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…)]
So Currently Captivated 