fact, I promised Mike that there would be one a couple of weeks back and he’s already chased up on it.

I’d originally intended to split this into two separate posts as I did with The Call Of ’56 (first reactions, with an extended follow up post a few days later), but my initial thoughts didn’t quite sit right on their own and the fact that the boys seem curious enough that they’ll presumably read this at some point made me hesitate to publish anything unfinished. No pressure or anything… ;). Although it is rather flattering that they’re acting so interested in my opinion – and here I was thinking no one gave a damn…

So… Aside from the fact that the title has left me humming Jukebox Hero for the past few weeks, I rather like the concept for this one. The artwork is based around something resembling a bottle of Jack Daniel’s (very rock ‘n’ roll) and even the actual disc design has an old school feel to it somehow. It reminds me of the CDs my Dad used to keep in the car when he drove me to primary school – back when having a CD player at all, let alone in the car, was quite the novelty and I still couldn’t get over the excitement of not having to rewind them (or fast forward in short bursts to try and skip a song without missing the beginning of the next one)… And now I’m making myself feel old so I shall move on. Point is, I like the artwork and the retro feel. It fits their sound well and looks impressive. Nice work, Mr. Lewis.

Jukebox Medicine (cover)

Jukebox Medicine (inside)

Jukebox Medicine (back)

Of course, I’ve already heard four of the six tracks a dozen times before and the other two I heard on Friday, but the live versions are always different to the studio recordings so unsurprisingly I’ve still got plenty to say, especially about the new ones. My initial thoughts are from a single listen to each track on Saturday night (or rather, the early hours of Sunday morning). Lasting impressions were added later once I’d listened to the EP a bit more and given it a chance to settle.

And now, without further ado, I give you The Last Carnival’s Jukebox Medicine…

1. All The Dance Floor People

Initial thoughts: It’s got a very classic-y sort of sound to it that’s a little different from the live version, although don’t ask me what I mean by that. I’m really not very musical, despite my passion for it. It makes it rather hard to explain myself – plus I always think I’m getting it totally wrong… What I can say without doubt, however, is that I love the guitar (shocker). It’s clearer on the record than it is live, I think. It sounds awesome anyway and I also love the vocals. Russ’s voice really does seem to just get better and better. There’s a richer quality to it in this track that I really like. Although I’m still not quite sure what half the lyrics are…!

Lasting impressions: I’m still in the early phases with this record, which means I’ve not yet reached the shuffle stage. As such, I’ve been listening to it in order and I think this one is a really good opener for the EP. It captures their live energy pretty well and that’s what you want to start the EP off right. It also has a powerful intro that seems to tell the listener to sit up and take notice, so even with the whole thing on repeat, it acts like a sort of ‘back at the beginning’ flag. It’s never been one of my favourites live and it’s not my favourite on the EP either (not that I dislike it, I just like others more), but it’s a good dance track, plus I’m still loving Russ’s vocals on it. And the guitars. Obviously.

2. The Beat Inside The Body

Initial thoughts: I think I’ve covered this one fairly comprehensively already… click here to read it.

Lasting impressions: So, it’s slightly irritating that the picture that always pops into my head when I hear this is the shaking hips of the dancer in the video, particularly when I hear the drum beat early on in the track. Aside from that, however, I do think it’s a brilliant song. I’m still not going to go into any more detail on it, though. Again, I’ll refer you back to my video post in the link above.

3. Days On Fire

Initial thoughts: If they ever make an 80s style sequel to Top Gun, this song needs to be on the soundtrack. I could just picture a young Tom Cruise (or similar), aviators, a motorbike, a pretty girl with her arms around his waist, hair blowing in the wind, a sunset, maybe a bit of a montage… with this track blasting over the top of the scene. Which all sounds rather cheesy, but holy crap I love this song. And to put the beginning of this paragraph in context, I’ve always loved the Top Gun soundtrack – I mean it as a big compliment. Anyhoo, aside from that, I loved the guitars (again, shocker), loved the slower rhythm of it and loved the simplicity of some of the music – I could individually pick out the sounds of the different instruments at times & it reminded me of a conversation I once had with Justin about AC/DC – rock music in one of it’s purist forms (I may have paraphrased slightly, but you get the idea). Adam was waxing lyrical about this one when I saw him on Monday and I can completely see why. It’s a real masterpiece. It gave me tingles just listening to it and I think it’s already a firm favourite.

Lasting impressions: The guitar intro is enough to give me tingles all on its own, then Russ starts singing and I go a bit swoon-y. It really does sound like it should be on an old school movie soundtrack. It’s a bit of power ballad this one and I frickin’ love it. So much. I love the ‘always dreaming, don’t know what else to do’ lyric (not that I can identify or anything… *coughs*), I love the guitar riff after each lyric in the chorus and I love the BVs on the latter parts of the song… As far as I know it’s a blend of Russ & Mike, which is obviously something that could never happen live when Russ is singing lead, but it sounds damn good. There’s also the guitar solo. The heart-eyed emoji sums up my reaction to that one fairly well, I think. Nuff said. Also, the intro really jumps out at me. Even if I’m not paying attention to the record, this one always seems to catch my notice right from the get go, to the point that I tend to stop whatever I’m doing/thinking about to listen to it properly. I can’t even get my thoughts fully in order, I just keep fangirling over it. And I really, really love the guitar riff… It is quite possibly one of my all time favourite TLC songs.

4. Love Motion

Initial thoughts: It sounds really different to the live version, although I’m not sure how or why. It just seems to have a different feel to it. The chorus is incredibly catchy and (wait for it…) I love the guitar solo. I think it sounds ever so slightly pop-ier than their other stuff, at least the chorus does. The rest still has that classic rock sound to it, especially at the beginning and end. I’m not sure where I’m going with this… I can imagine I’ll end up humming it a lot, which is not something that happened after the live performances. It stands out more as a recording, I think. Disclaimer: It’s getting fairly (read: very) late, I’m not sure how much sense I’m making at this point…

Lasting impressions: It really is such a catchy chorus. It’s almost pop, but then there’s the intro/guitar riff that’s all classic rock… I’ve caught myself humming this one already, which I suspect is more than just a self-fulfilling prophecy after my comments above. I also rather like the lyrics of the chorus. I don’t tend to pick up on the lyrics with these songs – to me the vocals are almost ‘just’ another instrument blending with the others to create the sound that is uniquely The Last Carnival’s. I like these though, they’re up my street, I suppose, and it’s nice to be able to make them out more clearly than I could during the live performances (although there are still a fair few gaps. A lyric book would have been nice!). And, ya know, I still think the guitar solo is fairly awesome… (predicable? Moi? In fact, I’m not sure if I should be worried or amused that more than one band member informed me I’d love the new stuff because there were loads of mental guitars…). I also had a random Footloose moment whilst listening to the bridge. I’m all about the old school films with this EP. I may have to have an old school movie marathon if I ever have a free evening ever again.

5. There Ain’t No Loving You

Initial thoughts: This track, to me anyway, is probably the one that sounds the most similar to the live version. It’s even more retro than the others and makes me seriously consider giving in to my sister’s nagging and going to another Lindy Hop class. In fact, I challenge anyone to listen to this track without at least tapping their foot along with the beat. My toe-tapping tended to go a bit jive-y without my consent. It’s got the same sort of dance-y rhythm as the Screamboy Shuffle, without sounding remotely like it.

Lasting impressions: Someone I was talking to in Haywards Heath mentioned that the venue made them feel a little like Marty McFly was about to burst onto the stage and this song has that same feel to it, which makes sense I guess – it has a 50s rock ‘n’ roll quality to it. To be fair, that’s hardly unusual for The Last Carnival (the call of ’56, no?), but I think this is one of the earlier sounding ones, as opposed to some of the others that have more of an 80s classic rock feel. How they manage to make it so retro yet not in the slightest bit dated, I have no idea, it just seems to work. Anyhoo, most of their stuff is pretty upbeat, but this is exceptionally so (although, side note, I’d best get a bit of Beautiful (or No Hero, but I’m beginning to suspect that won’t happen again…) on tour, else I may sulk. In fact, I’m still a tad disappointed Beautiful didn’t make the EP (not that it would have fit particularly well with the other tracks, but I need that recording in my life)). I still find myself considering letting my sister drag me out dancing every time I listen to it… Well that or I might just dig out my old jive routine and dance around the kitchen when no one’s watching… Incidentally I can also picture a heavily choreographed routine a la Grease’s high school dance (again with the movies…). I’m definitely getting a late 50s vibe from this one.

6. Jukebox Medicine

Initial thoughts: Guitars! And guitars. And did I mention guitars? Also guitars. *ahem* so, I quite like the guitars on this one… And I know it’s cheating a bit to mention this here, but seeing the joint solo (is it a solo if there are two of them? Guitar duet doesn’t sound quite right though…) that Russ & Justin played on Friday… I must have looked hilarious, I felt my jaw drop & I think my mouth must’ve been hanging open the whole time. Anyway, I couldn’t hear that section of the track without remembering seeing it live on Friday night and it’s still a bit wow even without the visual. Not that I really know anything about guitar, but it sounded pretty fast and fiddly to me.There was also some distinctly awesome keyboard that I managed to pick out in it. The focus seems to be the complexity of the music and the lyrics appear to be fairly simple in contrast. I didn’t actually pay a huge amount of attention to them, focussing instead on the guitar for the most part (did I mention I liked the guitars on this one?!), which as I said, is fairly normal for me when it comes to this band, but despite all that, the lyrics seem rather catchy. Doubtlessly I’ll be randomly humming this one in no time, just as soon as I stop humming Jukebox Hero instead (it’s even worse when that becomes a mash-up with I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll – the film’s Dennis & Lonny just don’t cut it). Anyhoo, I’m looking forward to seeing this one live again, hopefully when I have less of an aversion to watching a certain area of the stage (if I ever publish Friday’s blog, this might make a bit more sense – depending on how much of it gets cut. At the moment I don’t think there’s more than a paragraph or two with even a hope of being posted), although I think I’m past that now, after some good behaviour… I hope. Tour will suck slightly if I’m not.

Lasting impressions: So that guitar solo… I don’t even know who’s playing it; if its just Russ or both of them, but bloody hell! I know it’s a recording, but I’m sure it just keeps getting better…! (I should probably add here that I’m still loving the piano part of the solo too, just not as much as the guitars – sorry Kieran :P). Even aside from the solo, I love the guitars in this one – it often makes me feel like playing air guitar, however I wrote this particular section whilst on a fairly busy tube train, so was forced to refrain… The guitar hook also reminds me of something else but I can’t seem to put my finger on what. I’ll get back to you if anything springs to mind. Anyhoo, aside from the guitars (they really weren’t lying when they said I’d like the guitars on the new stuff), it’s got a sort of ooh-ooh bit that recalls Luisa Rey to my mind, only I was never a huge fan of Luisa, whereas this one I’m rather keen on. And finally, I do like the ‘pour some sugar’ lyric. Nothing to do with the Rock Of Ages interval music selection, of course. *coughs*.

And that, as they say, is that. I hope it was of interest to some of you at least *peers archly at various bands members*. Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I think I’ll go and listen to Days On Fire a few million times…

Peace, loVe loVe and rock ‘n’ roll kick-assery,
K xx

PS. I was looking for lyrics on the TLC site (which was a somewhat wasted effort*) and came across a few photos from the Beat Inside The Body video shoot that I hadn’t seen before. These two in particular grabbed my attention, so I thought I’d share in case I wasn’t the only one to have missed them. In fact, I’m not even sure how they slipped under my radar. I may have been exceptionally quiet lately (whilst slowly & somewhat unsuccessfully attempting to come to terms with wherever my head needs to be with regards to them from now on in order to keep me at least faintly sane and unbroken), but I’m still lurking. I’d be surprised if I’ve missed a single post of theirs…

The Beat Inside The Body video shoot – The Last Carnival

The Beat Inside The Body video shoot – Jus & Russ

* Pretty much every trace of their old music has vanished off of their site and all but the new video & the live sessions have been removed from youtube… it was quite the surprise when I realised. It looks like No Hero really is no more. You can’t even buy The Call Of ’56 CD now unless you know where to look & I’m not entirely sure if that’s intentional or just a bug… I know they’ve got their new sound and I suppose their older music doesn’t fit with the vision they have going forward or some such, but, but, but…! I suppose it’s just weird that the music I fell in love with is no longer part of who they are. It’s fortunate I like the new stuff, really…

The Beat Inside The Body

So I’m still not quite speaking to them at present. Up until Sunday, my resolve was definitely wavering and though I hadn’t quite forgiven, I was at least trying to move past it. Only then the general tickets went on sale and it was yet another additional cost and it was very nearly the last straw (except that everything else was already booked so technically it didn’t make a blind bit of difference to anything except my irritation levels and overdraft). I know I wouldn’t actually have skipped tour just because of that & I can’t even blame them really, but… Meh. I was just fed up, I suppose – one thing after another. Still, there was the potential promise of the video and having already seen a heavily edited (& flipped…?) screencap on their site that made my heart skip (I don’t think it’s possible to look more rock star than that) and a shot Adam posted of himself too, I don’t think I’m quite deluded enough to think I could really skip a tour. The addiction goes far too deep. So I guess there’s little else to say for now. Here’s my addiction – in pieces…

Monday – the initial reaction:

Of course the video popped up just as I was about to leave the office and head to Dagenham, but I couldn’t not watch it. And then I couldn’t quite speak. ‘F*** me…’ was about all I could manage. My heart was going a mile a minute and… Dead. I don’t even know where to start and yes I need to do a breakdown, but argh, I don’t even, can’t even, ARGH! It’s different. Really different. Yet not. It’s brilliant though. Amazing sound. I only died a few times during Justin’s solo. He looks like a f***ing rock G-d in that warehouse (or aircraft hanger or something? whatever it is; big empty space) footage. And his solo? And his face at the end when he’s grinning at Russ? And I was so sure I’d be able to write one of these that wasn’t just Justin Justin Justin. Damn.

It’s so good though. A completely new song, which I wasn’t expecting, but I love it and I need them in my life and all the rest has to be worth that right? Guess I’m talking to them again [or maybe not…?]. At least they gave me that when I know I have tour to look forward to [rather than releasing it whilst continuing to leave me hanging]. Bloody hell I still can’t speak or type or formulate sensible thoughts. And now I have to go see Tom. G-d help me. Actually G-d help Tom…

Intermission:

So then I went to the theatre and I was a mess and I still couldn’t breathe, but then there were the screens and the show and the stage door and I practically forgot all about the video. By the time I left the Adelphi I was so buzzed that I decided to put this on hold until I felt emotionally prepared to deal with it. Besides, I didn’t want to taint my post-Tom(/Made In Dagenham) high. I put it off while I finished the Dagenham blog and then put it off even longer because I was scared of the strength of that initial reaction. They’ve forced me to keep my distance over the last few months and whilst the promise of tour put a hard deadline on how long that could continue, this video is what really marks a change in things. It’s like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff and if/when I jump, for a little while it’ll feel like I’m flying, but at some point I’m still going to hit the jagged rocks at the bottom and I haven’t yet forgotten how much that hurt last time. In fact, my current bitterness is proof that I’m still nursing some of those wounds. Still, I suppose it’s just about possible that a fluffy haired hero with a bowler-hatted sidekick in a Ford Cortina MkII might just save me at the last moment…

Wednesday/Thursday (it’s a time consuming process) – the return:

So with my personal hero in mind like some sort of security blanket, I finally managed to hit play again and… my heart still raced, my breathing still caught and there were still tingles aplenty, but it wasn’t quite as intense. I jumped, but for now I’m just gliding on the breeze and trying not to look down.

And I really do love the song. It’s got a different edge to it, but it’s somehow still classic Carnival. I think it helps that Russ has such a distinctive voice, but it’s more than that. The sound has evolved, but it hasn’t fundamentally changed. It’s catchy and upbeat, with an awesome hook. I can tell it will be a great one to hear live and… I’ll get to the solo later… As for the video. It’s simple, but effective – mostly featuring footage of the band from a couple of different sessions, presumably shot some time apart (although admittedly I’m basing that theory purely on Justin’s hair & it could just be styling, but hey) with some additional clips of a woman (I believe her name is Leah Debrincat) dancing & swinging a fancy looking sword around. I could leave it there, but where’s the fun in that, eh?

The website background – flipped the right way around

Before I get to the ridiculous bit, however, I want to go into a bit more detail on the song itself – I wouldn’t like anyone to think I’m really so shallow that all I care about are rock faces, what jackets they’re wearing and close ups of Justin’s hands. Still, I’m only human and a very fangirly human at that. The video was a distraction, even after watching it a dozen times, so I made myself listen to it without the footage to confuse my feelings and weirdly I like it… more? I don’t even know how that works. I love watching them play more than anything and the video is mostly just that. Perhaps it really is just an appreciation thing – I can focus more on the music without the visual imagery? To be fair, those jackets really are very distracting :P. So, as I said earlier, Russ has a very distinctive voice and that’s a big part of the TLC ‘sound’ all on its own. I think he’s sounding better than ever on this track. I haven’t quite caught all the lyrics, but the vocals are strong on this one and I particularly love the chorus. It’s wickedly catchy and I really like the keyboard on it too. The instrumental after the guitar solo (which, naturally, I love melodically just as much as I do visually) will be awesome live with an audience clap clap-clap clapping along (although it will presumably cause extra problems for the rhythmically challenged…). It has a similar vibe to Get Crazy (I still don’t actually know the official title of that one) or Drop The Needle On The Vinyl, or at least it feels that way to me. It’s admittedly fairly hard to judge given I’m comparing songs I’ve only ever heard live to a track I’ve only heard the studio recording of, but still. It’s a powerful rock ‘n’ roll number and I cannot wait to see it on stage.

And now for the frivolity… We begin with dancey lady, but at 0:04 we’re already on the band. Or rather, we’re on Justin’s hands. Seriously. 4 seconds in. First shot of anything band related. HANDS. There’s a flash of Russ and Mike too, more dancey (she’s cool, the footage is fantastic – it’s very prettily lit and it flows nicely through the video, but funnily enough, she’s not really what catches my attention, so don’t expect me to mention her again!) and then the video starts in earnest at around 0:09 with the first lyric and a proper shot of Russ in a very snazzy looking jacket. There’s still plenty of flitting between footage and angles, including a decent shot of Mike’s hands, but it’s 0:18 that chokes me. It’s a wider shot of the band, though Mike doesn’t quite make the frame (he has just had a hands shot and he gets a solo moment soon after, though, so I’m sure he doesn’t feel too hard done by), in the massive empty space and Justin looks… um… *clears throat*. He’s wearing the red velvet Noose & Monkey jacket and shades, with his hair slicked back and even though he’s not even playing (he’s just sort of bopping, it’s almost cute) he looks more like a classic rock star than ever. Unreal, somehow. He looks amazing, but untouchable. I think it’s the hair. And the shades (I mean, really – he’s inside!).

The band

The band feat. camp Justin

Moving on before I pass out, we get some fairly good hands shots between Mike & Russ, before 0:34 when we finally get a nice wide shot of them all. I like seeing them in such a large space; it brings stadiums to mind and one day I truly hope I’ll get to see them do that for real. Anyhoo, it continues on in much the same vein for a while (we’ll gloss over Justin’s rock scream in time with the wailing guitar at 0:40 *fidgets*), before the black and white footage from the exclusive little party (or whatever it was) begins to take more of a dominant role. Justin (or rather his hair) looks exactly as he did on tour in the summer and therefore a little less inaccessible (appearances can be deceiving, hey?). For one, when he headbangs at 0:42, his hair actually moves… Although there’s too much jumping around to worry about the Strand Of Torment, so that’s a relief? Maybe? I kinda like it… Anyway, we get a fleeting close up of Adam just before that and then at 0:46 we get some Kieran. It’s the first decent shot of him and his hair is looking pretty epic in all it’s curly voluminous glory. The white shirt and braces combo is pretty dapper too ;). At 0:50 we get another nice wide shot of the whole band *mutters something about Justin’s rock star pose* and then a couple of seconds later, we get another snazzy jacket shot – this time in the form of Kieran’s black and red leather number. (There’s a better shot at 3:18 in which he looks like a little biker – so cute :P)

Cute Kieran

Biker boy

1:00. HANDS. *ahem*. Then a decent length shot of Russ singing (I feel he’s been a bit under-represented in this post so far, sorry Russ) followed by HANDS at 1:05 and MORE HANDS at 1:06 with an upward sweep & a pouty open mouth shot that I shouldn’t mention but seem to have done anyway… There might have been a bit of swooning going on… 1:12 is more of the same footage and more bopping. Why is the bopping cute? He always bops. Yet; cute. (I think I may have lost control of this paragraph…)

So *coughs*. Nice shot of Adam’s, er, knees at 1:13 with a blurry Tony the Tiger in the background – all black and white, very arty. Speaking of which, he hasn’t had a lot of screen time so far. And having said that, 3 seconds later we get some serious drum face from a very dapper looking Adam. The waistcoat suits him. 1:19, Mike doing backing vocals on ‘sensation’ (I love that lyric) and looking very, er, sensuous. That shot is definitely ones for the Marchant fans and beautifully illustrates why he was my favourite for 30 seconds when I first saw them before the ballerina on the left at 1:20 stole my attention and refused to relinquish it.

Sensations…

HANDS again at 1:25, made even more distinctive by the vibrant colours of the burgundy blazer and golden Gibson in amongst the black and white (or almost black and white) band shots. A nice Mike (I think) forearm shot (no I don’t know why that caught my attention), another Justin ‘raargh’ face at the party, with a little skip(?!) in the warehouse, then Kieran at 1:32 and he looks so cute! D’aww. I just want to ruffle his hair and squidge him! Although if I were actually there I’d probably ruffle his hair and ping one of his braces instead. I’m just nice like that :P. Adam makes another brief drum face cameo at 1:35, still dapper in waistcoat and tie, but this time in an all black ensemble rather than the contrast white shirt of the warehouse footage. 1:40, colours, HANDS, belt…?, *coughs*. Ignore that. 1:46, Adam again, looking even more suave sans drum face. It’s a nice shot. And that’s about all I can manage before melting into a puddle…

HANDS

Dapper Ads

Rock screams & snazzy jacket

1:47. Guitar solo. And it starts with HANDS. There’s also drums and bass (and before that, very fleetingly and slightly out of focus, cute fluffy Kieran), but from 1:51 we actually get to watch Justin play (on and off). And he rock screams. And pouts. And plays a frickin’ solo. I do, however, like the shot of Russ singing before the instrumental ‘ooh’ bit, followed by the nice bright light at the end of the tunnel effect thing. Russ looks awesome, as does Adam a few seconds later. I also love Russ’s face at 2:14. I can almost hear him riling the crowd, it’s just so Russ!

Model shoot

Falling for you

2:23 looks like a modelling shoot. Or Justin looks like he’s modelling anyway – definitely too cool for school. He makes up for it by appearing to be on the verge of losing his balance and falling into the crowd in the party shot immediately after though. And while I’m on the subject – I like the contrast between the two sets of footage – the huge empty space, versus the small cramped and crowded room. In the latter it’s fairly obvious that the band are set up in a tight circle in the centre, but with all the close up shots, we don’t see that too clearly. One of the few wider shots is at 2:33 with a ‘through the crowd’ clip of Russ & Justin that I rather like.

Party people

HANDS HANDS HANDS

Stars in your eyes

As is my usual style with these blogs, I get very slightly less detailed as the video progresses and believe it or not I haven’t actually flagged up ever single second of HANDS (although I’ve probably caught most of them). Still, 2:40 is a particularly good one…! Anyways, the video is beginning to wind down by this point and therefore so is this post. I love Russ’s face at 2:48, he looks all happy and his eyes are all glowy :). At 2:53 Justin has his personal light in the tunnel moment, only he does it half upside down (feat. his limbo move) and I’m not sure what to make of it really. Although that’s mostly because I happened to hit pause right in the middle of it and the silhouette made me laugh for thoroughly inappropriate reasons relating to the positioning of his instrument… I’m not even sorry. I’ll make up for it with a more constructive comment about 3:15 when Russ and Jus get the tunnel light treatment together. It looks absolutely amazing and I love the camera work; the way it sweeps round them. It’s also timed well with the music – a very nice piece of editing.

Lights…

Camera…

Action…

And finally. It killed me the first time I watched it and it still does now. Justin’s smiley pouty face when he’s looking at Russ at 3:21. In fact, it caught my attention so thoroughly that I tried to screencap it, only it didn’t really work as a still. What I managed to do instead was to rediscover the Strand of Torment. Sigh!

The Strand Of Torment

So… feel the love, eh? I may have been keeping my distance of late, but (as I think should be fairly obvious by now) it doesn’t mean I don’t still care. I need time and space, but I’ll get there. Hopefully with a slightly less mental outlook (although I’m promising nothing). And I am getting there. After all, I did favourite one of Kieran’s tweets the other day…! (A keyboard warrior of a different kind. More of a keyboard worrier, if you will.) It made me laugh and if there’s one of them I’m definitely not mad at, it’s him, so… baby steps. In fact, when I first started this exercise I thought it was doomed to failure, but actually it’s done a fairly good job of reminding me what matters. I’m not sure I can ever truly go back to how things were before – those rocks are still down there waiting for me and the fear of them clips my wings a little, but I can continue to glide and hope for the best. And at least this time I have access to my fluffy little unwitting hero if ever I need a reprieve*.

So I was going to leave it there, only they just announced another gig… Literally. Just announced it. Five minutes after I finished the first draft, the announcement popped up and I didn’t even see it through them initially. Love|Less are the main support and I actually saw their post first. It took me a second to realise that they weren’t just playing one of the tour dates. Admittedly it’s the Haywards Heath show that Adam mentioned to me back in the summer that I was beginning to think had either been called off or had simply been a very well kept secret and therefore I had already missed it, but I can’t pretend my immediate reaction wasn’t simply a resounding FFS. At least I’m free and I just need to book a couple of trains after work. I suppose I just feel like enough of a mental case without adding another gig to the list. Still, I can feel as pathetic as I like, it ain’t gonna change anything. I’d never have skipped it, not when it’s the first night and about as convenient as it can get without being in London. And besides, I’m going to Angel At My Table to see Love|Less, I’m hardly going to miss them supporting a band I actually follow…!

So. Baby steps, right?

Peace, loVe loVe and gliding,
K xx

* I always think that he’ll never know that he’s my hero – or at least he’ll never understand how much he’s truly helped me just by being around (partly because I’m not even sure I really get it myself…), but given my extended metaphor in this post, the lyrics that always come to mind when I think of him like that seem even more appropriate than usual… ‘Did you ever know that you’re my hero?‘ has always fit, but now I can add ‘You are the wind beneath my wings‘…!

The Last Carnival – July Tour, Brighton

It wasn’t exactly a prefect start to the day. I woke up five minutes before I’d intended to leave my hotel and then had a mad panic trying to get everything done without missing my train. Fortunately I’m usually overcautious with these things and I’d given myself an extra fifteen minutes to get to the station, plus I’d done everything I could last night so I made my train with plenty of time. In fact the only problem in the end was that rather than lying in bed, waking up slowly to The Last Carnival, I was jerked into wakefulness listening to Evanescence. Which is all well and good, but I was never going to be in the best mood today and between the rude awakening, the panicked rush to the station and waking up to flipping Evanescence again… All I feel is this cruel wanting… Have I mentioned how much I frickin’ hate the last night of tour? [Edit: I have no idea why I didn’t switch my alarm to something else after the first Evanescence incident.]

Anyhoo, I was more awake than I usually am on a pre-work train, so thought I’d try and write up yesterday’s blog, only the Justin photo was haunting me (accompanied by my mental soundtrack of Lost In Paradise on a loop) to the point I was nearly in tears so I gave up. It does seem to be a pretty fitting representation of our relationship, but that does NOT make me feel better about it.

The day progressed in much the same vein. I nearly cried on several occasions (listening to There’s A Road & Beautiful, not to mention reexamining that photo with Justin last night (I keep thinking it can’t possibly be as bad as all that, then realising it’s worse) possibly didn’t help). Then I worked through lunch in order to catch an early train, rushed to the station only for my train to be delayed by 40 minutes, with no indication as to whether it was actually going to show up at all (the driver was seemingly stuck on another delayed train…) – and almost every other train to Brighton was cancelled. I was hot and bothered, stressed about getting there horribly late (not to mention worried about the faff of checking into my B&B while there was still someone on reception) when I actually wanted to see the support acts and on top of that was the almost crushing dread of imminent goodbyes and the expectation of increasingly d*ckish behavior. In a way I’m almost glad it’s over and I can have my life back, but at the same time, it’s not like I’ve ever been able to just put them away in a box until I want to take them out and play with them again. In one way or another, they’re always in my thoughts and I’m going to miss them all horribly. It’s probably not a surprise that I finally cracked under the pressure on the train down, sniffling into my M&S pasta salad and smoothie (I don’t know what I’d have done without smoothies this tour – I’ve practically lived on them) whilst wishing I’d never tried to get a photo with him in the first place. So apparently the not putting on my makeup before I left work thing was an unexpectedly good idea. The later addition of mascara was a risky (and relatively successful) attempt at forcing myself to hold it together for the rest of the evening.

So, despite the nightmare journey, I managed to get checked into my B&B before rushing back to the venue. I had a vague idea of where it was since I’d spotted the sign for it on the way to my hotel, but I still nearly walked straight past the door. Fortunately it was wide open and I caught sight of a couple of familiar faces as I passed so after a quick backtrack, I was in. Benji was on the door so I said hi to him, but Adam was hovering too, so I got a much needed hug. He told me Woodward were already on, so I didn’t stay to chat and rushed downstairs. Mike & Tony were just inside the door, so both got hugs as I passed them (well Mike got half a hug, but I was flustered!). I also said hi to both Matts and Nic from The Afterparty and gave Tia a hug all of which helped me start to calm down a bit.

Of course, with all my rushing about, the fact that I’d insisted on wearing boots (which, together, resulted in rather uncomfortable blisters), the location of the venue in a stuffy basement and the July heat, I was absolutely sweltering and what with everything else on top (the stress, the crying, the lack of sleep etc. etc.), I’d also developed a thumping headache. Fortunately, a nice cool glass of water and a couple of painkillers between Woodward & The Afterparty seemed to do the trick and I felt a lot better just for being there and settled and drugged up.

Support:

So obviously I missed Sally Pepper and half of the Woodward set as well, which sucked, but I did at least manage to catch Nothing Less Than Yes & Drunk Text (with random references about being sent on the last train home, which appeared to be aimed at Tony, but I presume it was some sort of in joke I had no hope of comprehending out of context), which are probably my favourites, so that cheered me up a little. It was really good to see them on stage again anyway, even if I couldn’t quite appreciate their set as much as I might have hoped (I didn’t really settle completely until after they’d finished playing).

The Afterparty’s final intro was Genie In A Bottle, which still doesn’t quite beat a couple of the others, but it was a good effort. Although Tia and I both thought they should have used Let It Go at some point – but apparently they don’t like Frozen… I mean, really! How can you not like Frozen?! Anyhoo, I really loved their set (it helped that my headache had pretty much gone by that point), but I actually ended up feeling rather sad :(. I suspect I’ll be seeing them on their next tour, but in the meantime I’m really going to miss them. I’ve grown very fond of them over the past week. It’s a shame they didn’t bother with setlists actually, I’d have quite liked one.

The Final Show: 😦

So after six shows preceded by VIP sessions, it felt odd not seeing them beforehand. Not bad, just different, I guess… seeing them on stage without having spoken to them (and yes, I know I bumped into two of them on the way in, but it’s not like I stopped to chat and I was in quite the tizzy at the time). Anyhoo, I genuinely planned to not stand directly in front of Justin this time, but it was nowhere near as busy as I’d expected it to be when I arrived and then somehow or other a gap opened up in the front row, just before their set, directly in front of him and big enough for both me and a friend that I bumped into on arrival. I was never going to be able to turn that down in favour of third-ish row on the other side of the stage, so he got stuck looking at me again. Poor man. Still, after they took to the stage I got smiles off of everyone I hadn’t already said hi to, even Justin, so that was nice :).

The gig itself was brilliant as always and I really enjoyed it. In fact, if it hadn’t been the last night with all it’s associated emotional upheaval, it might well have been one of my favourites. It was certainly a great atmosphere, if not quite as vibe-y as Manchester. Also, I don’t know if it’s because it was simply the fact it was their hometown show & the last night of the tour or a licensing/timing thing or what, but they threw in a few extra songs too, which was rather fab. The one track I particularly noticed was Runaway – mostly because of the lyrics, I think… ‘Then you run away screaming, with my heart in your hands. Then you run away screaming, and I don’t understand’… I mean f*** me… *sigh*. It’s an amazing track though and I’m rather sad they only played it twice (tonight and in Sheffield). Heartstrings aside, I really hope it makes it onto the album.

It was an interesting show though. Something happened to Russ’s guitar (I’m not sure what, as anything more complicated than a broken string is beyond me) and he had to swap it for the spare one. It would have looked odd to me anyway since I’m so used to seeing him with the Les Paul, but the strap was too short for him as well so it was an even more unusual sight. On the plus, however, it was an absolutely massive stage, especially for such a tiny venue (it must’ve filled a third or so of the room), so he had loads of space to move for once and he certainly took advantage of it. He really is something special, that man!

Justin & Russ – look at all that space! (And look at that smile…!)

Of course, Justin had oodles of space to manoeuvre in as well, so his choreography was especially exuberant this evening. I did, however, suffer from the sunshine effect again. I’ve realised that it tends to be particularly strong when I have to physically turn to watch him vs Russ and between my positioning and the size of the stage, that was very much the case tonight. I think I just feel more confident when my gaze can easily flit from him to Russ (who I tend to watch a lot too) and back again without anyone (read: him) necessarily noticing unless I catch their eye and Justin doesn’t often look directly at me. Of course, Kieran was behind Jus, so that did spread my attention a little, but still…

Let the sun shine

So, aside from the occasionally blinding lights behind them, the rest of the lighting was pretty dim. Still, I gave it a go with the filming anyway, despite the fact my camera tends to throw a hissy fit in anything other than bright sunlight. I wasn’t going to skip a Crazy solo after a whole tour of recording it and I impulsively filmed Justin’s Beautiful solo (and the preceding rendition of the chorus) too. I may or may not have zoomed in on his hands in the latter video… I also captured Ain’t No Lovin’ You, with absolutely no attempt at even pretending I wasn’t just filming Justin (aside from a few brief pans across the stage). [Edit: Sadly, my camera was so upset about the lighting, all the footage turned out rather horrendously. In the Crazy solo, their faces sort of loom out of the shadows with an almost eerie blueish glow & their hands are pretty much invisible – which does rather defeat the purpose. There are a few clearer moments thanks to other peoples’ camera flashes, but to be honest the video is relatively unwatchable. Although Justin sucking on his finger did come out surprisingly well… (please excuse me while I combust). Beautiful came out a tiny bit better, since I was zoomed in more (although I did zoom out to include his face for his solo), but it’s far too fuzzy to be of any real use/enjoyment. As for Ain’t No Lovin’ You, it’s much the same as Crazy, only the light on Justin is such a strong red that you’d be forgive for mistaking him for some sort of demon… Insert stupid comment about selling my soul to the devil here…]

Post-show:

After the show I saw the Woodward boys and got a whole bunch of hugs, chats and selfies. It was really good to see them and I don’t think I’d even realised that I missed them until we were reunited. I also bought one of Sally’s CDs (even though I didn’t catch her set) and got a selfie with her too. I spoke to Tony briefly and we chatted about my journey down, since he’d noticed I was flustered on the way in. Apparently Tom (Woodward) got caught out too. As for my boys, I did the rounds with them too, saying proper hellos and collecting yet more hugs and selfies. I took Russ’s setlist at the end as it was the most accessible and so I got him to sign it too. He apologised for his handwriting (I can’t think why – it’s completely legible…!) and I joked that he should have been a doctor. He went on to say that his own writing is so bad that Justin has to write out the setlists (which I already knew, I just didn’t know why. Now I do).

The Last Carnival – Brighton Setlist

As for Mr. Morris, I had to chase him on to the stage in order to talk to him and then ended up hovering awkwardly while he discussed straps for the spare guitar with Russ (who was complaining that the current one was too short and was making suggestions for an alternative solution that would suit them both, given they’re completely different builds). I got my hug & selfie, though, and also got last night’s setlist signed since I had it with me. He still seemed a bit off, although he did talk for a minute. He complained that he didnt have a fan tonight, so I responded with something to the effect of ‘at least it didn’t mess up his hair’. He obviously didn’t quite get what I was saying so I clarified that it was a silver lining and told him what Kieran had said at the start of tour about the fans making Justin’s hair flap, which made him smile :).

Still, post-gig did seem particularly rubbish this evening. It felt like I barely spoke to anyone, which sucked and even when I hung around at the end, I was mostly on my own. I spent even more time helping to pack up merch than normal, then loitered around the van for ages by myself, feeling like an idiot and trying not to cry. I kept going to talk to someone (anyone), then feeling so out of place and out of sorts that I’d give up before I got anywhere. At one point it felt rather like I was chasing Justin around the van, without actually getting as far as speaking to him. In fact, I nearly let him leave with little more than a hug goodbye, but I didn’t quite manage it. (And yes, I do mean leave. Justin, Russ & Mike (with Benji) decided not to go to the after party at all and just went home with Tony for a quiet drink). I won’t go into detail because I felt thoroughly mortified by the whole thing, but I essentially begged him to be less rubbish online (I didn’t use those exact words). He contradicted my accusations and argued about what I asked for (which seemed to entertain the other occupants of the van…), so whether it will make a blind bit of difference to anything, I don’t know (I doubt it), but at least I know I tried, right? [Edit: And perhaps one day I might be able to look back on that conversation and laugh (although I doubt that too) rather than merely cringing with embarrassment. Admittedly, I didn’t technically regret it, as it did make a faint difference for a week or so, but to be honest, I mostly just wish that I’d never thought it necessary in the first place – or at least that I didn’t care enough for it to have been necessary. It probably wasn’t worth feeling so monumentally pathetic over.]

When the boys in the van left, I went to say goodbye to The Afterparty, who were still hanging around on the other side of the street, before they headed off too (they weren’t going to the club either as they were driving back). I got lots of lovely hugs from them and promised I’d go and see them on their next tour. They did make me feel a little better, at least temporarily, and they were joking that I only really did the tour for them :P.

So Adam & Kieran actually headed off to Digital without a word while I was still hanging around the van (in fact I was actually chatting to Tony and a couple of others at that point so wasn’t inclined to just run off) and as a result I very nearly didn’t go to the after party at all, since all I really wanted to do was cry. Only I didn’t really want to be alone either and I guess going back to my hotel was too final. The end of tour. I also couldn’t quite bear the thought of not even saying goodbye to Adam & Kieran and Tia was messaging me to come along, so I gave in and went. I didn’t stay long as I really wasn’t in the mood and I knew drinking would just make it worse, but I was glad to at least see the boys and get the chance to say goodbye (Woodward’s Tom & Mike were there too). I did end up chatting to Kieran a fair bit and hung out with him and his friends a little too, which was nice, but still. It was a typical TLC after party for me and next tour I genuinely think I might skip it. Actually the way I felt by the end of the night, next tour I might skip talking to the band at all.

By the time I got back to my poky little single room in the cramped attic of my B&B I felt utterly broken. It didn’t much help that having decided to catch up with what I’d missed online during the evening, I found that TLC had published a photo of Justin to accompany their ‘final night in Brighton’ post – only I’m in the bottom corner of it and ugh. I’m in profile which is never a good look for me anyway, but it’s also not like Benji’s caught the whole crowd, so it’s pretty much just my stupid face and noone else. It was almost like a photographic illustration of how pathetic I felt tonight; the sad loner, gazing moon-eyed up at Justin like a teenager… I really wish they’d cropped me out of it. And whilst I’m certain nothing was meant by it, in the mood I was in, it almost felt like a dig. My (new) phone refusing to charge almost seemed like the final straw, only then something miraculous happened… I tweeted something along the lines that surely giving up would be easier than this and accompanied it with ‘if I lose the highs, at least I’m spared the lows, right?’ (which is probably a well known phrase, but as far as I’m concerned it’s a Will Young lyric) and got a couple of DMs from someone I consider rather special in response. Essentially he just told me to hold on, but it was well phrased and perfectly timed and just because it was him, it made everything just that bit better. [Edit: I really wish I could have told him in person how much those messages truly meant to me, but he deleted them the following day and it was suggested that he was probably drunk, so I decided it might be best not to say anything beyond the reply I made at the time. Still, I needed someone so badly that night and if this is the only way I can ever really thank him, so be it. I appreciated it more than I could ever put into words (even if he did initially make me cry harder…).

So, that is that. The end. Until the next time. If there is one… Because right now I really don’t know if I can go through all this again…

[Edit: I was adding photos to this post and decided that despite the way I felt at the time, it was just wrong to finish on such a low note. I really did feel like giving it all up at the end of tour and the last couple of nights were harder than I ever thought they could be, but of course I’ll be back next tour and I’ll be at as many shows as I can, no matter how hard it will doubtlessly be when it’s all over. The end sucked, but the rest of it was wonderful and so, there was only one way I could truly end this… *wiggles fingers*]

HANDS! (From Nottingham)

Peace, loVe loVe and rock ‘n’ roll,
K xx

[Actual publish date: 22/9/14 – two months after it began, it seems I might finally be able to put this tour to bed…
A final note: Writing these up has been harder than I expected and I wish I’d been able to do it at the time, rather than revisiting my wayward emotions now that they’ve finally stabilised. Only I do recall an abortive attempt at blogging immediately after the tour, which failed miserably thanks to my post-tour bitterness leaking into everything I wrote and tainting my retelling of even the best of memories. Fortunately, time heals and after a month or so of moping, I was able to return to these and finish them off. It certainly threw up a few painful memories, especially whilst writing up these last couple of posts, but the good far outweighs the bad and besides… as a wise man once told me; “You must hold fast to what makes you feel alive – happy or sad“]

The Last Carnival – July Tour, Nottingham

So despite the fact that my friend’s newly cut keys meant that I didn’t need to be up early, I didn’t actually sleep all that well, waking up every few hours for no apparent reason. Still, I was technically in bed for a good ten hours and I definitely felt better for it. Hopefully it will be enough to keep me going for the next couple of nights. It also helped, at least in terms of relaxation, that having properly woken up I still ended up spending a good hour longer lazing around daydreaming before actually getting up. Of course it then meant I was running late for my train, plus having legged it across Manchester to Oxford Road, my train’s next stop was Piccadilly which would have been far more convenient had I known at the time. Still, I made it in the nick of time and off to Nottingham I went.

Club:

When I arrived, Lacey were outside so I said a general hi, before heading in to VIP. Tia took us upstairs, so I got to say hi to her, and when we walked in, the band were all chilling in a sofa-ed area in the corner and didn’t actually bother to move at first. If there hadn’t been a bunch of other fans behind me I’d probably have just gone and crashed the party, but I dutifully stayed back until they deigned to grace us with their presence a minute or two later :P. Russ reached me first and I got a much needed big squeezey hug from him. I then turned to Justin who I hugged but who didn’t actually hug me back. Meh. He did however smell amazing, which I told him without really meaning to, at which point he thanked me and walked off…

After that I decided to head where I might actually be wanted (*sulk, mutter*) and went to talk to Russ and Mike. They were chatting to another fan as well, who at one point showed them a video of her parrot headbanging to No Hero. That prompted Mike to tell me a story about a giant parrot that used to live in a pet shop near him, which sounded pretty awesome. I also asked him for ideas for my VIP photo. He couldn’t think of anything, but obviously wasn’t enamoured with the facing backwards idea, so I gave up on that.

I then went to join Kieran who was holding court entertaining a group of girls and Mike joined us shortly after. Kieran seemed thoroughly bemused by the fact they had discovered the band on tumblr, even though the band don’t actually have a tumblr…! Anyhoo, the boys were discussing tight trousers (Kieran’s in particular, which my attention had already been drawn to in Manchester – against my will, I might add!) and lunging… Yes, really. Kieran’s counter-attack in defence of his tight trousers was that Mike’s were too baggy. Mike pointed out it allowed him to lunge, to which Kieran retorted that his own trousers were stretchy and therefore allowed him to lunge too. Both felt the need to demonstrate and I was caught somewhere between highly entertained and slightly disturbed :P. I don’t know what the other girls thought, having never met either of them before..?! Kieran then progressed to doing impressions of Justin’s signature Can-Can move (standing on one leg, with the other lifted at a right angle(ish) and bent at the knee, with a bit of a kick motion going on), which was even more entertaining than the lunging and became yet more so when Mike joined in too. There was much discussion of balance and how hard it actually was, which prompted both of them to start playing air-guitar whilst remaining on one leg. At which point, Justin himself joined us and did it as well. And perhaps I’m a tad biased, but he does give a slight edge to the move that the other two lack. It’s sharper somehow ;).

The ‘Justin’ Move

The conversation that followed was more of Mike teasing Kieran and it was decided that he needs a move too; specifically, a jazz hand during his one-handed piano solo :P. After that I was chatting to Kieran by myself and asked him what he thought I should do for my last VIP photo. He suggested that we could all do the Justin move, which would have been epic, but I didn’t think for a second that I’d be able to persuade them all to do it.

The acoustic set was fabulous as always, but this time it finally cost me my shoes… There’s A Road made me cry. Whether it was just a reflection of my mood, the beginning of the end of tour blues or simply just the lyrics getting to me (‘I wonder what it’s like up there, where every dream is how it seems’?), I don’t know, but it’s a tad worrying… because now there’s nothing left to stop me falling apart tomorrow. I mean, I suppose it was inevitable really and if it hadn’t happened then, it would have done sooner or later. The shoes were a nice little carrot, but I never truly expected them to work. As you can probably deduce from the fact that Justin’s earlier non-hug bothered me enough to be noteworthy, I wasn’t in a particularly positive mood and even the Mike and Kieran comedy routine didn’t really come close to pulling me out of my funk. It should have been a brilliant VIP session, with far less people than there were at any of the other shows and therefore, theoretically at least, far more time to spend with the boys, but it just wasn’t. I hadn’t even spoken to Adam by the time they began the acoustic set, but he did come over and tapped me on the shoulder during There’s A Road. I gave him a one-armed hug, but I was filming so couldn’t give him a proper one until afterwards. He stood by me for the whole song though, so when it was done he got a massive hug – although that was more out of necessity than anything else. I needed that hug :'(.

In the limbo while the guitars were put away before the photos, I found Kieran and gave him a hug too. Which almost backfired spectacularly when I very nearly ended up crying on his shoulder, but I managed to hold it together – I don’t think he would have been impressed… Anyhoo, in the end I didn’t do anything special for the photo at all. I couldn’t think what to do and Adam called me in for mine halfway through the group, so in the pressure of the moment, I just got a regular photo. I didn’t even think to squidge in next to Justin, so that was a bit of a failure all round. [Edit: they actually lost the Nottingham VIP photos somehow or other, so in the end it didn’t even matter. In fact I’m quite relieved I didn’t bother making a fuss and doing something silly. Of all the photos for them to lose, I think this was the best, especially given I’d been crying (although it would have been nice to have an alternative to London – I’m not overly fond of that one). I’m still gutted that I never got Manchester’s pic though :(]

I spoke to Russ during the group photo and told him that he made me cry during There’s A Road. He agreed it was a very sad song and sort of implied that he almost hadn’t realised how sad it actually was. Then we all headed downstairs and Mike tried to sell me more merch, but somehow or other I managed to resist buying something I didn’t actually want… :P. After the sales pitch, I finally got around to speaking to Justin. He and Kieran were looking at some of the supports’ merch and they asked me about the bands. They mentioned that since they’re always backstage, they don’t actually see them play so I said a few nice things and mentioned that I’d been a fan of Lacey for a while and that they should check them out :). When Kieran drifted off somewhere, I carried on talking to Justin for a moment or two more and we ended up discussing taxis in London for some reason (I think I was saying something about night buses?). He told me that the postcode makes a difference and money can be saved if you know what you’re doing (calling a cab from a street or two over, for example). Apparently Tom taught him that. Anyway, I also told him that I was feeling huggy tonight and apologised for it, but in actual fact it probably didn’t make any difference to him. He just felt a bit off with me tonight, so whilst I ended up hugging anyone else who got too close, I generally kept my distance with him. I really was in a thoroughly rubbish mood and I don’t even know why. All I can hope is that it means I’ll be okay for tomorrow but I don’t see how. The after party dread has already stated in earnest…

Support:

So it didn’t help my mood much that the venue was bloody freezing and I’d also developed a pounding headache. Lost At Home were first up again, but to be honest I have nothing further to say about them. They just don’t do it for me.

The Afterparty opened to Boom! Shake The Room, which was an excellent choice, I felt. They also perked me up a bit, so that was nice :). I had Matt in front of me for a change (when he was setting up his pedal board, he informed me that he would be situating himself there in a sort of ‘hope you don’t mind’ kind of way, it was cute) so that gave me something a little different to look at! Headache aside, once again I really enjoyed their set and it was a good start to pulling me out of my funk.

Lacey gave me something new to look at too and I had Pete in front of me this time, which was rather fun. It’s kinda interesting watching the guitarists that don’t sing, since they have more freedom to move without needing to tether themselves to a mic stand (and I wasn’t even thinking of Justin when I wrote that, believe it or not!). Anyhoo, what The Afterparty began, Lacey finished and by the end of the set I’d been cheered right up :D. Although it possibly helped that Graz had me on water duty again during Contender! It’s the first time all tour I’ve actually been close enough, although I still thought he was joking when he first motioned to me! When I realised he was serious, I dutifully passed him his bottle, which certainly made me grin. It was a fabulous set and nice to see them play with a lot of their own fans in tow.

The Show:

[Edit: I barely wrote down anything about the show itself and what I did write is mostly OTT fangirling that even I won’t publish, so apologies for the brief nature of this section]

So the show was amazing as always and even with my mood as it was I absolutely loved it. There is nothing quite like watching those boys play. Still, my emotional stability wasn’t quite what it could have been and I was genuinely worried about Beautiful. Fortunately, it was ok, (although I don’t know how much of that was because I filmed it, which always distracts me, at least a little) and I didn’t even come close to crying. It really is a heartwrenchingly stunning song though – I still can’t get enough of it. I recorded Setting The World Alight (& the Crazy solo) too, mostly because I just felt like filming tonight, I’m not sure why. The lighting certainly wasn’t conducive to it, with no background lighting at all – meaning that when the fancy lights weren’t on, you couldn’t even see them. I don’t think that helped with the atmosphere much, either. It certainly wasn’t a patch on yesterday, with loads of people chattering away through the set (why do people insist on doing that?! It’s so rude, both to the performer and other fans).

Of course, I was directly in front of Justin again (he must be sick of the sight of me by now…) and there was plenty of his signature move thrown in, often whilst stood on a raised portion of the stage off to my left. Which meant that I seriously considered the possibility that he might kick me in the head… Fortunately Kieran’s new signature move (which is clearly not going to catch on, but it would be SO awesome if it did!) is less dangerous and far more amusing. Mike actually crossed the stage to talk him into doing it and Kieran clearly gave in to the pressure, if only briefly. It was brilliant!

Do it!

I was also relatively entertained when at one one point I was taking photos of Kieran, but Benji was ducked down nearby and evidently thought I was taking photos of him instead. I just pointed at Kieran with a grin, but to be fair to Benji, whilst he may not have been my focus, he was definitely still in shot…!

Crouching Photographer, Ivory Tickling Pianist

Other than that, Justin’s hair was driving me slowly insane… The longest strand of it kept catching at the corner of his lips every time he so much as moved and I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I’ve not noticed it before and I have no idea why I suddenly noticed it tonight, but once it caught my attention I couldn’t stop noticing it. It didn’t really help any that it was like a neon arrow pointing at his mouth…

Lights will guide you home

It’s a good thing I still have some vague sense of propriety left or I’d probably have just reached out and brushed it away (not that he actually got close enough, but a girl can dream). I was also bizarrely fixated on his right forearm, which really seemed to be doing it for me this evening, although I haven’t a clue why. I think it had something to do with his shirt sleeve.

Russ, Justin & The Strand Of Torment

Post-show:

So, I’d forgotten how bad Stealth are for rushing the fans out at the end of the gig and I barely even managed to get a full set of selfies before they started kicking people out. The band moved the post-show hangout outside (which was fine for chatting, but I’d never really considered the negative effect of early kick-out on merch sales – it must be a right pain for them) but by then I’d completely forgotten that I wanted to get my setlist signed (I grabbed Justin’s at the end of the set as usual). I remembered a little later, but by that point I didn’t think it was such a good idea as I didn’t dare speak to him beyond saying goodbye (more on that in a moment). [Edit: I still had the setlist with me in Brighton, so I got him to sign it then, hence the fact it is in fact autographed despite what I just said about forgetting.]

The Last Carnival – Nottingham Setlist

Anyhoo, Tia had friends and family in so I gave her more of a hand with packing up the merch than usual (I’m getting rather good :P) to free her up to talk to them and ended up spending a fair amount of time just hanging and chatting to various people inside, before heading back out in search of band members with both Tia and my camera in tow. I added a few more Lacey pics to the collection and then headed for the usual suspect, which didn’t quite work out as I’d hoped… He was chatting to a couple of girls when I found him, so we hovered to wait until he was free. They evidently noticed us, however, and offered him to us for photographic purposes. Given the rare opportunity to have someone else take the picture, I employed my standard ‘grab from behind’ technique and hugged him (incidentally he’s really ripped… those abs!). Tia took the photo for me, but on closer inspection, she deemed it unsuitable and told him off for pulling faces. She flashed the screen at me, but I didn’t really see it, just took her word for it – after all, Justin pulling faces is hardly a stretch of the imagination. Only he apparently decided that one was enough and refused to pose for a second attempt… to the point that he yanked himself out of my arms (the one saving grace of this were the ripples under my fingertips…) and snapped at me that he was talking. Tia thought he was joking around (at least initially), but I was pretty sure he wasn’t and was relatively upset as a result. In fact, I avoided talking to him again after that (until they left) and that was all before I even realised quite how bad the photo actually was. It wasn’t until I was flicking through them later on that I finally saw it properly, at which point I very nearly cried. He wasn’t just pulling a stupid face this time… His eyes are focussed back over his shoulder towards me and his lip is curled up in disdain as if to say ‘get this thing off of me’. I, of course, am blissfully unaware and happily smiling at the camera. It hurt far more than it probably should have, but fortunately I didn’t know about it until well after he’d left, so for the most part I was able to brush the incident aside (although that didn’t extend to me being brave enough to try speaking to him again for the rest of the evening). Tia and I went in search of other, more charitable band members instead and ended up getting a whole bunch of random pics and selfies with various collections of people. I also managed to get a photo with all of The Afterparty boys, so that was fun (and made particularly amusing by Matt trying to hide behind his band mates to block the beer spill on the front of his t-shirt from view).

Finally, on a rather random note, I had a dream last night (or the night before? I forget now) in which I kissed Kieran on the cheek during a selfie and he got mad. I hadn’t really intended to mention it, but it came up in conversation with Adam post-gig (I think we were talking about unexpected people getting angry in dreams), so when I saw Kieran again at the end of teh night (he vanished when they went outside and didn’t reappear until they were about to leave) I told him about it too. In response, he offered up his cheek and sure enough, he did not get mad when I kissed it! Although to be fair I wasn’t photographing it :P. It did belatedly occur to me where the dream might have come from, though. I reckon it’s some sort of transference. I’ve been ruffling his hair all tour and pointedly not ruffling anyone else’s who’d be likely to get annoyed with me over it. So obviously I know I could kiss Kieran in a selfie, no problem, but if I tried to do it to Justin…? Of course, I could be wrong (about the cause of the dream, that is, not their respective reactions), but it’s a fairly plausible theory. Anyhoo, they all headed off at that point so after the usual round of goodbye hugs (during which Justin did in fact give me a proper hug, so I was slightly less upset) we parted ways. And I only felt slightly self-conscious when I saw them pull up at the lights behind me as I was walking down the road…!

So despite my pre-show stroppiness, I generally felt much better by the end of the gig (except when Justin was being a ****) and once again, it was worth the effort. Aside from everything else, the set itself was just as incredible as always and I can’t even express how much I adore watching them on stage. Still. Knowing tomorrow is the last one… I don’t want to say goodbye. It gets harder every time :(.

Peace, loVe loVe and happiness,
K xx

[Actual publish date: 16/9/14 and I’m still upset about that photo. I can see the funny side, ish, but still. Ouch. I can’t quite shake the thought that that’s how he really thinks of me… and I could have done without a photographic reminder]

The Last Carnival – July Tour, Manchester

So it possibly wasn’t the most constructive start to the day. My second alarm is currently Evanescence and they tend to leave me in a rather melancholic mood (funny that. They’re such a cheerful band… And don’t ask me why I thought they’d be a good choice for an alarm either). So instead of getting up and having a nice leisurely shower and a cup of tea as I’d planned, I ended up spending forty minutes lazing in bed daydreaming about things I should not have been dreaming about and twenty minutes rushing around like a mad woman in order to get everything done before I had to check out. On the plus, I think I probably beat my shower speed record. Still, after the hectic start, I had a fair bit of time to chill as I had oodles of time to get to the station. I then had even more time to chill but in a slightly different sense… The train was freezing. Of course the journey was another blog session, but I livened it up with a bit of ringpull and ribbon bracelet making, which actually came out rather nicely. I’m quite proud.

I was staying with a friend in Manchester, but she wasn’t coming to the gig, so I spent the afternoon catching up with her over coffee (and getting some new keys cut, reuniting me with my hotly anticipated lie in for tomorrow morning!). After that we wandered down towards the venue and bumped into Kieran walking up the other way. He was on the phone (to his mum, he told me later), so I just waved, but I then saw him and Mike walking back down on the opposite side of the road when we were sat in a nearby café killing time. It was really quite bizarre in an unexpected sort of way; like they had somehow drifted into my real life. It seemed like an especially bizarre way for me to feel because my friend had actually met Kieran (and Justin) before. She popped down to the Academy when they were there for the Room 94 tour (exactly a year ago today, in fact) to act as moral support, since I’d only just met them for the first time in Leeds a week earlier and was still horribly shy. As I recall I was too scared to call Justin over for a photo, so she had to do it for me! How times gave changed, eh?! Still, it did feel weird, I suppose because it was outside the bubble of the venue. Although I don’t know how that fits in with the fact I’ve seen Kieran outside the gig bubble on more than one occasion in the past…

Club:

So, VIP was fabulous once again. I don’t think I had any particularly life changing conversations, but it was nice. I chatted to Mike about coffee for some reason and he was telling me how Justin has got himself some swanky flask thing so he can make his own coffee and stop spending stupid amounts in Costa. Mike himself doesn’t drink it, as he claims it’s a drug. Which I heartily agreed with, especially after my Birmingham experience (and similar such experiences in the past). I told Justin about my journey back to my hotel in the rain without the benefit of a map to shorten the trip and had another discussion with Kieran about his hair. He’s really been getting some height on it the last couple of days. Although it does make it less rufflable and he’s the only one I feel I can get away with ruffling! (Unless I end up drinking at the after party, in which case Justin may not get a choice in the matter). It was fairly amusing when someone put a hat on Kieran later on and he was worried it had got squashed. I felt the need to point out that he had so much product in it, it wasn’t going to move. I then ended up discussing with some other fans (one of them being the owner of the hat) how band members always get so precious over their hair. I mused that their awesome hair is probably why I always get so crazy over them. Naturally, given the subject matter, one of them mentioned Danno (who does indeed have a particularly epic head of hair), at which point Kieran overheard and interrupted with a ‘well done’, but no one was quite sure why… Anyway, Kieran and I also chatted about the VIP photos and he seems very keen on the photoshopping idea (putting me in between all of them). I said I didn’t think it would work, but he seemed to think it will, so I told him he should try it. I’d definitely like to see it if he manages it! I also mentioned my plan for a backwards photo tomorrow (the only remotely interesting idea I’ve managed to come up with – with everyone facing away from the lens) and he seemed to think it was possible, so I guess we’ll see.

The acoustic set was lovely as always and they’re really nailing those Screamboy harmonies now (for the first one or two shows, they were a tad shaky :P). I was back where I belong on Justin’s side this evening and I won’t pretend I’m not just a little bit happier there!

Then it was photo time and my plan went off without a hitch. I ordered Russ and Justin to swap places, which they did without a peep of protest, and I stood between Kieran and Jus and gave them both bunny ears. I told Kieran that he might want to pout (which is his usual way of dealing with the bunny situation) just before Benji took the photo, but I’m not sure if he did or not. I’m pretty sure my fingers were brushing their hair though, so I’m sure they were both aware of what I was doing. The fans I spoke to afterwards seemed to think it worked quite well too, at least with Justin. There’s a possibility that Kieran’s hair height worked against me on this occasion! [Edit: Sadly, it looks as though I’ll never know how it came out or whether he pouted or not. My photo didn’t make it onto the website for some reason and nagging Kieran about it has proved fruitless. I won’t pretend I’m not gutted though. Out of all of them, this was the VIP pic I was most looking forward to seeing and even if it turns out to be horrendous, I’d still like to at least see it. They didn’t put any of the group ones up either, so I haven’t got a single professional photo from the night with me in it :(]

While everyone was getting into position for the group photo, I asked Kieran for the No Hero chords as he told me months ago that he’d send them to me but never did and for some reason I suddenly remembered today that I wanted them. He pointed out that Russ would be a better person to ask and since I was standing between the two of them I just turned my head and asked the same question. Conveniently, there are only three. Less conveniently, they are all chords I can’t really play. Justin was on Russ’s other side and it sounded like he kept interjecting complicated sounding chords but I couldn’t really hear, so chose to ignore him. Russ suggested I could transpose by a semitone to make it easier, then asked what instrument I played. I told him guitar, but badly. Kieran thought I should’ve said flute, so I informed him I’d actually played it when I was about 13 (although I think I’d abandoned it by then). Anyhoo, Russ told me if I put a capo on the second fret (whilst cheating with chords, I think), it should sound right with the record, but I never play along with them anyway, so it doesn’t matter too much if the key isn’t quite right. Now I just have to work out which chords to play when…!

I then got another selfie with Justin to snapchat to my friend. I told him ‘I need you over there in the light’, but was rather conscious of my choice of opening phrase, mostly because the addition of ‘in the light’ was a last minute decision… Anyhoo, the photo was much nicer than yesterday’s and definitely made my friend laugh! In fact I was so amused by my own joke in the caption (which I can’t share here, but it really was rather brilliant), I was still grinning about it half an hour later which put me in a fab mood for the show.

Support:

I manged to get myself a nice spot directly in front of Mr Morris’s pedal board and it also came with a decent view of Kieran’s hands. I figured there was a fair chance Mike would be behind a pole, but I’m not sure there was a spot in the venue with a clear view of the whole band and given the stage size and height, it was a good spot for me. A very, very good spot…

Lacey were up first and I said hi to Josh and waved to Pete while they were setting up. As fabulous as my space was, I’ll confess I was a tad worried that Josh was going to either nut me or whack me in the head with his guitar, but it did leave me looking forward to Justin even more :P. (From my positioning, the left hand seemed to be the order of the day yet again). Other than that, Contender was frickin’ awesome as per usual. Graz motioned to me for water during the song again, which made me grin :).

The Afterparty’s intro was the Power Of Love, which I felt didn’t quite live up to the cheese of the previous shows, but was passable :P. As for their set, I thoroughly enjoyed it. They’ve completely won me round and I’m really loving watching them play. I bought their EP yesterday as a mark of support, given that they’ve been so welcoming and friendly, but the more I hear their music the more I like it. I’ve no doubt I’ll continue to listen to them once tour is over.

The main support was Through Colour. Admittedly I thought the lead singer looked like a geek (note; that is not a criticism), only for him to then appear to be having a fit during the set, but they were actually pretty good! I may investigate further at some point. [Edit: I only finished off this paragraph, including the final sentence, about a week ago. Within a day or so, the news filtered through that the band had split… Not sure I’ll be bothering to investigate after all… Shame, that.]

The show:

So tonight was definitely the best show of the tour so far; I had an absolutely incredible night :D. I think it helped that I knew a fair few of the people around me and a couple of them knew exactly how fluttery I was feeling at the mere thought of HANDS that close to my face. Still, the reality of it beat even the highest of my expectations. I think the words I wrote immediately after the show sum it up pretty neatly; Duck me. And no I did not mean to write ‘duck’… His guitar was a foot away from my face for the vast majority of the evening and Oh. My. G-d. *ahem*.

Bliss

As I’d suspected earlier on in the evening, it was all about the left hand tonight, although the open shirt at such close quarters was rather enjoyable too… ;). Seriously, though, watching his hands that closely is actually giving me a deeper appreciation of the music. I mean, I don’t exactly know a lot about either music or guitars, but I know enough to at least be able to pick out the melody that he’s playing through the rest of the music and it’s a totally new kind of bliss. My love of guitars and the wail of an electric guitar in particular is not a new thing, nor is it in any way specific to this band, but combining that preexisting passion with my deep adoration of the band creates a pretty potent mix. Watching Justin play and using that to distinguish his notes weaving through the rest of the song takes my enjoyment of the band up to a whole new level. Adding all that to my purely fangirly appreciation of him as a man makes the full experience rather overwhelming…

Jus & Russ

I was so close that I didn’t bother filming much as I could barely fit both his head and his guitar in the frame at the same time, let alone any other bands members and despite my personal bias, I do usually try and get Russ in the shot as well. The Crazy solo was a given, but other than that, all I bothered to capture was his solo during Beautiful (through the final rendition of the chorus to the end) because I simply couldn’t resist. That song still takes my breath away and watching him play it so close to me did very little to stabilise my breathing. It also didn’t help that I accidentally sang ‘you’re beautiful’ at him… which felt a tad awkward. Even if it was just that I was singing along anyway and happened to catch his eye at an inopportune moment. [Edit: Having since watched the videos back I’m now kicking myself for not recording more. They’re very close up, but the image quality is fantastic, so much so that I can actually distinguish the notes he’s playing – in fact I’m semi-successfully attempting to work out how to play the solo (although I should point out that working out the notes and actually playing them are two very different things)].

Anyhoo, he was doing the Can-Can again and I genuinely thought that he might kick me or my friend in the face as a result. It was a close call with his guitar once or twice as well. Not that I really minded… 😛 and it was a ridiculously tiny stage. It looked as though it had just been cobbled together last minute in a room clearly not designed for it; there really was a pillar blocking my view of Mike, who was off on his own on an extra bit of staging – although it did mean he had plenty of space even if no one else did. It was actually fairly amusing at the end; he and Justin have been doing their back to back thing during Roll Over Beethoven (I’m not sure why it’s taken so long for me to mention it. I love it when they do and they’ve done it every night so far) and they had a mini-argument over who was going to join who. Mike won, but Justin did seem a little cautious, which was probably fair, since they could well have fallen off the stage :P. Mike may have had more space than the rest of them, but in this case that’s not saying much. Still, that said, at least they were on the stage. Kieran on the other hand…! The keyboard itself was fine, standing just beside/behind Justin, but there was no stage in front of it for Kieran to sit on. Given his piano stool was sitting on the floor when I first arrived, I was seriously wondering if he’d have to play standing up, which would have been interesting! Although it would also have been fairly amusing to see him attempt to reach the keys from a piano stool situated on the floor… (I was picturing something a little like my sister as a toddler, reaching above her head to plink at the keyboard when I was playing with it :P). After the support bands they added a block of staging to put his piano stool on (which, to be fair, a few of them did tell me about in VIP), but he did seem a tad precariously balanced, poor thing!

Absolut rock

So it’s certainly not the best venue I’ve seen them play at and I do love it when they have room to move. In fact, I’m still a tad disappointed that I missed the Glasgow show on the last tour when they upgraded to the main room at the Classic Grand. I’ve seen a few videos and it looked epic. Still, tonight was definitely the best show of the tour and not just because I had Justin’s hands in my face all night. Of course, having friends around who appreciate the band as much as I do always makes a world of difference too, but it was even more than that. The atmosphere was electric and I’m sure it wasn’t just me who felt it. The whole place seemed to have a fantastic vibe to it and I think the band could feel it too, which in turn gave them something to feed off and boosted the atmosphere even more. I was absolutely buzzing afterwards, even more so than usual, and I really can’t find the words to express quite how spectacular tonight’s show was for me.

Post-show:

Immediately after the end of the show, Justin was ducked down in front of his pedal board (returning the wireless transmitter to its home, I presume) and I couldn’t help but notice the guitar pick he’d stuck in his mouth… and needless to say, I couldn’t resist asking him for it. I somehow missed what happened next (I’m not sure where I was looking – his eyes, maybe?), but he spat it out and it landed on the back of my friend’s hand. With something of a grimace she held it out to me and I happily claimed it – I get the impression I was somewhat less bothered about where it had come from than she was :P. I was pretty chuffed to get it, though. I already have one of his, back from the Room 94 tour (I asked him for one before the London show and he gave me one afterwards), but this pick in particular feels special. I suppose it’s partly because I know for sure it’s the one he was playing with tonight, at one of the best gigs I’ve been to and in any case I’m probably making far more of a very small piece of plastic than I should be, but… What’s the harm, eh? That small piece of plastic made me very happy indeed.

In contrast, I didn’t actually get Justin’s setlist tonight. It fell off the stage at some point during the set and I wasn’t sure how accessible it was so I asked Kieran for his instead (and therefore got him to sign it). I did then manage to retrieve Justin’s, but I figured I have enough of his and I’d specifically asked Kieran – it seemed a bit rude to then discard it in favour of someone else’s! I gave Justin’s to a friend instead, which she was pretty delighted by (although not because it was his, just because she had one :P) so it was worth the effort of scrabbling under the stage for it!

The Last Carnival – Manchester Setlist

So I was talking to Justin after the gig and I think he must have asked what the show was like as I told him that I just spent the whole show staring at his hands. In response he started waving them around, presumably to tease me… It worked :P. I also chatted to Josh (Lacey), although the others had vanished again (I think they tend to camp outside the venue on a promo kick, but since I don’t leave, I don’t see them :P. Anyhoo, we talked about work and what they all do etc. plus he apologised for nearly hitting me with his guitar! The lead singer of Through Colour was stood right next to us, looking a tad bored, and I debated getting a photo but it never quite happened. I also spoke to Matt (muscles – from The Afterparty) and ended up raving about how amazing the gig was (and how much I enjoyed having a guitar right up in my face :P). I think I may have been just the teensiest bit hyper…

The only downer on the evening was after the venue had mostly emptied out. I was helping Tia and a random guy (who I think was a friend of one of the support bands) came over and started chatting to us. It was fine at first, we were talking about various rock bands, including Steel Panther and that was cool, only then he started slagging off TLC. Now, I know he was very drunk, but given that we were packing up their merch stand, it was pretty obvious we were with them (and therefore not people likely to agree with him) and whilst I’m not a confrontational person and generally avoid arguing with people as much as humanly possible (except with my sisters, but that’s different :P), I wasn’t going to let that one slide. I told him quite emphatically; don’t you dare slag them off in front of me. His response was to ask if I was married to one of them… I just said I was a massive fan and left it at that, but I was absolutely fuming. I don’t care how drunk he was, he was a [insert multiple insults here] *glares*. No one disses my boys. No one. *growls*.

Fortunately, other than that, the remainder of the evening was just as good as the beginning of it. I had a good old girly chat with Tia, which I think we both needed (she’s been hanging around with a bunch of guys for the past week and I’ve been off on my own – I suspect it was inevitable!) and only wound Adam up a bit by pretending to whisper about him whenever he walked past 😛 (although it was entirely his own fault for being suspicious in the first place). I also took a load of random selfies with various combinations of band/crew members, some of which came out slightly more successfully than others… For example, the one with Kieran and Justin when Justin refused to come closer, mumbling something about perspective, is a lovely blurred mess.

I also finally got a drumstick! Adam came out with a broken one (which I can only assume was actually one if his :P) and Mike took it off of him, bending the broken bit back even more. Adam told him off and said he should give it to one of the girls (fans), so I took that as my cue to take it off of him. I loosely tied my hair elastic around it, which was intended as a temporary fix just so I didn’t break it completely on the way home, only Mike criticised my technique and retied it for me, so now I don’t want to take the band off… I suspect it’ll be a permanent fixture now. Not a bad haul for one evening, really; Justin’s pick, Adam’s stick, (Mike’s handywork) & Kieran’s setlist :D.

So, Nottingham tomorrow and my last VIP. The end is in sight and I’m really not sure I’m ready for it, but until then, I’ll focus on tonight and just how damn brilliant it was :). I do love those boys an awful lot.

Peace, loVe loVe and happiness,
K xx

PS. On a random note that doesn’t really fit within the post itself, given my jovial mood this evening; it seems that the promise of a reward (aka shoooooes) if I hold it together has actually made a world of difference. I’m not sure I feel that much better than I would otherwise, but at least my determination not to cry is stopping me from indulging my melancholy too much and making myself feel worse.
[Actual publish date: 1/9/14 – I’m still slightly heartbroken that I don’t have the VIP photo from this one. I guess it must have been really bad to be left out, but still. This show was by far the highlight of the tour for me and it would have been nice to have the memorabilia. Even the group photo would have been better than nothing, although I won’t pretend I wasn’t particularly looking forward to mine, partly because I was being silly, but mostly just for the simple fact that I was next to Justin, which is not generally an easy task in these photos… I might have to try asking after it one more time. What’s the worst that can happen? You can’t lose what you never had.]

The Last Carnival – July Tour, Newcastle

For the first time since tour started, I actually got some sleep last night and it was bliss. Crisp white sheets on a huge king sized bed, all to myself, for eight whole hours. I could get used to this! Of course, I was still knacked but my emotional stability was restored following yesterday’s slip, which very nearly cost me those shoes…!

I actually had almost two hours to kill between check out and my train so I passed the time hanging about in a cafe, repeating my caffeine mistake from earlier in the week (although I was just a bit buzzed this time rather than approaching a heartattack). I did very little else (aside from getting distracted by a guy in a giant furry animal suit doing promo for something outside the station; I don’t know how he stayed in his feet, it was so hot), which was enjoyable but didn’t do much for my blogging the whole tour mission. I did much the same for the first hour of my journey before finally caving in to internal pressure and getting back to writing up last night. It’s helping that the ‘don’t publish’ section (which doesn’t need to be censored or rephrased into full sentences) is getting longer and the ‘publish’ section is getting shorter, but there’s still a lot to do. This would be so much easier if I could just remember things. And with that in mind, I’d also like the record to state that my journey was somewhat brightened by the receipt of a completely unexpected snapchat from someone who’s finally added me back, months after I first added them. It was thoroughly unexciting (a selfie with a generic ‘what’s happening?’ type caption) but it made my day nonetheless.

On arrival in Newcastle, aside from reliving some fond memories of Take That tours past whilst utilising the metro system, it all went a bit pear shaped. I went to the wrong hotel (because there are two on the same road with the same name, except that one is prefixed by ‘Newcastle’), then had to wait ages in reception as the man in front of me had accidentally booked for next month instead of this one, before the very friendly receptionist talked my ear off for five minutes before she actually let me go to my (admittedly lovely) room. On any other day it wouldn’t have been a problem, but I was actually hoping to meet some friends before the gig for more than half an hour. I could have done without the rush on such a hot day too, particularly one on which I caved in to temptation and wore my swanky new faux leather boots. Although I did abandon the wetlook jeans plan plus I compensated with my ventilated Steel Panther tee.

So I obviously didn’t have as much time with my friends as I’d hoped but I did at least get to see them for a while. I also saw Lacey who came round on a promo run and got hugs from Graz, Josh and Pete, who I also chatted to about the album for a bit. It was good to see them after missing most of them in Sheffield.

Club:

It was another great VIP session with much chatting and selfie taking. I spoke to Russ for ages, although don’t ask me what we talked about. The background music was Bon Jovi again and I chatted to Kieran about seeing them live. I told him about seeing them at Party In The Park, but not remembering them at all and complained that the cheap tickets on their last tour pushed the standing tickets out of my price range. He told me he’s seen them a few times. I was also telling Mike about blogging on the train or rather not blogging, which inevitably descended into me moaning about touchscreens. He reiterated what everyone else has told me; that I’ll get used to it. Meh. Anyway, ended up chatting to Justin about photos and I was saying I always look the same, especially in selfies, so if you flick through a bunch of them I don’t move and it looks like I’ve been photoshopped. I used my stage door album as an example, but clarified that although they’re not all selfies, most are, to which he pointed out that I do have a disclaimer… And I know I sometimes update that album several times in a single week so it’s constantly on people’s feeds, but it still threw me that he’d noticed. I really do seem to have this complex that when I’m not right in front of them, I don’t exist in their world at all.

Anyway, we were also talking about the band photo thing with me photoshopped in between all of them, so I pointed out I’d have to split up Russ and him as it was the only spot I’d not done yet. I also mentioned that I want to do something funny and Kieran will need bunny ears at some point. He joked I should have one where I’m not in it, so I said I’d have to hide behind them and just stick my head out. I’m actually tempted to reorder them so I can stand between Justin and Kieran and give them both bunny ears, but I refrained from telling him that. I’ll see how the land lies tomorrow, whether I think I can get away with it or not. When it actually came time for the photos tonight, I was up first and Justin moved to let me in between him and Russ before I could say a word. Advance warning may be the key to this! I was also raving about how I’d get a proper lie in on Monday morning (even if it was just on an air mattress), which in retrospect was slightly ironic as I got a message from my friend while I was hanging in the van just before they left to say her spare keys had been lost and I’d have to leave when she heads to work instead. Oh well!

The acoustic set was a little different for me this evening, mostly because I left it a bit late to pick a spot so I wasn’t in front of Justin. I keep saying I should do that for a show (half to give him a break from having to look at me), but I can’t quite bring myself to do it. Yes, I adore them all, but there’s just something about watching him play (and strut around like a peacock, as my friend put it) that makes me melt and I can’t quite force myself choose not to watch that from close up. Besides, I’ve actually had a fairly decent view of the whole band at the last couple of venues, even Mike. Anyway, I digress. The acoustic set was fabulous as always and once again I was mightily amused watching the tallest and shortest members of the band sharing a microphone :P. I was chatting to Russ after and he mused aloud that he might record an acoustic version of There’s A Road. I told him quite vehemently that he had to!

Support:

Lost At Home supported again and they’re not bad but I’ve still not been grabbed. I did however notice that the lead singer was very tall and with the added height of his hair, he was nearly brushing the ceiling. My obvious train of thought at that point was that Justin will give himself a concussion if he jumps. I also couldn’t help but notice the general guitar height. And I was carefully positioned right in front of Justin’s pedal board… 😉

The Afterparty’s intro music this evening was the Eastenders theme tune. I think they’ve peaked. I can’t see how they’ll be able to top that one! They’ve also massively grown on me. Each time I see them the songs are getting more familiar and I’m really rather enjoying their sets. I was also slightly amused by the guitarist choreography during When The Lights Go Out – the three of them (Matt, Joe & Dave) in a row, throwing their heads forward in unison.

Lacey were the main support so that was kinda awesome. I was watching them set up and noticed that Josh had photos of the settings on Justin’s Mesa on his phone, which amused me for some reason – probably because that’s exactly the sort of thing I would do. Anyhoo, it was a really great set, a little longer than last night. I got tingles listening to Contender. There’s something special about that song and I love Graz’s vocals on it, especially the big long notes at the end. It was also nice watching Dave. He seemed really off and quiet when I saw him earlier, but he had his usual adorable grin as soon as he started playing. Plus I got my own personal smile off of Graz ;).

Show:

So I was certainly right about the fabulous stage height. I got slightly edged out of my spot by the girls next to me (I’ll admit I was a tad irritated by it – they kept vanishing for ages so their space got smaller and I was then the one who had to pay for it when they squeezed back in), so ended up just past the right-hand edge of the pedal board but it was still pretty ok. And when I say ‘pretty ok’ I mean swoon.

The Peacock

I’ll confess I had a bit of a visual love affair with Justin’s left hand this evening. I mean I’ve always had a particular fondness for it, but live I usually watch his right as it moves so fast and, um, stuff. Tonight, however, was a completely different experience. Particularly during Roll Over Beethoven; I barely took my eyes off it. It was bizarrely fascinating, especially for someone who wishes they could play guitar with some level of skill. That said, I may also have paid a fair bit of attention to his left hand when he was stroking (see yesterday’s post for more on that subject) Russ’s guitar at the end of the Crazy solo too and that had very little to do with my admiration of his musical prowess. His technique this evening was to start off fast, then slow it down… so frickin’ hot… *ahem*. Fortunately, I captured the moment on film once again (does that phrase still work in the digital era?) as well as Futile (since I inadvertently missed it yesterday) and Love Motion.

Anyway, it possibly didn’t help my equilibrium much that thanks to Kieran’s teasing last night, my gaze kept straying to places it shouldn’t have. Which was further not helped by Justin’s frequent waving of his guitar in the air, often accompanied by sweeping the neck of it over the audience’s heads. Which basically reminded me of Stacee Jaxx and his mic stand. Just in case I needed to draw more comparisons… I did wonder if he had friends in, though. It was either that or he was in a particularly playful mood. Many additional faces were pulled, but they seemed to be aimed towards the back of the room, so I can only assume he was looking at someone and not just grinning at the vodka behind the bar. His choreography also seemed particularly exuberant tonight and I’m pretty sure he was doing the Can Can at one point :P. He also still managed to jump, although there were a few moments when I was genuinely worried he might actually hit the ceiling. I think I even cringed a few times. It’s not quite what I usually think of when contemplating a rock star living dangerously…! Living life full throttle, eh?

So contrary to how my posts seem to keep coming out, not only are there actually other bands members on stage (I know, right?!), I even watch them at times (shocker). In fact, despite the way it sounds, I think on average Russ probably gets the most attention from me during a show. He’s a captivating front man, not to mention a phenomenal musician, and he constantly draws my gaze no matter how much I enjoy fangirling over Mr. Morris. He also pulls his own fair share of rock faces…

Rock ‘n’ Roll

Tonight, however, was particularly special because I saw something I very rarely get to see on stage; Kieran’s hands! The set up was very different to the other venues I’ve seen them at; the stage was situated in the corner of the room and curved round. It gave me quite a nice view across the front line, so to speak, right the way down to Mike (although the breadth of the stage as it fanned out did mean he was rather far away), but also put Kieran very close to the front and therefore very close to me. With the stage height and proximity seemingly perfectly aligned, I could easily see his fingers on the keys and I made sure to give him/them extra attention while I had the opportunity!

The lord surveys his minions

Post-show:

I stole Justin’s setlist before he’d even left the stage, or at least, I tried to. It was stuck under his pedal board and I had to lift it slightly to get it out. I managed, however, and thereafter claimed it as my own. I got him to sign it, as is my wont, and as I was so impressed with his obedience yesterday, I gave him free reign to write whatever he liked on this one. He evidently took that to heart and scribbled one of his old favourites… without an actual autograph. Freedom of expression is all well and good, but there are standards to be upheld :P. I pulled him up on it and he dutifully added his name.

The Last Carnival – Newcastle Setlist

Anyhoo, I guess he asked about the gig because I ended up telling him that I liked the stage height; put a guitar in front of my face and I’m happy. That prompted him to ask what I have, so I told him (a Squire strat & an acoustic Fender), adding that I’m not musical and never have time to play, but I love it anyway.

I didn’t have much time to talk to anyone besides him immediately v after the show as the venue seemed keen to kick everyone out as soon as possible. I did manage to squeeze in a photo with Dave (Lacey) as he was at merch and I also bought an Afterparty CD and got it signed by them all. Joe drew a Homer Simpson on the disk too, although I’m not quite sure why…!

Of course, I still wound up hanging around for ages (I’m a dab hand at putting posters in boxes – Luke even joked that if I keep it up I’ll end up on payroll :P) so I collected a few more selfies when security wasn’t looking and had a nice long chat with Kieran. I mentioned that I’d been able to see his hands and he asked if it sounded the way it looked. I can’t recall exactly what I said, but I think I pointed out that I’ve seen his hands in videos so I at least had an idea of what he was doing. Plus I believe I mentioned something to the effect that the solos do pretty much sound how they look; difficult!

I possibly spoiled that a tad by also sharing with him what my friend said in London about keyboard players… which may have been a mistake as I then spent several minutes reassuring him that she had definitely not meant him and that he was a valuable member of the band. Which is very true. None of that music would sound the same without him (the first verse and chorus of Beautiful would be particularly lacking…) and he’s a fantastic musician. I was clearly on a roll with ill-conceived comments though as I also felt the need to point out that it was entirely his fault that my gaze had repeatedly stayed somewhere inappropriate during the show. It seemed like a perfectly fine idea until the words actually left my mouth… Sigh. Anyway, he just told me that I shouldn’t and if I’m taking his advice I shouldn’t tomorrow. If only life was that easy…

Anyhoo, outside I went on a bit of a selfie mission. I caught the rest of the Lacey boys and also finally got my tech/crew pics with Tia, Benji, Luke and Tony. During the last one, Justin very nearly photobombed, but the picture took a few seconds too soon for him to make it. Tony then grabbed him and pulled him in for round two only my camera battery, which had been flashing at me all evening but had valiantly battled on, chose that moment to finally die. I could’ve cried; what a missed opportunity. I did chase Justin for another selfie once I’d changed the battery (because in his usual stubborn style, he refused to give me another chance at the first one), but honestly I have tonnes of those, I’d have much rather had one with the three of us. Plus he was pulling a ridiculous face in the one I did get so it wasn’t a paticularly marvellous addition to the collection anyway.

I did finally get around to asking him a couple of questions regarding sensible things I was curious about, though. The one thing I really wanted to know was how much of his solos are him and how much of them are Russ. He said that they’re all him and that sometimes he’ll just take a solo as his own but more recently Russ has been asking him to take them. I also asked if he actually uses all his pedals (which in retrospect I think I’ve asked him before, but had evidently forgotten; my stellar memory wins once again…). He told me he does indeed, all the time; they run through the same controller thing so he can use different combinations of pedals easily. It still seems complicated to me, but then what do I know about pedals?! I really do wish there would be an appropriate moment to get him to explain them all, but I can’t see it happening.

Anyhoo I also got serenaded at one point which was rather fun. I was hanging around with Russ and he randomly started singing Edelweis before moving on to It’s A Kinda Magic. It was pretty cool :). Even when he’s not really trying he’s got a great rock voice. He wasn’t the only one, though. It started raining while they were all hanging around (I ended up sitting in Kieran’s seat in the van to escape it) and Tony started singing Setting The World Alight. Let it rain, eh?! That then prompted a conversation about the brilliance of Russ’s lyrics and I lamented the fact that it was really hard to catch most of them during the live shows; which is yet another reason I’m so looking forward to hearing the recordings.

They headed off soon after that and I reluctantly had to give up my seat in the dry to hug them all goodbye (and let them actually leave) at which point I made a mad dash for the station as it was raining in earnest by then. I was pretty sure that my hotel (as opposed to the one of an almost identical name further down the street…) was closer to a different metro station than the one I’d used earlier in the day, but my phone chose that moment to have a fit and restart itself repeatedly, refusing to stay on long enough for me to shut it down properly. I didn’t much fancy struggling with the back cover whilst I was out (I have a printed photo (of Russ and Justin in Paris) and two pieces of RoA confetti between the translucent case and the cover which make the task particularly arduous and difficult to accomplish on public transport) so I just left it to freak out in my pocket. It did however mean that I was stuck taking the straightforward but longer route back rather than the twisty turny shorter route that I could only have successfully achieved with the assistance of a map. And naturally I had neither coat nor umbrella with me (the former was located at home in London and the latter was usefully waiting for me in my hotel room…). Still, I made it back eventually without getting too damp and spent a tad too much time appreciating the free wifi before finally getting some sleep.

Manchester tomorrow. Let’s do this!

Peace, loVe loVe and happiness,
K xx

[Actual publish date: 31/8/14]

The Last Carnival – July Tour, Sheffield

So the day started much like yesterday, with a morning at work and then a rush to the station to catch my train. I did, however, manage to make in in time to grab a snack for the journey, which was somewhat unexpected. What was even more unexpected was the discovery that one of the cafes at St Pancras sold kosher bagels. It was cool for novelty reasons more than anything – I think I’d have preferred bread that wasn’t mezonos…! Anyhoo, on a different, but no less unexpected note; my friend sent over a few of his London photos during the morning and although I didn’t have time to go through them properly, there was one of Justin where he’s mid jump (and had achieved some serious height) that really caught my attention so I tweeted it to him and the band. Justin then retweeted it (it’s not quite as awesome if it’s not my photo, but I tweeted it which would usually be enough to blacklist it so woo, I guess) so that was another surprise. Five months of nothing, then two in 24 hours. It’s like waiting for a bus. Or a man. Anyway, it did brighten up my day somewhat; I could get used to that. Except I’d best not because, yeah. So the only problem was that I then started writing up the blog post for yesterday’s show and ended up getting annoyed with him for no particular reason except that he messed up my lovely signed print. Hmph.

Club:

VIP was also unexpectedly good. Not that I had particularly low expectations, it’s been good all tour so far, but I was in a strop and a bit flustered by the heat, plus the fact I’d been running late didn’t help either, so I didn’t have overly high hopes. So I got a decent haul of photos and kept getting band members to take them, which made the routine particularly fun. I’m also doing fairly well with my Kieran bunny ears series :P. Other than that I had some nice long chats with the usual suspects. Russ was telling a few of us that he can get quite angry, which apparently can be messy but gets stuff done! Justin, we were told, is the opposite and never gets ruffled or some such. I commented that perhaps it was because he makes no sense (which incidentally doesn’t quite make sense in this context, although I’m sure it did at the time. I think I meant that he always seems calm and collected because no one knows what he’s on about?). Russ was saying they’re actually quite similar, but Justin is like his surreal side. I suggested that Justin was his evil twin, which Russ found that rather amusing, except I was being semi-serious :P. What can I say? I was in a strop with him.

I also had a debate with Kieran about films. We were talking about the hilarity of Kieran’s photo history on Facebook and I commented that I’d found Justin’s myspace page with a bunch of old photos from back when he had long hair. Kieran asked how it looked and I compared him to Professor Snape (side note: I’m not the first to have made that comparison), which then lead to a conversation about Alan Rickman and Tom Hanks, although I don’t know where the jump between those two actors came from. I talked about Dogma and realised that Justin’s faint resemblance to Ben Affleck may not be entirely unrelated to why I find him so damn attractive. Anyway, I said I didn’t like Tom Hanks, mostly because he’s not a romantic lead in my opinion and that’s what I originally know him from. Apparently I need to watch Saving Mr Banks and Captain Phillips. Kieran also pointed out they’d gone for Bon Jovi for the music (and not steel Panther for the reasons we discussed yesterday).

The conversation was interrupted by the acoustic set, which was fabulous as always. I’m digging Adam’s shaky eggs, they’re so cute :P. I also still find the fact that Kieran and Mike share a microphone highly entertaining. There’s a serious height difference going on there! So, the lighting was still a bit rubbish but I filmed There’s A Road anyway. I very nearly cried at the end again, in which case I figure Russ would have owed me a pair of shoes :P.

The Last Carnival

So as I’ve already alluded to, I was really annoyed with Justin for absolutely no reason (except for, I suppose, the residual irritation about that damned autograph). Still baseless or not, it was bad enough that I consciously avoided speaking to him before the acoustic set. In the VIP photos I’ve been switching positions each night and I still need to split up Russ and Justin, but decided to go for Kieran and Mike tonight, just to avoid him. It seems they’ve realised I’m working my way along though and Mike was joking that I should photoshop the pictures together so I’m in between all of them at the same time. I’ll need to come up with some other ideas for last two VIPs, I think. I do wish I could see pictures in advance to see if any need retaking, though.

Anyway, I was seriously considering telling Justin that I was annoyed with him but wasn’t sure why (which I suppose would have been part apology and part attempt at resolving whatever was bothering me), however, when I actually spoke to him after the group photos he was lovely and all my animosity thankfully evaporated pretty much instantly. So I’d been promising my friend that I’d send her a snapchat of Justin (she didn’t want one, I was just winding her up :P) and tonight seemed like the opportune moment. I managed to get a selfie with him (which was pretty horrendous of me, but I wasn’t about to retake it) and then had to hide the phone so I could inappropriately caption it before I sent it :P. At some point during the proceedings, Russ noticed the photo of Satchel that I’ve got set as my wallpaper and he asked me if I knew his real name (I did; it’s Russ – I didn’t make the connection until I said it aloud) and we discussed him briefly.

I then continued chattering away to Justin about all sorts. He told me about the severely limited nature of his tour wardrobe (I’d noticed…) and explained that he doesn’t want to ruin all his nice expensive clothing by wearing it on tour. Apparently he’ll be slowly introducing new items into the rotation (I’ll admit I’ve kinda been noticing him doing that too…). It certainly sounds like he has it all planned out with near military precision; it was quite an amusing conversation.

I also finally remembered to ask about Venice (he was there the other week; posted a couple of photos, including a stunning one of a bridge over a canal (which left me with an incredibly strong urge to book a weekend away) and the band tweeted about it too). We chatted about the city a little (I’ve been once, a very long time ago) and he was telling me that you really need someone who knows the place to show you where to go (in terms of bars) so you don’t end up getting stranded. Sounds like it was a short but enjoyable (working) trip. I’m not jealous at all ;). He also asked me what I thought of last night so I explained that I love the venue because of the stage height etc. so it was fab, plus added some of the background about how much of a pain it was to be there and about blowing off Tides for them.

We all headed into the main room after that and I got the ‘buy merch’ spiel from Mike again. As I recall we had an extended discussion about the brilliance of the tote bag (I told him I use mine all the time and in fact it was back in my hotel room as I spoke) and he was also trying to persuade me to buy the white t-shirt with the band name on it as I (stupidly?!) admitted it was the only piece of merch that I didn’t already have. I point blank refused however, having already purchased far more of their merch than I could ever need (especially in the form of clothing I don’t wear). I also chatted to Benji a bit and said hey to the Afterparty boys when they walked past.

I spoke to a couple of them about the new logo and I’d been told that Adam had painted the picture on the keyboard box thing, but I was furnished with the additional information that he’d done it in a relatively short space of time from a stencil the Kieran printed for him. I was suitably impressed. I also told Mike and Kieran that it was too Gryffindor (in terms of the colours – I reassured one of them (Kieran?) that the logo itself was not remotely Harry Potter-esque) but that otherwise I love it. I told Mike that I was a Slytherin but added my usual ‘not if it was real life’ disclaimer.

A couple of girls had made Kieran some marshmallows (from scratch – it never even occurred to me that it was possible!) but made him guess what they were from a few clues about the type of sweets that they were. They were talking about the celebrity chef who’s recipe they’d followed only Kieran (and I) had never heard of him, so Justin joined in and provided a relatively in depth explanation of who the guy was (not that I can remember now, of course [Edit: I’m told it was James Martin, for those who may be interested!]). The group conversation was sadly cut short by the doors opening but Justin actually instigated a hug before he headed off backstage; he’s forgiven :P. [Edit: He also called me by name at one point, although I can’t recall when or why. It might even have been after the gig rather than before. It still throws me, though. As if there was any chance they could not know my name at this point… And it probably shouldn’t make me so fluttery…]

Support:

First up were Lacey and it was brilliant to see them again. It was a very short set but I got to hear Contender again and Graz motioned to me for a drink (even though I was too far away) as a joke during the song, which made me laugh :).

The Afterparty had no intro music for the tour and last night they came on to It’s Raining Men. I was told that the plan was to go even cheesier so I’ll confess I was intrigued. I’m not sure Miley Cyrus’s Party In The USA was quite as brilliant, but it was certainly cheesy. Aside from that, I thought that Lacey were a much better opener for them as I was more prepared for the loud and actually quite enjoyed them tonight :). They’re definitely growing on me.

I didn’t even catch the name of other support band (Revolvers or something like that?) but they didn’t grab me at all so I made no effort to find out.

Anyway, I could see Justin’s amp peeking out from behind the covered up keyboard and it made me grin when I caught sight of it, as did Luke soundchecking the guitar, as usual. On a slightly different note I’d been very much looking forward to seeing The Colliers again and I saw them before the show (minus Mitch) from a distance but wasn’t willing to give up my prime spot to say hi :P. It’s a narrow stage and there are large boxes (containing speakers, I think) on each side so there’s only space for half a dozen people in between. I ended up behind one of the boxes (on Justin’s side, obviously) which wasn’t ideal, but it did give me a prop and distance, both of which came in useful whilst filming. The former also helped me to have a pseudo-nap between bands!

The show:

[Note from time of publish: It’s at this point that my notes get a bit sparse and vague. I’ve done my best to string them together but there isn’t much there to string, sadly. I’ve no doubt that the gig was as fabulous as always, but I apparently didn’t feel the need to write any of that down at the time (possibly due to post-show intoxication/sulking), so all I have is the following… (however, I’ve added a few extra photos to the post by way of compensation)]

The Last Carnival – Russ & Mike

The setlist was ever so slightly different, although I didn’t notice at first, simply because I haven’t quite got to grips with all the new music yet. The one change was the addition of a song I hadn’t heard before called Runaway Screaming. Fortunately, my videography mission this evening was to capture Setting The World Alight and Futile, neither of which I was familiar with enough to anticipate, so all I knew was that I wanted the first two songs after Dancefloor. It did mean I missed Futile as I dutifully recorded the first two and then stopped, but I can always catch that one later in the tour. I’m certainly pleased to have caught a new song by pure luck. It was a good one, too :). I also captured the Crazy guitar solo because, well… *coughs*. There was a moment towards the end when Justin was, er… stroking the neck of Russ’s guitar… with increasing rapidity… (A more appropriate description of the movement would be one beginning with ‘w***ing’ and ending with ‘off’…). My reaction to that was basically just f***… So, um, yeah… *ahem*. Anyhoo, I can’t think of an appropriate metaphor (or even an inappropriate one), but Justin was apparently done impersonating the sun tonight (in other words, I was able to look directly at him), so that was a relief. I even got a smile from him during the set. Will wonders never cease?!

Hair!

So, I shouted to Justin for his setlist at the end and he threw it to me but it ended up behind something and I couldn’t reach. Fortunately, one of my friends was able to retrieve it for me and I got him to sign it. This time I told him I was dictating and ordered him to write; to [me], lots of love, Justin. And he actually did it. I was so surprised I couldn’t help but verbally express the sentiment. Although I do now wish I’d done that for the fancy photo yesterday instead, given that actually mattered to me… Sigh.

The Last Carnival – Sheffield Setlist

Post-show:

I’d hoped to catch up with Lacey, but they had all vanished by the end of the gig, save Josh. I had a nice chat with him about the album though. They finished recording at 1am this morning, apparently. It’s all rather exciting :). I also finally got around to taking some photos with all The Afterparty boys and grabbed a random one with Harry (Bullas) while I was at it. I’d have liked one with Danno too as I was chatting to them both for a while, but I rather missed my opportunity. It would’ve been nice to have spent a bit more time catching up with all of them, but it’s probably my own fault for not making more of an effort earlier on in the evening. It sounds like there are plans afoot from a very cryptic conversation they had with Justin in front of me, but it was all very ambiguous, so they could have been talking about anything and I’d have been none the wiser! Anyhoo, I’d intended to ask if they were going out for a drink too, but never quite got around to it and then they vanished when I wasn’t looking.

I also got my usual round of selfies with the TLC boys, of course, and had an entertaining chat with Kieran. I’m not sure exactly what I said to him to prompt it (probably something about the stage height in Birmingham again – I suspect it was at least partly my fault anyway), but he accused me of looking at things I possibly shouldn’t have been, in the general vicinity of a guitar… Which I really wasn’t! I’m a good girl, I am… :P. He was also gossiping about last tour’s after party, so that was fun…!

I hung around until the end as usual and somehow found myself on guard duty, watching their stuff inside while they loaded out to the street/van. Nice to know I’m trusted :P. They then loitered in the street for ages during which time I had a long chat with Russ (about make-up, randomly) and another chat with a Justin. I complimented him on his latest jewellery addition; a strip of worn leather on a short chain around his neck and he told me it was actually a bookmark (taken from something really old, I believe, but I can’t recall what) only he’s just got himself a kindle so it’s not much use. We then discussed books for a while so he was subjected to the story about my deaded kindle as well. I really am quite frustrated that I can’t continue reading From Here To Eternity!

Anyhoo, The Ratells and The Retrospectives were there and when they all (finally) headed out for a drink I tagged along. Only unlike the nice cushy pub we went to last time, this time we ended up in a car park. I got the impression there had been a live music event there earlier in the evening, but it was just the tail end of whatever it was by the time we arrived. Still, I got a drink out of it; Kieran ended up getting trapped a rather pricy round for six people at a cash bar when he didn’t actually have enough cash on him – and was then vilified for it, poor thing! From what I could gather, he’d initially intended to buy for himself and Justin, plus Luke as a thank you for all the hard work. Only then Mike joined them and Tony had offered me a drink too, so we joined him at the bar too before he’d finished his order. In any case, I still ended up with my wine (courtesy of Tony), which then went straight to my head. I don’t think I’ve ever been so intoxicated by a single drink before, it was weird. And probably not a good thing.

I did have a nice chat with Tony about theatre though, plus he told me that they’d thought I’d like Beautiful, which we then discussed. I have to confess I have something of a love/hate relationship with the fact that they talk about me, but I suppose it’s neither here nor there how I feel about it, they’ll do it anyway and I’d rather hear about it than not. Although I obviously won’t hear about anything negative that they say, so it really doesn’t make a difference… Anyway, I also hung out a bit with Russ and Kieran plus spoke to Justin a little as well, informing him there were more photos on the way courtesy of my friend. As I recall I also told anyone who got too close about my drunkenness; another example of my sophistication whilst under the influence… Sigh. Fortunately, I suppose, given that I ended up in a rather morose mood (I suspect as a combined effect of the alcohol and my usual awkwardness in such situations) they didn’t stay too late and after walking back to the van with them, I headed off to my hotel, repeatedly reminding myself of my love of Irregular Choice shoes in a surprisingly successful attempt at keeping my emotions in check.

So, the journey north continues tomorrow, but for now I’m going to go and enjoy my nice big bed!

Peace, loVe loVe and rock ‘n’ roll,
K xx

[Actual publish date: 29/8/14 – Incidentally, I felt the need to re-watch the video of the Crazy solo (for research purposes, you understand, it was a hardship that simply had to be endured…) and I couldn’t help but notice that the, er, hand movement I mentioned above (in the heavily asterisked section) slows down on the last stroke or two, making it even more reminiscent of, er, something else… *fidgets*]

The Last Carnival – July Tour, Birmingham

So I tried to get yesterday’s blog finished on the train up with reasonable levels of success, but it’s not quite there yet. Which probably means it will get published, but not until tour is over unless something miraculous happens on the train tomorrow. Unsurprisingly, given my penchant for staying up until 3am for absolutely no reason, I was completely knackered and since I had almost two hours to kill before VIP, I decided to get a coffee. I was rather disappointed to discover they’d sold out of mocha cookie crumble, but reluctantly settled for a regular iced mocha instead – only I’d been listening to Rock Of Ages the whole way up, so I gave my name as Sherrie. I wasn’t expecting them to get it completely right but it came back as Cherry… I’m still not convinced on this personal touch business. Anyway, it certainly killed some time, but yesterday’s pre-gig nerves hadn’t quite dissipated and I don’t think caffeine was necessarily the answer. You see, overtired & overexcited me + caffeine can cause a rather volatile reaction and in this instance it left me jittery for the rest of the day, which I really could have done without. Anyhoo, despite my perpetually racing heart and my general inability to be on time for anything except the theatre, I made it to the venue early and did in fact manage to calm down somewhat while I waited.

Club (aka the boring bit for anyone who isn’t me):

I was apparently feeling suitably in control of myself, despite the caffeine, to speak to Justin first. Result? I ended up telling him all about the coffee and the jitters and I dread to think how hyper I must have come across, but oh well. He was wearing this leather jacket shirt thing with ruching and flared sleeves (with his girl guide scarf) and it was really different but rather nice so I complimented him on that (possibly more than once). He also told me the saga of their hotel last night (first hotel was fully booked, they were then sent to the wrong one after that and didn’t get to the third one until really late, so they were also up until 3am – it was obviously quite the tale, because at least three of them tried to tell me about it after him). I was also slightly thrown when he asked who my friend was last night, but since the aforementioned friend did attempt to contact Justin about my birthday, I wonder if Justin was merely checking if he was the same person. Not that it made a blind bit of difference. He’s now the only one not to have wished me happy birthday… (just saying…). Anyway, got a selfie just as someone offered to take it for me so I got a huggy photo as well (I don’t think Justin was overly impressed by my grabbiness, but t’is tough s***).

I actually had my nice big print of them with me to get signed, but Justin is the king of crap personalised autographs so I intentionally left him until last and instead went to find Kieran who I suspected would be a good starting point. He was indeed a reasonable choice and happily signed it. He also asked after the dress (I was back to the jeans & vest combo today, primarily because I knew I’d be getting the night bus home later), so I told him I was wearing one tomorrow instead. He suggested that I was alternating, which isn’t actually a bad idea. He also commented on my Sherrie ‘rock’ belt, asking what it said, to which one of the other fans pointed out that it could easily be misread… Which fit nicely with the rest of our conversation about potentially playing Steel Panther during VIP instead of Meatloaf (who seems to be the artist of choice this tour). I said they should just do it, but he did make a valid point about how awkward it could be during a lull in conversation (he illustrated his point by singing the main line from Seventeen Girls In A Row, which must have been interesting for the other girls we were talking to who had never even heard of the band – we had to explain). I then did the rounds with the rest of the band and got some more selfies, huggy photos and autographs on my print, including a happy birthday from Mike, so it’s just you know who now… *waits…*. The best bit is that we (Justin and I) actually talked about birthdays too (Kieran’s in particular as I was saying that’s when I met them… I don’t recall why that came up…). And no, I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much. Anyhoo, I left the Justin autograph until last, but it was still pointless. I told him what I wanted (to me, some message or other, from him) and got; his name. When I pressed the point he added a misspelled ‘rambunctious’ (which is better than ‘salad fumes’, but not by much & I did specifically tell him not to write that) and then my name underneath when I pressed him again. If it was just a setlist, I wouldn’t really care, but I’m framing this one and it was supposed to be a one up on the last photo I got framed which was lovely, but not at all personalised to me. I’m actually pretty pissed at him, but hey, what can I do. I tried. At least the rest of it looks good and a few of them seemed quite interested by the picture, or the print of it anyway. Russ was saying how he wants a sort of photographic history of the band – I told him to check their facebook page :P. He also told me about the club the after party is at and unsurprisingly (given it’s a Tuesday) it’s a student night. Yay for feeling old. He was saying the same thing and he’s several years younger than me. Le sigh. Anyhoo, on with the show…

Support:

I just have to start with; friggin jitters. Which is not a band, just a reminder not to drink coffee before TLC gigs. My heart was racing right through all the support acts, but in a kinda unnatural and uncontrollable sort of way; not caused by any emotion or physical exertion – it was horrible.

Sally Pepper opened again and I really do love her voice. I might actually buy a CD in Brighton to support her. I’ve also had her cover of Fall Out Boy stuck in my head and despite not actually knowing the original, I thought it was pretty fantastic. I also love the way she loops herself. All she has is her guitar and microphone, but she records bits live, loops them and then plays over it. I do like it when people do that and do it well and I don’t see it often.

As for The Afterparty, I still think they’re too loud, but the stuff I’m familiar with is cool so I think I’ll get there! I caught the lead singer’s eye a few times so I wondered if he recognised me from yesterday (but more on that later).

The final support was Lost At Home who were decent enough but didn’t catch my attention enough for me to form an opinion.

The show:

So I knew I came to this show for a reason, but holy crap…

I actually had a ticket to see Tides in London tonight, but when TLC announced their tour, I decided to blow them off for my boys. If I’d known there were going to be 7 dates instead of 5, I might have decided differently, but let’s face it; I only know Tides from seeing them at TLC and they don’t know me at all. It’s a shame to miss them but it was no contest really. So it was then just about whether I went for VIP or not. ‘Not’ would’ve meant less time off work, VIP meant front row. Any other venue, I’d have gone with ‘not’, but I’m still not quite over the last time I saw them play Birmingham’s O2 Academy3 and tonight reminded me why. The stage is a pretty decent size which gives them space to move and it’s high without being too high. In fact it’s the perfect height to put guitars around eye level and given my predilection for a certain someone’s hands on the strings… There’s also a barrier that forces distance from the stage and although it was pushed back a foot or so further than on past occasions, it was still close and generally gives a better all round view than a barrier-less venue. I could see Mike! I even got some decent photos of him! I got a few nice ones of Adam too, although I didn’t have time to go through them to look properly. I assume I have some decent ones of everyone. I certainly took enough.

So, Justin was impersonating the sun again (meaning I had trouble looking directly at him), which was probably a combination of actual bright lights behind him (I could barely keep my eyes open when they first came on, it was so bright), the fact I had to choose between looking in his direction and looking in Russ’s (I was a bit more central than I’d have chosen given free run of the front row) and just his general sun-like qualities… ‘the way he… sparkles’. I don’t feel I fully appreciated the opportunity given to me with the brilliance of the venue/stage height (because of the sun thing), but it was still pretty fabulous. The moments where he stepped in front of his pedal board…?! I ended up filming the whole of Roll Over Beethoven simply because I started recording him when he came forward for the intro and then just couldn’t bear to take the camera off of him. I was literally shaking by the end of their set. I could hardly type (to write up the notes for this) it was so bad and as Justin pointed out before the show, caffeine doesn’t last THAT long. Five hours later, it probably WAS all them. With a generous helping of him.

Anyway, I didn’t bother filming the acoustic set because I didn’t think the lighting was good enough so I recorded Beautiful and Ain’t No Lovin You instead. Plus the accidental Beethoven, the Crazy guitar solo (I think that’s going to be a nightly thing now) and a couple of random bits when I thought they were about to start playing and then didn’t. I haven’t watched them back yet and the lighting at the back of the stage was messing with the autofocus on my camera all night, but hopefully they’ll be good, at least in terms of the audio. Justin actually stared into the camera at one point and I know one of the stills I took of that while I was recording came out ok so I hope the video did too; I nearly died. I don’t know how to deal with this ‘being acknowledged’ thing, I’m out of practice. Anyway, I mostly had Russ and Justin in shot and I think I got a direct look from Russ too, but I’m not sure if I was actually filming at the time.

Eye of the tiger

So, the setlist was the same as last night and I found myself eagerly anticipating Beautiful, even though I was wary of wishing the show away. It did not disappoint and had my heart racing for completely non-caffeinated reasons. It’s such a stunning track and I adore the way Russ sings it. Obviously I’m not exactly immune to Justin’s solo either, but my reaction to the track isn’t even about that. It’s just an utterly beautiful song. I also really enjoyed Futile, or at least it caught my attention this evening. I might try and record it tomorrow, although I’m not sure how easy it’ll be to record anything with the stage height at Sheffield.

On a somewhat random note; yesterday, when Kieran was telling me about the fans they’d brought with to keep them cool on stage (apparently Mike also bought him a USB fan for his birthday, only he left it at home by mistake), he was talking about how he hoped that the air-flow would make Justin’s hair flap. Last night, it did not. Tonight, however, was another matter. There was much flapping going on and thanks to Kieran, it made me laugh every time I noticed it.

Post-show (aka the other boring bit for anyone who isn’t me):

I shouted to Justin for his setlist at the end but either he didn’t hear or he ignored me and gave it to someone else instead. I got Adam to pass me Kieran’s though (and then had Kieran sign it), so I still ended up with one.

The Last Carnival – Birmingham Setlist

Admittedly it possibly wasn’t a great idea to attempt communication with Kieran whilst I was still on a MASSIVE post-show high and I probably said more than I should have done, but at least it was to Kieran and not to Justin (who I intentionally waited to speak to simply because I was so flappy, but I’m not actually sure the extra time to theoretically collect myself helped all that much). I told Kieran that it was so good I was shaking (still), although he seemed to think that last night was better. I then told him I had reasons for particularly liking tonight involving stage height, guitars and Justin. Which all came out in an awkward jumble because even then, I think part of me knew that I wasn’t supposed to be saying any of it. Of course, Kieran then asked if I meant it in a pervy way, to which I said a quite emphatic no! Truthfully (as I informed him), it’s just a fangirly thing. Although I think I confessed that I was still rather hot and bothered by him (and no I don’t mean Kieran). Oops? Anyway, I’m not sure what else was said post-show as I cleverly forgot to write anything else down, but I got a bunch of selfies as usual and left on a high, so yayness.

I ended up hanging around at merch again chatting to Tia (I spoke to her briefly before the show as well – she half recognised me from yesterday) and stayed inside at kick out time (woo). I also got chatting to a couple of The Afterparty boys who turned out to be rather friendly, so that was nice. I spoke to the lead singer (Nic) a bit and he essentially asked if I was with the band! I told him I was just a fan, but good at pretending to be a merch girl – he said I was very important :P. It also turns out he did indeed recognise me from yesterday, and loved my hair, which is presumably why he recognised me.

Of course, the one concession I made to being ‘good’ was getting the last train home instead of blowing a fortune staying overnight and getting an expensive morning train. It meant I had to leave before I was ready to, but I had time to do the rounds, hugged everyone goodbye (except Kieran who’d vanished) and even remembered to ask Justin about the ‘new’ guitar strap he’s been sporting this tour as he and Russ were packing up guitars when I went to speak to them. As I faintly suspected, it’s actually an old one, although he didn’t answer me when I asked what happened to the other one. I told him I liked because it sparkles :P.

So overall, it was pretty damn awesome. Even with my stupid sunshine thing, I still got enough out of it in terms of my initial reasons for coming to this specific gig to make it worth the complexity of the trip and by the time I actually left to catch my train I was still grinning. Some of my contentedness was doubtlessly to do with the post-show, but ultimately, it was the gig itself that really made me smile. Not that the journey home wasn’t long. I mean it was obviously still worth it, but maaaan. That said, the epic commute was slightly improved by the realisation that Justin retweeted my photo of him, taken on my phone last night. Five months I’ve waited for him to tweet me back. Nor that this was a reply, but he’s getting closer to it. I did stare at the notification in shock for a good 30 seconds though. Admittedly the scary drunk guy at the night bus stop throwing bottles around and generally intimidating people was a slightly less than perfect end to the evening, but otherwise, it was pretty damn wonderful. Bring on tomorrow!

Peace, loVe loVe and touring,
K xx

PS. I’m still getting frustrated with my new phone. The battery seems to run down faster than I expected and I’ve still not got the hang of the touchscreen typing. It’s particularly irritating as the autocorrect gets it so wrong sometimes I can’t even work out what I was trying to say, but without it, nearly every word is completely misspelled (and often equally unintelligible). The ‘highlight’ was the fact that every time I tried to type ‘Justin’ on the way home I ended up with ‘kissing’ instead. Thanks, Swype, thanks a bunch. *sigh*

[Actual publish date: 26/8/14 (& I’m still annoyed about that autograph – he is now hidden by my plant…)]

The Last Carnival – July Tour, London

So last time The Last Carnival toured, back in April, the blog thing never quite happened. I was too busy flitting between their shows and Gary’s shows and trying to fit in work, food and sleep as well. Admittedly I probably could go back and string something interesting together from the notes I made at the time, but I think anyone familiar with this blog will be aware of my track record on that front. It will never happen. So! New tour, new start. Seven shows = seven blogs (or possibly eight if I feel the need for an ‘I love you all, thank you for everything, you rock my world *squeezy hugs*’ type post-tour blog). Easy, right? Ha.

So, let’s do this! Opening night; London, Camden Barfly. I may have been a teensie bit on edge during the day; the usual pre-gig nervous tension, massively intensified by the fact it’s them and, you know, stuff. Plus some other news (see ‘other news’ :P) really didn’t help to calm me down any. Naturally, the logical course of action was to turn to twitter for assistance, at which point one of my friends kindly mentioned Justin’s hands, which I’d somehow managed to forget about in the general excitement over seeing the rest of him. It didn’t exactly stop my heart from racing, but it did make me laugh, which in turn actually did help to calm me down a bit, so props to my friend!

VIP (well they’re calling it ‘club’ this tour, but whatever :P):

I had to rush from the office, so I got there a little after they opened doors for VIP but it did mean I got to say a proper hello to Big T, complete with a massive, squeezy, lift me off of my feet hug. I’ve missed that man almost as much as I’ve missed my boys :D.

VIP itself was a bit brilliant, mostly just because it wasn’t too busy or rushed. When I walked in I did the rounds, employing my trademark ‘grab them from behind for a hug’ method and said hi to everyone, then went round again getting selfies and having proper chats. I got a fair few birthday greetings (from Tony on my way in, plus Kieran, Ads and later, Russ) which was rather lovely and tonnes of compliments on my hair (relatively freshly coloured layers of cyclamen pink, violet and capri blue) from pretty much everyone (except the usual suspect, but that was always going to be too much to ask…). After stressing about my wardrobe for days, with an intensified 2+ hours of sheer panic last night (to the point that when I actually got dressed this morning it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be – my dress wasn’t that short. Well, ish.) I was rather chuffed to also get a load of compliments on my dress and it’s, admittedly unplanned (I was actually worried it would clash), colour coordination with my hair. All in all, it was a good day for my self-confidence :P.

So there was much chatting, most of which will be of no interest to anyone but me, but I’m sticking some random comments here for the sake of my own appalling memory. Kieran mentioned one of my friends who was coming by name, which threw me slightly, but I just assumed I must’ve mentioned him in passing. Turns out my friend had actually been in contact with Kieran over a birthday something. Not that there was a something, but Kieran was at least the only individual band member to contact me on the day (although I know another friend also contacted him on the subject, just prior to him messaging me…). Apparently Kieran wasn’t actually my friend’s first point of contact, but if I can’t get a ready response, I’d have been pretty peeved if my friend had :P. I also chatted to Kieran about the new music and he told me the setlist was almost all new stuff.

I barely managed a proper hug off of Justin on my first circuit of the room (*sulk mutter*), but made up for it the second time around and had a proper chat, just like old times :). I complimented him on his hair (which has grown on me, even if it’s not quite as devastatingly attractive as his old sticky up look – but hey, I’ve still got Tom if I want a bit of fluff :P) and we discussed his latest style. He’s growing the front bit even longer (like someone from something that I’ve never heard of and therefore can’t remember), but it actually has some serious length on it already. I’ll confess it does look rather attractive once it gets a bit less groomed on stage… ;). On a less fangirly note, I told him all about Richard III and the blood. I think it’s my latest favourite story. And on a more fangirly note, I also complimented him on the little handkerchiefy scarf thing he had tied around his throat and he cracked a joke about being a girl guide. I also had a good old natter with Russ, which was well overdue! He’s also experimenting with a new style, no colour (well no red colour – he’s dyed it dark brown over the top) and it’s longer/flatter in the front. Obviously this sort of thing requires intense conversation, but we did lighten things up a bit with some literary discussion (and me moaning about my deaded kindle). He was telling me about a dude called Markus Rothkranz, so I’ll have to do some googling at some point. I also finally remembered to ask Ads for a broken stick, if he ends up with one.

The acoustic set was comprised of High, The Scream Boy Shuffle and There’s A Road and as soon as they started playing, it felt like coming home. It was wonderful to see/hear them play again and it felt so good to have them back in my life. Not that simply seeing them again didn’t feel fantastic, but watching them play… I nearly cried during There’s A Road. I’d pretty much resigned myself to never hearing that one live, so I was over the moon just to have it on the setlist, but wow. The acoustic arrangement is stunning and it packs a rather emotional punch. I actually got properly choked up over it, almost to the point of tears (which would’ve been a fabulous start (and end) to my ‘I will not cry on this tour’ wager). It really was something special, though. I shall require a video of that before the end of tour.

Support:

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Sally Pepper, having not actually got around to listening to her. She’s not particularly my style but she has an absolutely gorgeous voice and she’s also got a kinda sweet yet edgy stage presence. She reminds me of my sister a little bit, but I suspect that’s just the short, very blonde hair and elements of her style. Anyhoo, I’m not ready to rush out and buy her CD, but it’ll be no hardship listening to her at the other dates she’s doing. Her voice really is fabulous and I like the way she sings.

Next up were The Moon And Tide, who reminded me a little of Lacey. The lead singer was pretty cute too :P. I wasn’t overly enamored but they’d potentially be capable of winning me round if they get another chance on some future tour.

I thought The Afterparty were a tad loud and shouty for my taste (I’m getting old aren’t I? *sigh*) but I enjoyed When The Lights Go Out and the others I was vaguely familiar with thanks to Spotify weren’t bad either so I reckon they could be a grower. I guess we’ll find out!

One of my friends made a comment during the support section of the evening that the keyboard player is usually only there because he has a van to drive the band around in or a garage for band storage space. It rather amused me, but obviously Kieran is an exception to that theory (seriously; The Last Carnival just wouldn’t sound the same without keys)!

Show:

So I may have been a tad tipsy thanks to a couple of glasses of rosé courtesy of my friends, but I was frickin’ excited!!! I told myself I wouldn’t sneak a look at the setlist, but it’s just too tempting when it’s sat right there. There really wasn’t much I properly knew; the Too Many Dreams intro, The Call Of ’56, Luisa Rey and the Roll Over Beethoven cover. A few others I knew from last tour, but I’m not fully familiar with those yet (although I did at least know enough to be ready to film Justin and Russ during the Crazy guitar solo. Which was possibly a good thing as Russ licked Justin’s face and I don’t think I’ve seen that one before, it’s usually the other way around. And I definitely wasn’t jealous *coughs*). Still, the only real setlist surprise for me was the lack of No Hero, at least until they hit a new track called Beautiful. Which is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard in a while. It was so good I didn’t even mind the fact it’s obviously replaced my favourite track. They actually have a similar sort of sound so I can understand picking one over the other, but seriously; wow. Russell’s outdone himself with this one. It gave me tingles right from the start and I’m sure I had my ‘little girl seeing the Magic Kingdom for the first time’ expression of awe on my face. Kieran commented afterwards that he’d noticed me enjoying that one! And that was how I felt about it before it hit Justin’s solo…

And speaking of the Welsh Dragon… I did a lot of swooning this evening. A lot. There may even have been the occasional whimper… Seriously, the man is beautiful. And as I mentioned earlier his hair looks damn good in its current style when he’s tossing his head back and forth like that. He also caught my eye a fair few times and even pulled a few faces at me, which was kinda unexpected, but nice. It really does feel like old times again *happy sigh*. Of course I got a few Kieran smiles and a Russ one, but I wasn’t very close to him so I wasn’t really expecting any interaction. As always, I positioned myself over on Justin’s side, but I intentionally selected a spot right on the end so there was space for my friends who were coming later to join me. I had a fabulous view of Kieran’s new box too 😛 (it’s not actually a box it’s just a few pieces of board surrounding his keyboard with the new Tony the Tiger logo on it, but it looks quite swanky). I complimented him on it afterwards and he joked that I had no idea what goes on behind it. I think if he had his way he’d have a Steel Panther groupie sort of situation going on back there :P. Anyhoo my positioning naturally gave me a fabulous view of my main man and on a few occasions he even came right to the edge of the stage directly in front of me. If I didn’t know better I’d swear he does it on purpose just to torment me 😛 (obviously it’s a very sweet sort of torment and I wouldn’t give it up for the world but that’s besides the point). I did feel like I spent a good proportion of their set in a molten puddle and that had nothing whatsoever to do with the temperature.

Justin Morris

So I’m sure it comes as no surprise that overall I absolutely loved it. Seeing them play like that again, doing what they do best, was even more like a homecoming than the acoustic set. No matter what else I feel for them and no matter how complex some of my emotions are, when it comes down to it, it’s still just about that. The same as it was the very first time I saw them play, before I’d even had a chance to develop any emotions beyond ‘he’s a bit of alright’. Five guys on a stage, rocking my world.

Post-show:

So I stole Justin’s setlist almost before they’d finished playing (I was feeling determined! Kieran actually congratulated me on it as he was leaving the stage and Justin made a crack about it when I got him to sign it) and decided it was about time I got a fully signed one again, since I had my friend on photography duty so I didn’t have to juggle my camera as well as the setlist and pen (although I did have a third glass of wine to coordinate instead).

The Last Carnival – London Setlist

 

I chatted to all of them a bit, with a couple of my friends. Adam was discussing venues (I’ve now decided that they need to play the Cavern Club in Liverpool so I can see them there), I talked to Russ about the new stuff and Mike about the fans (the air blowing kind they had on stage, not the me kind). He seemed rather fond of the fans. Kieran mostly seemed disappointed that they hadn’t made Justin’s hair flap! I also raved about Beautiful to anyone who would listen and did a lot of bouncing. It possibly didn’t help that Justin was the first person I spoke to. I really need to learn to calm down after the gig before I attempt to talk to him. I can’t handle post-gig fangirling and hot guitarist fangirling at the same time. I also asked after the album, but sounds like it won’t be out until the end of the year or possibly early next. Not that I mind waiting for it to be perfect (Russ was telling me his process for picking the track list – essentially making CDs and listening to them in a way that a casual fan might – like in the car, which was far more interesting than I just made it sound), but if so they’d better do another tour between now and the album launch or I may cry. I may have moaned to Russ that I hate how between tours I barely speak to them and he pointed out he’s not really one for random chit chat. I decided I’ll have to come up with something intelligent to talk about and then message him :P.

I also saw a few familiar faces in the crowd, including other fans and a few other bands. I spotted a few of the Lost Dials boys, but I’ve never spoken to them before so didn’t intend to start this evening. I also saw Mike & Tom from Woodward (the band formerly known as Room Service) and I did talk to them a bit. It sounds like Brighton is going to be fun. And messy. Definitely messy :P. The only person I didn’t see that I’d expected to was Lawrence (the photographer), which was a shame, but there were certainly enough familiar faces to have me flitting around like a social butterfly at times. It was unexpected and rather enjoyable, especially for someone used to being the sad loner on these tours. That said, I am getting to know a few people now. Plus it seems the Colliers are coming to the Sheffield gig, so yayness! Hopefully they’ll hang around a bit and I’ll actually have a chance to catch up with them properly.

I didn’t even try to stay upstairs at kick out time, but still couldn’t quite bring myself to leave…! Two of my three friends had departed by that point, but my stalwart bestie stuck by me and kept me company while I settled in for my usual loitering. I’d already had a fair few homecoming type emotions this evening, but hanging around the van was another one. It felt so good to be back :). There was nothing overly exciting about any of it, but still. I was introduced to Tia (merch) and Benji (the photographer), neither of whom I’d met before and both of whom seemed lovely plus I chatted to various band members as they packed up. Kieran and I discussed Steel Panther & the fact I’m slightly nervous about VIP as the band are so intimidating (I mentioned the tour in general and he seemed oblivious – nice to know he pays attention to what I tell him… not sure I’ll bother next time!) plus I had a fairly good go at trying to convince him to see Rock Of Ages. I may also have ruffled his hair a bit (read: a lot).

I had a discussion with Adam about his frequent misspelling of my surname (along with the swanky new printed labels they used for this bout of ticketing; Kieran’s work, I’m lead to believe). That somehow drifted into a brief explanation of where the name actually came from plus a brief introduction to my family history. I’m sure they were fascinated… And speaking of family origins (it’s a weak segue, but bear with me), I somewhat randomly asked Justin if he spoke Welsh. My friend was thoroughly bewildered while I was just impressed I’d finally remembered to ask having been oddly curious for months (he learnt at school, but doesn’t speak it now – for those who’re interested). I also asked after Tom for some inexplicable reason (I wouldn’t usually mention him without cause) and was then thoroughly surprised to actually receive a straight answer, including a drunken anecdote. I also spoke to Tony a bit, who seemed reasonably happy that I’ll be around for lots of meandering conversations this tour! I chatted to him when he was on stage setting up too and he made a quip about Tony the Tiger as well, compete with a growl! Clearly it’s not just me :P.

Anyhoo, throughout most of this I appeared to be attempting a Marilyn Monroe impression (my skirt flew up with every hint of a breeze). I also may have been a tad tipsy throughout the various exchanges, but it was so nice to hang out with them like that again; just loitering about and nattering with whoever strayed too close.

To be honest, I don’t think I ever really calmed down all night. I built it all up so much in advance that I was still on edge right through VIP, even though (exactly as expected) I did feel a hell of a lot better as soon as I saw them all. After that, I think it was just a combination of too much wine on a relatively empty stomach and the sheer bliss of seeing them again. I was so buzzed.

Finally, the feedback from my friends all seemed positive, which makes me happy. One of them suggested she would be up for seeing them again in the future, which is always a good sign. Another of them commented that she could see why I was so captivated by Justin when he’s on stage, and the message I received from her when I got home (accompanying a rather delectable collection of photographs that she’d taken, mostly of Justin) included the words “He is quite photographable, although could be all the strutting around like a peacock :p”. Hit the nail on the head, no?!

And so! In other news, Liam Tamne is joining the Phantom Of The Opera cast as Raoul from 1st September. Liam Tamne. Phantom Of The Opera. Liam. Phantom… Given I was already excited fit to burst in anticipation of the gig tonight, I really wasn’t prepared for that sort of calibre of announcement. Not only do I now have an excuse to go back to Phantom again (and again and again…), I also have Liam back in the West End, in a far superior part (in my opinion) to Enjolras. Phantom may not be my favourite show any more, but it could well become a temporary happy place if I get to see him when I go. Can we just appreciate how awesome it will be to hear him in Down Once More? Not to mention All I Ask Of You? Serious fangirl overload and this was all before noon!

So, more Last Carnival tomorrow (and the day after that etc. etc.), but until then SQUEEEEEEEEE. It’s good to be back on tour 😀 and the immediate aftermath of the first night is always the best – that feeling of having the whole tour ahead of me… Bliss.

Peace, loVe loVe and rock ‘n’ roll,
K xx

 

[Actual publish date: 20/08/2014]

The Call Of ’56 – Live In Session

Not to be confused with the album review(s) here & here.

So they released the video when I was on my way to Brighton, which seemed almost poetic; that I was passing their hometown whilst being unable to watch the video. Mostly, though, it was just irritating as hell! Especially when I knew I was headed for Concorde 2, where they launched the album of the same name (to say nothing of that fact that I’m still sad that I couldn’t go to that gig!). In fact, I nearly gave in and watched it on the train, but I wasn’t sure how much data it would use, plus I figured the connection would probably drop out halfway through and the low quality version I initially attempted just wasn’t cutting it. So I waited. And waited. And waited.

In the end I really didn’t have as much time to fangirl over this one as I’ve had for the others. I watched it at work on Tuesday morning, when I didn’t really have time (I just couldn’t bear to wait until lunch) and the internet connection in the office is so shocking that I had to pause it more than once to let it buffer before I could continue, which ruined the flow somewhat. Still… Hands! Hair! Did I mention hands?! And the faces? There’s even jumping! Aaaaaah! So good, so good, so good! And my initial impressions from the few seconds I saw Monday night weren’t wrong either. Lots of Justin to keep me happy! Though it didn’t really improve Monday’s I miss hiiiiiiim/them mood.

So, when I said I didn’t have time, I meant it. Other than that first watch on Tuesday, I didn’t manage to find the time to give it my full attention (whilst actually being awake enough to do it justice) until Friday! Friday! It was nice though. That song, especially when accompanied by the official music video, but just in general, always reminds me of summer. It came out the day before I went to Edinburgh back in August and I recall spending a good half of my 5 hour train journey just watching it on repeat. So, Friday lunchtime, with the sun was shining seemed the perfect moment to pay it its dues, even though I still didn’t really have time. It was weird, having only watched it that one time and in something of a hurry, it almost felt like I’d not actually seen it yet, only I didn’t have the same excitement as I did when I first watched it earlier in the week. Still, when I finally hit play, I nonetheless found myself biting my lip in anticipation!

Needless to say, I was not disappointed on the second viewing either or on the slow burn third viewing that supported my writing of this post. Admittedly this video hasn’t completely broken me the way the last couple have, but I still love it to bits. So here is my loving it… in bits…!

So! Two seconds in and we’re already getting some serious Russ rock face, which is always a good start. Four seconds later and I’m already screaming Justin’s name – not literally, that would be very awkward and highly embarrassing, since I’m sat at my desk in an office full of people (although they did notice that I was sat here essentially annotating a video second by second…!). Admittedly the headbangy hair flicking at 0:09 doesn’t help much with my attempts at self control, but so far, I’m still just beaming widely at the screen… *ahem*. The beaming pretty much just continues from there with a cute little half smile from Kieran around 0:12, another niiiiice shot of Justin at 0:16 and then Russ actually starts singing…!

There’s an interesting close up of Justin’s jacket at 0:36 which I’m still not quite sure what to make of. I mean his hands are in it too, but he’s turned to the side so the overwhelming impression of the shot is pretty much just floral printed velvet (Note: I’m not judging…). There is a nice glimpse of cuffs, chains and forearm though, so I’m not complaining. They also make up for the odd angle with a proper HANDS shot five seconds later, so I’m definitely not complaining by then… Especially with the slow sweep up his body afterwards. I would quite like to personally thank the cameraman for that one. And Kieran & Adam for putting it in the final edit. Anyway, I am now going to stop flagging up every single second containing Justin, but there are plenty more of them, they are very pleasant and there is HAIR.

Moving on, I love Mike’s little side to side boppy thing, which is nicely captured from behind at 0:58 and from the front five seconds later… nicely framing another Justin moment… And er, speaking of Justin (and no I’m not in the slightest bit sorry), I would just like to draw your attention to HANDS at 1:10. I mean really, HANDS! With the wail-y high pitched note to accompany them too… *dreamy sigh*. So… Kieran! Another cute sort of not really smile at 1:15 and then, er. Hands. Justin’s hands. Again. At about 1:21. I think I might be ever so slightly fixated. I wonder if there’s a support group? Although when the angle of the shot changes to a more zoomed out, full view of him, with guitar faces and all, I’m not really much better to be honest.

Moving on again, Adam. Drum face. 1:36. Love him. There’s an interesting shot at 1:44 of… the back of Justin’s jacket? I mean it’s certainly an interesting fashion statement, but it seems to be getting a lot of attention in this video! Still, the focus sorts itself out a couple of seconds later and we’re treated to a cute little shot of Kieran, followed by much happy, awesome Russ. I feel I’m not giving him enough attention in these. He’s awesome, I love him, his voice sounds great and I’ll be back to him for his solo in a short while. Before that, though. Have I mentioned Justin yet? 1:55. Headbanging. Hair. That is all. Oh, and 2:05. Hands. Fast hands. I’m saying nothing. So 2:13, really cute Russ smile. Yay for Russ smiles. I miss him! Aaaaand then we get his solo at 2:25. He doesn’t really get as much screen time during it as I’d expect, but the finger work at 2:28 is awesome. I also love Mike’s BVs at 2:30. It’s kinda rare to hear him on his own (except during the intro bits on tour) and he sounds fab. It always catches my attention no matter how many times I watch it through.

2:41 (& 3:05 for that matter). Justin. Jumping. Yayness. 2:47. Kieran close-up. A bit adorable. Especially the pouty rock face at the end. D’aww. 2:56. Hair. Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair. I still miss his old style though. It needs more height. Or more ruffling. I could probably help him with that… (Aww, I just realised I threw in a random RoA reference and I didn’t even mean to *reminiscent sigh*). Then there’s 3:24. The hands, the HANDS. There’s something about the angle. The focus on his left hand, perhaps? I probably shouldn’t say any of the rest of the things I’m thinking at this point… What I do have to say, however, is that I have a random love of Adam’s last drum (well cymbal) hit at 3:33. I don’t think I mention him enough either. I miss him too. Anyway, the video certainly ends well; a nice drawn out note and… Justin (3:36ish). I also quite enjoyed the way the camera drops to his arse as he turns away. It’s a shame the videos fading out by that point really! I really do have so much love for that cameraman!

So! *takes a few deep calming breaths* Another fantastic video, a great performance, an awesome editing job (I’m not biased at all…) and hopefully there’s still more to come. Well there must be at least one more, anyway. If they haven’t done No Hero I’ll (I was going to say ‘eat my hat’ but I don’t wear a hat, so instead I’ll go with…) ban myself from mentioning Justin’s name for a whole entire day (and we all know I’m completely incapable of doing that, so they’ll just have to have done No Hero, right? My logic is faultless, I’m sure). On that note, anyone remember the days when I actually had some shame?! I read back the old Call Of ’56 album reviews the other week and it’s so amusing to see how terrified I was of how he might react if he saw them and I barely said anything back then. These days it’s practically just 1500 words of ‘Justin, take me now, I’m yours’. What was that about subtlety again?! Still, it’ll be interesting to see how things change next month when I’m seeing him on a regular(ish) basis again, because right now, he’s not in the slightest bit real. Hell, he’s practically Gary Barlow (and what I wouldn’t give to see his expression if he did see that comment!). Anyway, I don’t think I’d be quite so brazen if I knew for a fact that he was reading these, and I also don’t think I’d be so bad if I was still talking to him all the time either. I don’t tend to objectify real people quite so much. (Note: I do know he IS real. I also know Gary Barlow is real. But right now, neither of them are real to me). I guess my somewhat meandering point is that I don’t have anything else to cling to right now and my excess emotions or feelings or whatever they are, tend to spill out in a flurry of fangirly insanity, because it’s the only outlet I’ve got. I miss the relationship I have with him, with all of them for that matter, when they’re on tour and without it, the stuff that’s left over is pure, undiluted fangirl and I suppose that can get a bit intense…

Anyway, moving on before I talk myself in circles again, I actually asked twitter, just after the release, what jacket Justin was wearing and one of my friends came through to inform me it was still the floral creation of the previous videos. That’s five now, so I’m beginning to think it’s unlikely that the red jacket will make an appearance. Surely there can’t be that many more to come? As I said, I’ll be very surprised if No Hero doesn’t happen, and I guess Luisa Rey is probably another relative certainty. I’d be pretty surprised if that one got skipped too, though I suspect Cadillac is unlikely, sadly. That one seems to be drifting out of the setlist, which sucks, but anyway. The point is, I can’t imagine what else they might have done. Unless they started going seriously into album tracks, which would, admittedly, be pretty awesome and I’m sure I had reason to hope for There’s A Road at one point… Or they decided to destroy me completely and have recorded Teardrops… what I wouldn’t give to see that song played live just once, even if it was only in video form. Hell, a shaky, bassy video from some old show would be better than nothing, I just want to see those guitar solos!

And that’s that, for now, I’m sure I’ll be back again later with the final post of the Room 94 tour!

Peace, loVe loVe and happiness, preferably in the form of chiselled guitarists,
K xx

PS. On a far more personal note, I was actually a little concerned about how I’d react to seeing someone in this, back before I first watched it on Monday. Much as I adore them all and would happily tackle-hug any one of them given half the chance, I’ve also been fighting the urge to punch one of them (not Justin, believe it or not! Although I am still irritated by the twitter conversation from the other day… I should probably let that go…) on the nose. Fortunately, however, it seems that I’m relatively over that now and my reaction was the same silly grin as always. Quite the relief, I can tell you. It would be highly awkward if I still felt that way when I hit tour (pardon the pun).

 

Getting High

So, the Last Carnival announced the release of another Live In Session video rather sooner than I was expecting, which was slightly worrying as I’d still not recovered from Roll Over Beethoven. On that note, I had high hopes, of course, but not that high (note; ‘high’ is apparently the keyword here, not that I actually knew that when I wrote this sentence before the video was released). I mean, nothing could possibly beat the last one, right? Wrong. Oh dear G-d how can a person be so wrong? It was different, certainly, but fuuuuu… I think I’m broken again.

It actually wasn’t until over a minute in to watching it for the first time that my head finally got over ‘they actually did High’ and (after a sudden brain wave) moved on to ‘there are solos, there are solos, there are FRICKIN’ solos’ and ohhh what solos they are. So amazing… so much Justin… so dead. That song is just so damn hot and steamy and UNF!!!

And then I had to go out. In fact I was already running late and I knew I couldn’t watch it again until I got home after the show that night. I think the emotion I was feeling at the time can be summed up in the following way: Aaaaaaaaaaargh!

So, I actually didn’t watch it properly when I got home. I mean, I watched it, obviously, but only once. I was too tired and too oddly fragile to delve into my usual detailed analysis, so I left it until I felt that I was suitably capable of fangirling without some sort of emotional meltdown. Apparently that wasn’t for some time and by the time I felt stable enough to handle it, the video had already been out for several days (hence the delayed nature of the post – it should have been published on the 26th, but I only finished it today. The text above the video is more or less what I wrote down after the first run through, the remainder of the post was added later).

So I really didn’t think they were going to do High. From what I remember of our conversation about it, Russ didn’t seem to think it was likely, but oh am I glad to be wrong. I’ve loved this song from the beginning, even before I’d heard it (I saw the lyrics first, if you recall, since the CD was conveniently released on Yom Kippur…). It always does things to me and this is just… It’s just… I mean, it’s… I think I’m still broken.

Admittedly, it’s not exactly better than Roll Over Beethoven, it’s just equally enjoyable, in an intensely pleasurable way. It’s the rhythm of the song that gets me and that’s just when I hear it on the stereo. Put the boys in front of me at the same time and I’m pretty much guaranteed to melt into a puddle at their feet. Of course, the videos aren’t the same as live performances, but they have their own positives. The sound is much clearer, for one, and so are the close ups ;).

We’re brought in slowly this time; a bit of bass just to get you in the mood (with an accompanying shot of Mike, still looking ridiculously sharp and dashing in his suit), a short dialogue and then… Music. Beautiful, wonderful music. Which improves significantly at 0:19 when the guitar kicks in. Biased? Moi? Anyway, I get my first proper shot of my boy at 0:25 (although there’s a brief and out of focus cameo at 0:18), but the first particularly notable moment is at 0:35. I adore Russ’s face. I mean I adore his face generally, but his expression there is just… a collection of words I probably shouldn’t string together in this context… In fact, just to warn you, that will be happening a lot in this particular post. I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt say it again. That song does things to me. I cannot be held responsible for my actions as a result of it. Some people choose alcohol, some choose caffeine, some choose cocaine. My drug of choice is the Last Carnival and when it comes to getting high? High is my jam, baby. (Note: the previous sentence is so un-me that I feel I should qualify it somehow. The jam in my scone, perhaps? I think Helen Mirren’s WoS award acceptance speech has rubbed off…). It’s the bass line, I think (so does that make it Mike’s fault?! Incidentally, I keep watching the video with only one headphone in and the guitar solos are very one sided (Russ is right, Justin is left, in case you were wondering). Pick the wrong headphone and it sounds more like a bass solo instead… which is actually no bad thing! Go Mike!), although the wailing guitar over the top of it hardly helps matters. 0:31, anyone? *shivers*. Russ does the face thing again at 1:08, which also doesn’t do much to help my equilibrium.

So, 1:21. Me likey. Me not sure why me likey, besides the obvious, but me likey nonetheless. Hel-lo Mr Morris. Five seconds later and he appears to be doing some neck exercises, at least until he’s interrupted by some truly epic drum face from Adam and then a rather attractive close up of Russ… 1:40 and it seems Kieran’s joining in with the exercise regime (though he does look rather adorable whilst doing it). The hands don’t seem to have such a strong presence in this one, at least at first. There’s some keys and drumstick action, but guitar wise it’s mostly (upper) body shots. Which is fine too. In fact, anything which has any part of any of them in it is pretty much fine. I might be slightly in love…

Aaaand, then we hit the first solo at 2:04. This is definitely another of those moments when the words in my head are not suitable to become words on the screen. What I will say, however, is that Russell is a guitar legend. His solos are always epic and I love the version on the album recording, but this is somehow even more… [words I can’t say]. The trembling, shivering, quaking cymbal at 2:18? Yeah, that’s how I feel. Nice edit job, by the way. Then, before I have even a hope of post-solo recovery, we get 2:33. Now 2:33 is something quite special. I can’t explain why, perhaps it’s just the tiniest movement of the hair? Or the close up of the chiselled jaw line? Perhaps it’s just the air of casual awesomeness that he exudes, but for two seconds, every single time I watch this video, I am somehow transported to a realm of beauty and magic and [other words I can’t say]… alright, there might be just the teensiest bit of exaggeration and artistic license in all of that, but he still looks f***ing hot. As for 3:01? Not a clue. Also f***ing hot. I think I need help.

By 3:10 we’re into the next round of ‘da do, da da’s and I know what’s coming, I can feel it, but before I get there I need to thank Adam and Kieran for the editing once again. I love the keyboard bit at that point of the song. The ‘sweep and prod’ as it shall henceforth be known. I’m, needless to say, delighted to have a lovely close up of Kieran’s fingers at that moment. One last delay, just before I get to the moment, to comment on Russ’s ‘so come on and stroke me’ at 3:15ish. I love that lyric, I’ve always loved that lyric. It’s even better when he tacks Justin’s name on to the end of it (although he doesn’t in this), but this time? Ooof! More of those words I can’t say… And then? Ohhh, then. 3:16ish? Words, so many words. And thoughts and feelings and emotions. And so very, very few that I can record here.

To be honest, I’m a bit dead after that. Just enjoying the rest of the song in something of a blissed out daze (if I was a smoker, I’d be lighting up around then…). Although I’m apparently not dead enough to miss the expression on Justin’s face at around 4:00 when the image is already fading. Another of those ‘I have no idea why that does things to me, but it does things to me’ things.

So. Umm. Yeeeeaaaaahhhhh… Still broken.

Although, I will say, on a slightly more serious note, that I’m very aware my reviews of these videos have mostly focussed on points of lesser importance than they perhaps should have done, but I’ve been having fun with it, so what’s the harm? You all already know how much I love the music and how highly I rate all five of them as musicians. There are plenty of pretty people out there, I would never have fallen so head over heels for this lot if I didn’t think they were also phenomenally talented. Admittedly, this song is a particular favourite musically and perhaps I should have spent more time waxing lyrical over the gorgeous vocals (I love the drawn out ‘high’ in the chorus, with the blend of Russ & Mike’s voices giving it an extra depth) or the tingle-inducing guitar riff (which, along with the bass line, DOES things to me), but if I don’t write all that down, I won’t forget it. I know how much I love the song, I’ve already written about it, twice, in my blogs about The Call Of ’56 (for those of a curious nature, they can be found here: part 1 & part 2). Of course, this is different, a live recording always is, but the reasons I love it haven’t changed since the first listen. For me, what makes these videos special, is getting to see them play and I’d rather rhapsodise over how stupidly excited I get by a two second glimpse of Justin tossing his hair about or Russ pulling sexy faces than attempt a sensible analysis of musical content. I wouldn’t know what I was talking about anyway!

So, on that note, bring on the next one (Sunday, apparently) and watch this space for more second by second commentary on Justin’s left hand ;). I really do need help, don’t I?! Tom had better be back at the Shaftesbury next week. I need my distraction therapy!

Peace, loVe loVe and [more words I can’t say],
K xx

PS. On a faintly related note, I have a very strong urge to feed the trolls. I know I shouldn’t, but oh it’s so tempting! I’m not even sure what I want to say; some ambiguous statement that actually relates to something else entirely but could be completely misconstrued in the wrong context? I won’t, but I so wish I could!

PPS. I’m still not over Justin’s Stacee pics either! How he can look so ridiculous and so attractive at the same time is beyond me.

Roll Over Beethoven

So the boys, oh so conveniently, posted the link to their latest Live In Session video from their trip to Antwerp, about two minutes before I left the house for the evening. Naturally I’d have delayed my departure by a few minutes in order to watch it, but my computer chose that moment to fall over and play dead (it seemed fine, but the screen went black. As a result, I was forced to abandon it and head out, with my friend’s twitter update that I was going to love it, for Justin related reasons obviously,figurativelyringing in my ears…).By the time I actually got home I was so flustered by the evening’s events (Tom!) that it wasn’t until an hour or so later that I finally managed to settle down enough to give the video my full attention. Of course, I was literally about to hit play when the phone rang, so by the time I actually watched it, it was well past 1am (hence the date on the post). When I finally did manage to click the play button, I think I may have died and gone to heaven. My initial thoughts after watching the video for the first time are the somewhat jumbled mess of words in the following paragraph…

Oh. Dear. G-d. That was something else. I can’t actually formulate words right now. The hands… and the way they play… and all the Justin close ups… and Kieran’s solo (frickin’ awesome)… and then Justin’s solo…? I think I’m broken.

So *ahem* having taken a few minutes to calm down, have a bowl of Golden Grahams, tweet about it etc. I’ve now watched it again. I think I’m still broken. I was actually doing ok until it hit Justin’s solo and then… 2:18. That’s where it’s at. Dead. Totally dead. It lasted all of two seconds and it’s still by far the hottest thing I’ve seen all day. And I spent half of the evening gazing dreamily at Tom (and his hair). My hand actually flew to my chest in a sort of ‘clutching at my heart’ gesture the first time I saw that solo, not to mention that pseudo-scream of his at 2:18. Unf, is the word I’m looking for, I think.

So, I’ve always loved Roll Over Beethoven live simply because when they play it, they somehow manage to take it up another notch, even though two minutes earlier you’d never have believed there was anywhere higher to go. I wasn’t sure how that would translate from the finale of an incredible show, in front of a live audience, to a stand alone, neatly edited (well done Adam & Kieran, once again!) video of a studio session, but it worked better than I’d ever have dreamed. They somehow still managed to capture that sense of them being even better than they were before. It’s just such a high energy, frenetic song and they all play so damn well. Even aside from the solos, it’s just incredible to watch and they all look so into it. It’s really quite stunning on so many levels and watching it makes me feel proud to be a fan. I only wish I could get a few more of my friends to see where I’m coming from and come to one of their shows with me in a few weeks time (a few weeks! I can actually say that now! *squee*).

First off, the music starts immediately. There’s no build up, no introductory screen, nothing. They’re just in there, already rocking the hell out of me before I’ve even had a chance to catch my breath. By 5 seconds in I’m already melting over the movement of Justin’s hands and the title hasn’t even faded from the screen yet. Adam’s in there early again, pulling some of my favourite drum faces and then the camera just flits about, showing them all bopping to the beat and generally looking and sounding frickin’ awesome. And we haven’t even reached the lyrics… Once the song starts in earnest, apart from a bit of headbanging, with flicky hair, from the Morris, I was able to calm down just the tiniest bit and just enjoy the music and the thrill of watching my favourite boys rock out.

Moving on to the first instrumental bit. I adore Russ at 1:26ish. There’s just something about his expression that reminds me of watching him play live, usually only a couple of metres away from me. Oof, I love him so much! I also really love the riffy theme bit (whatever you call it) that comes immediately after, around 1:28. Also, Mike. 1:47. No idea what it is about that specific second but, I love it! I think I shall call it ‘Intense Mike’. I think I rather like Intense Mike!

Then we’re into the solos and that’s where my ability to communicate in fully structured sentences may well fail me. First up is Kieran at 1:54 and wow. I mean, seriously, frickin’ wow. I’ve seen him play, I know he’s awesome. I was still blown away. How fast do his fingers move?! Kick-ass King of the Keys, indeed! The strokey key thing he does at 1:58? The uber fast tinkly bit at 2:08? The man is amazing. Amazing! And just in case I wasn’t already psyched enough, a second later, Russ utters the, er, ‘immortal’ words… Justin Morris. I can’t even… I just… I mean… just LOOK at him! Go on, look! His hands! His fingers! His hair! Well, ish. I still miss his old hair style, but that’s besides the point. The point is hands!!! And, er, HANDS! Did I mention hands? I’m not sure I’m getting my point across… The left hand in particular is certainly worth your attention… *happy sigh*. Then there’s 2:18. I can’t quite emphasise that bit enough. Two seconds, one close up, one pseudo-rock scream, one very happy fangirl. And a pout. Can’t forget the pout either.

*Ahem* so, to be fair, as I mentioned above, I was warned about the solo in advance. My friend specifically told me that after Russ rock-screamed Justin’s name I would love it. She even put it in capitals. Still, nothing could have prepared me for that. Nothing. I really am feeling quite faint… ;).

Moving on, however… erm, where was I…? Ah yes… Russ’s face at 2:31. Another ‘you’re awesome, I love you and miss you and can it please be tour time right frickin’ now’ moment. I also somehow paused the video at around the 2:48-9 mark and ended up with a very nice screencap of Mike. I love his fancy schmancy suit, he look so cool and suave! Then, just in case I hadn’t already been utterly destroyed by solos, Russ gets his turn around 2:55. I know I rave about Justin a lot (*ahem*), but Russ’s solos are damn near legendary. This one is particularly epic and if I wasn’t already dead several times over after Kieran’s and Justin’s, Russ’s solo would definitely have done me in.

So, I’ve already mentioned that there is a lot of Justin in this video. I mean a LOT. So much so that I won’t actually bore you with every single shot of him, however, I cannot finish this without mentioning the knee at 3:30 (I still don’t really understand my fascination with the knee thing, but I’m rolling with it. It’s hot. That’s all I need to know) and the tongue at 3:31. I don’t think it would be wise to say anything further on that particular point… Nor would it be wise for me to mention the speed of his right hand at 3:45. I will just state that I noticed both and neither helped much with my attempts at calming the f*** down. It possibly also didn’t help that by this point all five of them are essentially tormenting me with the frenetic build up to the final crescendo.

In a more general sense, I like the camera work on this one. Presumably it’s not actually that different to the other two, so perhaps it has more to do with the way it was edited? Either way, aside from the plethora of Justin close ups, I love the shots of Kieran taken low down on his left hand side. They seem to keep catching him smiling, or half-smiling at least and just… d’awww. I love him, he’s so darn cute! There doesn’t seem to be as much Adam in this one. Lots of drumsticks and cymbals, but less drum face. Still, when he is in shot, I love watching him. He just gets so into it! Definitely not enough shots of his face though! I also think they’re missing in trick with percussion & bass solos. I’m still waiting for both Ads and Mike to get their turns!

It’s funny really, it’s not exactly a favourite of mine as a song (nothing against Chuck Berry, I’ve just never really listened to him), but it’s by far my favourite video and not just because there’s a lot of Justin in it! I think it just captures the live essence of the band better than any video I’ve seen of them to date. No matter how much I may fangirl over Justin (and his hands), or how fantastic a songwriter I think Russ is, or how much I just damn well adore all five of them, it’s the sheer brilliance of their live shows that will always, always have me coming back for more.

So all in all, nice one, boys! *tips imaginary hat*

Anyways, I can’t help but notice that Justin is wearing the same patterned velvet Noose & Monkey jacket in all three of the videos so far. I’m hoping that means there are still another two or three to come, because I’ve definitely seen him wearing a different one in some photo or other. Still velvet, but plain red, I believe. With a different shirt underneath. With a few buttons undone. Not that I tend to notice these things… *cough*.

Anyway, it’s not exactly other news, but on a more personal note; I really do seem to be doing ok at the moment, despite the impression I might give in the explosion of fangirling above. The words ‘over’ and ‘him’ no longer sound like a far distant dream, but rather my new reality. It may have taken me a long time to get here and I’m still not convinced I won’t have a relapse at some point (jealousy is a very cruel mistress indeed), but it is certainly progress. I think spreading the fangirling about a bit is helping as well, so thank you VERY much Mr. Deering ;).

And I think that is really quite enough of that!

Peace, loVe loVe and 2:18 ;),
K xx

A Fangirl’s Interlude

So I wasn’t going to blog today, since I didn’t have a show and I’m still playing catch up from the last few days, but I had stuff to say, so I figured why not… And most of the stuff I have to say is NATHAN and also The Last Carnival, because, well, when don’t I have stuff to say about them, but first NATHAN!

I will start off by saying this: As a general rule, I do not watch reality TV. I can’t stand those shows and even Gary Barlow isn’t enough to keep me watching X-Factor for long (I couldn’t even manage a single episode last year), but as these things go, The Voice is better than most, if for no other reason than the lack of novelty acts – at least they can all sing from the get go. Anyhoo, I watched (bits of) it for Liam Tamne last year, so I’ll certainly be watching (still just bits of) it for Nathan Amzi this year. Nathan. The lovely, wonderful, uber talented, stupidly hard-working, kick-ass Nathan. The first Rock Of Ages cast member to really speak to me, the man who had be sobbing like a baby when I had to say my final Garrick goodbye to him, the man who gives THE best hugs in the West End (actually, he gives the best hugs, period. Even better than Russ & Big T, though don’t tell them I said that!).

So, I didn’t actually see him on TV as I was out when the episode aired, but I’d been informed that they barely showed him at all on the programme, which is a travesty really, but fine. He is on youtube at least and that’s where I went first to catch up on what I’d missed, before checking out his cameo on the actual show via iPlayer. I’d seen enough of my fellow ROAdies talking about his audition online and many of them mentioned tears, yet it still took me by surprise when I watched it and promptly got completely choked up. My hand even flew to my mouth when Ricky turned and I already knew that Nathan was on his team! I am so damn proud to be a fan of his right now. He deserves so much success and I know he’ll have his ROAdies behind him every step of the way. We love you, Nathan, rock on!

And for those poor souls who’ve never had the pleasure of his vocal talents (or for those who just want to watch him again and again and again), check him out here:

And also here if the above wasn’t enough for you ;):

So, next up on today’s fangirling agenda, we have The Last Carnival. Shocker. So the next live in session video, The Scream Boy Shuffle, was released this evening; while I was out, damnit! I knew it was there, waiting for me, calling to me, and I had to wait HOURS until I got home to watch it. It possibly didn’t help my impatience levels much that my friend was messaging me telling me that there was lots of Justin, lots of hair and lots of hands! I mean, seriously. HAAAAAAAAAANDS!!! There were so many close-ups of fingers on strings (and a few keys) and SO many close-ups of Justin’s hands. I may have swooned. A few times. Ok, a lot of times. He’s also in shot more than he was in Too Many Dreams, I think, although tempting as it is, I’m not planning on doing a detailed analysis of his respective screen times between the two.

So, there was no waiting nearly a minute for that chiselled face of his, he’s in it from the very beginning and by 30 seconds in, we’ve already got HANDS! Not just his, I’d like to point out. Russ & Mike get their fair share of fingers on strings action, but for some reason they just don’t quite grab my attention in the same way. Funny that. Anyhoo, hand wise, there is some truly beautiful footage at about the 0:55 mark, particularly of his left hand, which I happen to have a particular fondness for. Moving on from Justin’s fingers for a moment, Russ seems particularly smiley in this one, which is always a pleasure to see! He always looks like he’s having an absolute blast whenever he’s playing and it just makes him even more enticing to watch. Although I do like the fact that you can see Justin’s shadow headbanging on the wall next to him in the wider angled shots (check it out around 1:30 & 2:25)! I’m sure there’s a Peter Pan reference in there somewhere too, though I think in this particular tale I’d be more likely to be cast as Tink than Wendy. There are also a couple of shots from around 2:32 with the headbanging actually on camera and I see some slight movement in the hair department. I do miss his old hair though, which is weird, given it’s even longer now, so more to mentally ruffle, but it’s too… down. Give me his No Hero hair any day (although having said that, I was inspired to go and watch it again, only to notice that the video has vanished from youtube… whaaaaaa?!). At 2:07 we get pouty lips and a knee. I’m not sure why I feel that to be noteworthy, but I’ve just written it down, so apparently something in me feels it to be so. Anyways, back to the fact this is not a one man band, despite the way I sometimes talk. Mike is rather bouncy in a rather adorable way, Kieran looks absolutely fantastic (not that he doesn’t always, but he looks particularly dreamy in this) and we’re also treated to plenty of drum face from Adam! I also forgot to mention it last time, but Kieran & Ads definitely deserve props for the editing job. Top notch, boys, top notch. I can’t wait to see the rest of them, whatever they may be. For my part, I’m still hoping for High or There’s A Road. Or Teardrops, but, well, as if. I would pay good money to see that one live, though *sigh*.

In other news, the blog hit 40,000 views today! (It was stuck on 39,999 for AGES, but I could see today’s views slowly ratcheting up, so I figured it was just a calculation timings thing and sure enough, it then jumped to 40,012). Not bad for a blog I thought nobody read until recently! To be fair, it’s nearing its 3 and a half year anniversary, but then there are still months of missing posts which I still have to go back and fill at some point (it’ll probably never happen, but I’m not giving up hope yet)! Anyway, I’ve been relatively amused by the tag cloud of late, mostly because it still reflects all the old stuff that I used to rave about as well as the new. For one, even though I doubt I’ve so much as mentioned him in years, Steelicious is still holding his ground! Today seemed like a nice day to capture it as it is, though, so here it is. I wonder how it’ll change over the coming months. Who’s name will be jumping out of the background this time next year? (If Tom doesn’t make it in there by the end of next month, I will be thoroughly gobsmacked!)

Tag Cloud Feb ’14

On a somewhat different subject, though still related to fangirling, there has been some drama on twitter over the last day or two, which I initially had no intention of mentioning at all, but after some internal debate I decided to cover it to some extent. I’m still not sure it’s the wisest course of action, but if I say nothing I’ll only confuse myself when I read back on recent blogs and can’t understand my own obscure references. Anyways, I’m not going to go into detail, but for the most part, all it’s really done is puzzle me. It would seem someone has taken a dislike to me (and a couple of my friends) and I genuinely don’t know why. I don’t mean that in an ‘I’m so wonderful, everyone should love me’ way, I just sense that there is a reason behind it, something I’ve said or done, perhaps, and I can’t work out what it could be. I’ve barely spoken to the people involved before, and I don’t know what the catalyst could have been either. Admittedly, aside from an unprovoked and surprisingly vicious attempt to pull Justin into it at the start, it hasn’t exactly impacted me directly in any meaningful way. It did, however, leave me supremely thankful once again that I did not have to deal with facebook or twitter when I was at school. Struggling with fragile relationships over MSN messenger, on a dial-up connection, late at night when the phone line was free, was quite bad enough!

I’m old enough and wise enough (ha!) to be largely impervious to baseless attacks from people who don’t know me. At sixteen, however, I certainly wasn’t and sometimes I truly pity all the teenagers in this age of social media. Yes, there are positives, many of them, but the negatives at times can be truly horrendous. Bullying has always been a problem and, sadly, I’m sure it always will be, but standing up in the playground in front of everyone and calling some kid ugly to their face takes a very different person to the kind who’ll say it from behind a computer screen and the perceived anonymity of the internet. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think there are a lot less of the former than the latter. Until recently, I’ve never been subject to a direct attack before. I’ve seen it happen to friends and strangers alike, but having now experienced it first hand, it worries me. I can’t imagine the darker side of the internet changing for the better any time soon and this is the world I hope to one day bring my own children into. The trouble is, aside from the trolls and cyberbullies who really are just nasty pieces of work, there are also hundreds of regular kids doing just as much damage. They’re ones that don’t understand the kind of damage they can cause with a few cruel words and it’s so very easy to start something that you had no intention of starting. How often do people type something into a status box in a fit of anger or frustration (or *ahem* drunkeness)? And once it’s out there, there is no getting it back. When it’s all just some big joke with your friends and you don’t see the hurt you’re causing, how do you know to stop? Moreover, how can you possibly protect your children from the kind of abuse behaviour like that leads to? And that’s quite enough on that topic, I mean, kids? Eek! *Descends from soapbox with a slightly sheepish grin*.

And finally, moving on from my brief analysis of social interaction in the digital age… I have a, possibly (probably) temporary, new resolution. No more drama. (Yes I know the last section was all about drama, but that was other people’s drama, not mine). If I want to tweet, I will tweet. If I get ignored, I will brush it off and move on. That ‘life is too short’ thing from the other week (see Rock & Reminiscing)? Well, I think I’ve finally worked out what it means to me. This whole thing from start to finish (not that it’s finished, but you know what I mean) has been ‘madness’ indeed and it’s just not worth the stress or the heartache. Life is too short to let other people pull you down for no damn reason at all and though I’m not actually talking about Justin at this precise moment, that goes for him as well.

On that note, he tweeted an Extreme lyric earlier (which is what prompted the above epiphany) and I had a bizarre urge to reply to the brick wall (which I did). I didn’t know the line, but I easily found the source of it via google and then ended up listening to the band for the rest of the day. I can certainly see why he likes them so much; the guitar is incredible. Until today, the only Extreme song I knew was More Than Words and Rock Of Ages connections aside, I never much liked it, so I never bothered looking into the band any further. Apparently that was a grave error in judgement. If nothing else, Justin has certainly broadened my knowledge of music and for that I offer him my humble thanks. Although I did nearly jump out of my skin when I suddenly realised I was listening to More Than Words. It would be far too easy for me to show everyone how I feel and I suspect that sobbing into my tea whilst sat in the office would be generally frowned upon. Needless to say, I was not impressed when it happened again! Though this time I caught it at the intro and the desperate lunge for the skip button was a tad less dramatic.

Anyway, perhaps I’m just too tired to think straight after staying up so stupidly late last night, let alone stress about nothing, but even if it only lasts for a day, that’s better than nowt. At least I got away with sending a stress-free tweet! It may have helped that I got a retweet from The Last Carnival too and, far more excitingly, a reply from Mr Lonsdale. Who, incidentally, is my current phone wallpaper (the panda cub wasn’t going to last forever no matter how cute he was, I need a hot man in my life on a regular basis, even if I only get to see him when I get my phone out to obsessively check twitter). Now if only I could get the complete set, that would be fantabulous… Tom, I’m looking at you… 😛

So, back to shows as usual tomorrow night and I’m off to see Marcel Lucont with a friend of mine. We actually saw him in Edinburgh, as part of a comedy Countdown show, and were both suitably entertained to choose to see him again. I’m not too sure what to expect, but I’m quite looking forward to it.

Peace, loVe loVe and happiness,
K xx

Too Many Dreams Have Gone

So I knew the first live in session video (filmed when The Last Carnival were in Antwerp last month) was coming. In fact, I was actually relieved I didn’t go out tonight, just so I could be home to see it as soon as they posted it. When it actually came time though, when the tweet appeared with the link to youtube… I was terrified. It’s been twelve days (not the roundest of numbers, but oh well) since I stopped listening to their music, stopped watching their videos and put away all (well, most) of my pictures. It hasn’t been that long since I’ve contacted them, because aside from a certain person, that was never part of the detox rules (and I broke the golden rule often enough anyway), but still, I’ve certainly been feeling the distance. I doubt there’s been more than a day or two when I haven’t listened to something of theirs since July, so just cutting myself off like that was one hell of a change and a really difficult one to make. Then suddenly, the end was here, with almost no warning at all, save a tweet or two hinting at it earlier this afternoon and I was scared. It took me a good couple of minutes before I could psyche myself up to click the link, despite the fact I wanted desperately to see it the moment it was publicly available, but finally, heart pounding, I hit play…

From the first moments, seeing them all again, hearing that music… It was heart-wrenching in the most beautifully painful way. I’ve missed them so much these last twelve days and it was only seeing the video that really brought it home. Whether they want to be or not they have become a huge part of my life and no amount of theatre fangirling (over Tom or anyone else) is going to be able to replace them, no matter what the weird & twisted connections may be. I was scared to end the detox for a reason and I think I was perfectly right to be so terrified. Seeing them, seeing him… How can I keep my distance now? How can I possibly stay away?

As for the video itself? Well Too Many Dreams Have Gone is a beautiful song and one I’ve always wanted to see done live anyway (properly live, I mean, rather than just the intro version on tour). Although a video will never be the same as actually seeing it, a live session is about as close as you can get. I also love videos of the band when it’s just them and this was perfect. Lots of arty focus shots and lots of me watching the blurry background for a certain guitarist, but it was all I could have hoped for. A stunning performance of the song, sufficient screen time for each one of my boys and I even got a few close ups of Justin’s hands. It was beautiful and I have missed them so damn much these last couple of weeks that it took me a good ten minutes or so before I was capable of formulating my emotions into anything other than random words and disjointed phrases. I still don’t really feel even remotely stable, but I at least feel ready to watch it again and again and again…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrKxvjrpe1Y

It’s amazing; from the very first shot of Russ, my heart leaps. It’s like coming home, only far more exciting. I’ll also add at this point that my heart has been racing since they first posted the link and over an hour later it still hasn’t completely calmed down. There’s just so much to love right from the start; more than enough to make me melt. There’s Russ, with his guitar and his voice and his hair, Kieran’s hands again, not to mention his adorable face, which still makes me grin every time I see it. There’s Mike looking all suave in his suit and sounding fabulous on BVs… Admittedly it’s not until 45 seconds in before I get so much as a glimpse of Justin and even then it was just a blur in the background really, but ohh… especially when ten seconds later I get a proper shot, complete with wailing guitar… and of course the hands around 1:16 really are something special. To be fair, poor Adam doesn’t even get a look in until 1:40 when the drums kick in, but there are some lovely over the shoulder shots there (and plenty more to come) before it’s back to Justin for another hands moment. After that it’s a whole mishmash of awesome until 2:41 when I finally get my moment. The moment. The infuriating, head-banging, velvet-jacketed, BEAUTIFUL moment. Man. It’s worrying how long it took me to realise why he’s out of focus at 3:08.

I really have missed them so very, very much. I don’t think I could ever do what I’ve just done for the last 12 days again, no matter how much good it’s done me. I guess I just need to stay focussed on what I want and what I need. I’m not sure how well those things marry up at the moment, which does make things a tad awkward, but it’s all I can do. Admittedly if I were to get a reply from Tom so I can actually plan my week, that would help a fair bit… *waits patiently*.

Peace, loVe loVe and far too many dreams,

K xx

PS. It’s odd, yet somehow the song my head still keeps going back to is My Eyes Adored You. I don’t think the lyrics, even just from the chorus, are entirely appropriate in the circumstances, but some of it? Well it’s vaguely fitting. So close, so close and yet so far…