The Rest Of Him [AI:70 T:15]

American Idiot: 70, Tour: 15 (Stalls BB14 – Palace Theatre, Manchester)

General disclaimer: There are random spoilers of varying levels in this, which I have made no attempt to flag up. You have been warned.

We returned to Nero to pass the time between shows, then headed back to the theatre for the evening. My Friend and I were front row this time, but over in the side block on Steve’s side, which meant we didn’t have a hope in hell of being able to see our band boys. On which note, I’m not sure it should really be called Steve’s side any more… Flat side? Knee side? Not Alexis’s side? Stage left :P? Anyway, we had a free seat next to us, which our Pal moved into at the interval, but prior to that we were tempted to offer it to Alexis, who we could see hanging around at the back of the auditorium with Racky before it started (we thought he was leaving with Karina after the matinee, but evidently not). The boys came in and also headed to the back, with Lucas hanging around with them and Llandyll standing on his own on the other side. I nearly got a crick in my neck looking round constantly and they only came down in time to climb on stage, so there was no sexy jumping on speakers this evening. Sucks.

So we may not have been able to see much of the band, but the plus point of our seats was the sound. We were right by the speakers, which I usually wouldn’t expect to be a good thing, but for once it was the vocals that were loud, not the bass. We could hear them all so well and it sounded awesome. We also got to hear a few of the throwaway comments that I assume don’t get properly picked up by the mics, so are usually indistinct and quiet, but were suddenly a lot louder today. For one, we heard Steve call Cellen a dick at the start of Suburbia :P.

And speaking of Suburbia, something wonderful happened… When Steve was hanging from the upper level on their way to the 7-11, Matt decided to go the extra mile when pulling Steve’s trousers down. Well, I suppose he just went an extra foot or two, but what a difference 18 inches can make… Although I probably shouldn’t be talking about inches right now… I digress. Matt yanked Steve’s trousers, and his pants, right down to his knees. With Steve still hanging by both hands there wasn’t much he could do in the immediate aftermath, but after a split second he let go with one hand and grabbed himself, then dropped to the ground and pulled everything back up with the same furtive glance round as usual. He wasn’t phased at all! Apparently Matt was pissing himself, but by the time I was able to tear my gaze away from Steve, he was just a little smilier than he might otherwise have been at that moment. I was also told that when Alice walked by she wiggled her little finger at him, but sadly I missed that little comedic gem too. Still, it was epic. A truly magical moment of Idiot history! We did wonder if they’d been reading the blog though; My Friend is still berating me for the post I published last week about her wanting to see ‘the rest’ of Steve and now we have! Well, kinda. I mean, he did have his back to us, but there was definitely some form of shadowy movement between his legs. I’m pretty sure I saw something swinging, at least… :P. Who says dreams don’t come true?!

So… I’m not really sure how I’m meant to continue after all that, but I have plenty more to say, so continue I must. And after a lot of giggling, we managed to pull ourselves together enough to focus on the rest of the show. Lucas threw a massive handful of popcorn in Steve’s face, which lead to Steve looking up and away from him with the most adorably sulky ‘why me?’ pout on his face. As if butter wouldn’t melt… :P. Llan then jumped on Steve’s back when he was doing the penguin dance, which did cut short the flapping, but was otherwise rather funny and kinda hot. I also got to watch Lucas in Dearly Beloved one last time and I loved the way he adjusted his glasses when he was squinting down at the back of the pregnancy test box. Also, Alexis and now Cellen have been ‘scaring’ away the girls (and boys) on the stage when the trio come on for Tales and there’s been a lot of barking at Karina. Only Karina was off today, so Lucas got the brunt of Tunny’s rough-housing instead and whilst that was funny at the matinee, poor Lucas looked horribly startled when Cellen chased after him this evening, glancing nervously back over his shoulder as he darted off the stage like a frightened deer. Josh can be such an adorable, dorky little thing sometimes. When he’s not throwing popcorn in Steve’s face. And when he’s not being all lascivious in Holiday. I really have loved having him on that bus!

In other news, I’ve been particularly loving Matt’s guitar case work before Holiday. I always thought the way he held it up like a big gun was cute, but the way he keeps shifting, aiming it in different directions, before Tunny calls him out on it, is adorable and just makes the moment even better. As for Holiday, Bang Bang was a bit of a lost cause, although I did have a quick look just in case. Sadly all I could see was a bit of fluff floating about above the sofa. Also f***tard was baaaack! We’ve grown rather fond of that word over the last few weeks (I’m actually slightly concerned at how well it’s infiltrated my every day vocabulary!) and until this evening Cellen wasn’t saying it. It’s been sorely missed!

The guitar was still wrong in Boulevard, although I’m not sure what was up with it this evening. Poor Matt really isn’t having much luck with it. On the plus, the screens do seem to finally be properly fixed and Favourite Son was on point. Although I think it was then that I found myself watching Nick’s hand where I could just see it in the gap between the sofa and the stage… It’s not quite the same as, ya know, actually watching him play, but it was still nice to catch a glimpse :P. Another example of the excellent vocal sounds (although this bit is usually fairly distinct anyway), was when we heard Alice encouraging Lawrence when they were setting up Johnny’s bedsit post-Waiting. She kept shouting things at him like ‘you’re better than this’!

So, it wasn’t quite the Matt show I’ve been promising to have at some point, but I did make a point of watching him at the start of St Jimmy, even when Lucas exploded onto the stage. I loved his sort of ‘what have I created/summoned?’ expression when he looked over at Lucas standing on the bed. I should probably watch him again and try and catch a few more nuances while I have the chance, especially since I then got distracted by Lucas…! He did amuse me when he responded to Matt’s ‘are you talking to me?’ with something along the lines of ‘I’m pointing at you’! And he threw in his old ‘dance for me, b*tches’ line, which I was so excited about that I did a little ‘yay’ clap without even thinking about it. Fortunately it’s a loud number, because otherwise that would have been fairly inappropriate! Plus he kinda threw the pills in our direction (even though we were miles away) and grinned at us from the toilet. Double yay! He also did this sorta cutesy bouncing his head from side to side before the ‘told you so’ line, that was odd, but I rather liked. He didn’t shout again at the end, so I’m actually pretty worried about his voice, because he only usually does that when he’s struggling, but aside from that he’s been sounding ace all day, so maybe it’s just an acting choice? He was so camp though!

Lucas scared the hell out of both Matt and himself with his badges line tonight, then Steve was so stoned in Novacaine that he couldn’t even move properly. He went to climb onto the sofa and sort of half lifted his foot, but then couldn’t coordinate stepping up onto the seat. He also seemed to be having a conversation with the bong and in the process made me laugh rather a lot. I also noticed him picking bits of fluff from the frayed edge of one of the holes in the left knee of his jeans, but I’m not sure when that was. It made me giggle though, what with the fluff and the knee and all… I have a vague recollection that he caught me watching him doing it too and he wasn’t the focus of whatever scene he was in, so maybe it was later on. Or earlier. I have no idea, but I totally busted him destroying his trousers. If he wants to pull them to shreds, I’m sure My Friend would be more than happy to assist him :P. And speaking of The Knee, Steve totally looked at us when he was standing on the sofa during Rebel. I also noted that he did ‘loads of knee stuff’, but I’m not quite sure what I meant. Maybe there was extra wiggling?

After returning to pointing the weed out to Lawrence this afternoon, Steve apparently decided he was being too helpful so this evening he just said something like ‘no idea mate’ when Lawrence was searching the ground for it during Too Much. On a less pleasant note, someone shouted out really rudely when Matt was doing the heroin scene, telling him to get on with it. Whilst I will admit that after 70 shows, I’m somewhat less captivated by that scene than I was at the start, I was still utterly disgusted. Even if you did feel it was dragging, that’s no excuse to heckle, especially in such a charges scene. It  was completely unnecessary and made even worse by the fact that it was really near the beginning of that section anyway. I was fuming. Then the audience decided the second act would be the perfect time to die. I know the first act is louder, so perhaps the music just drowned them out, but the amount of coughing in the second act was ridiculous. Shut up!

I’ve started focussing on Matt a lot in Guns, just because he’s so intense and broken, he’s fascinating to watch. The way he laughs to himself like he’s completely lost to reality, before suddenly switching emotions to the point that he looks like he’s about to burst into tears. Not to mention the way he moves; hitting the sides of his head with his hands, then vaguely waving his hands about or reaching out towards nothing tangible… It’s captivating. Then I looked over at Cellen and realised his hands were badly shaking and that just ripped my heart out. His gutwrenching sadness pulls at my heartstrings anyway, but I don’t think I’d previously noticed that extra physical expression of his inner torment and pain (not to be confused with his physical pain, which by this point doesn’t seem to be bothering him so much). Obviously I’m a sucker for punishment, so after being metaphorically brought to my knees by Matt and Cellen, I apparently thought the best thing to do at this juncture was to look at Steve. I don’t know if I genuinely thought that would be less painful than the other broken members of their trio or if I just had an urge to look at him, but Steve was so sulky and sad, it just made it even worse. I nearly cried.

I did perk up in Letterbomb, however. When the boys stumbled on and Matt fell over as usual, Lucas took his hand and pulled, starting to help him up, then let go halfway so Matt fell back down again. It was funny anyway, but listening to Lucas laugh his arse off over it too just made me giggle even more. He’s such a meanie :P. Although on the flip side, when Matt started attacking the wall with the paintbrush in Death (he’s really quite violent about it), Lucas seemed completely deranged. His laughter as he crawled across the stage sounded almost manic and he also stopped at the foot of the bed, grabbed a handful of leaves and threw them in the air. I’ve never seen him do anything like that before, but it was kinda perfect. The move was playful and childish, but his look and manner was so far removed from that, it just made him look completely unbalanced, like a mental patient in an old Hollywood style asylum.

I believe the rest of the show played out as usual, since I didn’t note anything down, but Steve cracked us up in Whatsername. He’d already thrown half of the cushions off of the sofa in an earlier fit (I assume before descending in Rock GF, although I don’t recall noticing that), but rather than reassembling his living room the way he usually does, instead he pulled the rest of the cushions off the sofa, dumped them all on the floor, then lay down in the fetal position on the bare frame…! It was bizarre and hilarious anyway, but then Cellen decided to clear up for him and returned all the cushions to the sofa, piling them up on top of Steve’ prone form and sprawling on top of the whole heap of cushions and fluff! It was brilliant! Steve put up with that for longer than I expected him to, but eventually he burst out of his padded cave, partially reassembled his sofa and the two of them spent the rest of their part of the song pretending the walking stick was a microphone and taking it in turns to rock out into it – they got quite into it too.

It was a fun end to the show, with lots of smiles from the stage. There was also a standing ovation pre-Riddance, which I believe we joined when the band came out, after all, it was band day! We then got to stay standing right through the encore, which aside from just being awesome meant that I could finally see Nick properly. Yay! Plus it’s rather fun clapping along with him, I’m still so glad he does it. Other than that, Steve and Llan simultaneously strummed each other’s guitars and meanwhile, I managed to resist running over to the barrier (around the orchestra pit) like I was at a rock concert. I’m actually fairly proud of that last point. There was such a massive empty space between our seats and the stage, I so wanted to move, but I refrained. I am a saint. :P.

So we had another lovely little chat while we waited at stage door, regarding whether a fan we’ve never actually met was scared of us or not (I mean we’re obviously terrifying…). My Friend argued that we’re like pussycats so I agreed with a hiss and my fingers curled into claws, scratching through the air. Miaow :P. Anyway, we saw Alexis again and I got a lovely cuddle from him before he headed off. We saw Racky briefly too, who told us she’d been waving to us from the wings, but evidently we didn’t see her! Although, to be fair, there’s not a lot that can distract us from our boys :P. She didn’t hang around long either, but gave us all hugs and told us she’ll see us for Matt’s last show in Oxford. We waved to Alice and Matt too, but didn’t stop them as they seemed to have places to be, but chatted to Cellen and Lawrence for a bit. We complimented Lawrence once again on his stellar cheering work and told him how much we love it, especially with the way he was pushing Alice out of the way to get to Tunny first and his interaction with the screen. He suggested that might be a but crude, but we assured him it was brilliant! We added that we wanted it to be a regular thing, but he pointed out it’s a bit crazy, with a super fast change, although he did admit that he enjoys it once he’s on. Plus he’s got the timing down now, hence reappearing early enough to do the Waiting choreography with Llandyll, which he didn’t manage the first time we saw him cheer.

Steve and Amelia came out together with their little matching scooters and we had a lovely chat with both of them. We welcomed Amelia back and she assured us she was happy to be back. Then someone questioned if they were planning to scoot all the way home…! Steve politely informed us that they were only scooting/scootering(?) as far as the car :P. We then inevitably ended up talking about the extra nudity in this evening’s performance… And that somehow ended up with Steve regaling us with a fascinating tale in which he ran on stage stark naked during Bowling For Soup’s set when Son Of Dork supported them. Apparently he whirled ‘it’ around like a windmill (he mimed that bit…). He’s really not shy, that boy! Anyway, he then went on to explain how Jaret stopped to introduce him to the crowd, but in illustration of his point, Steve threw his arm out to the side and accidentally smacked a passing girl in the face… Fortunately there was no harm done and she saw the funny side, but he had to stop his story to apologise profusely. It was f***ing hilarious! Anyway, he then asked if we’d seen anything, so I said no… (I didn’t add the dot dot dot out loud, but I think it was implied). I mean we didn’t really see anything, just a shadow… :P. My Friend, on the other hand, simply refused to commit to anything. Although at some point I definitely said he should turn round next time… Apparently I’m only marginally less shameless than he is…!

So, we held him to his earlier promise and got him to pose for our photo with his fluff out (which is lamentably not a euphemism). He did check with My Friend if she was happy with the fluff, but she was rather noncommittal! We also made him give his scooter to Emma to hold so that it wouldn’t be in the way (he had carrier bags hanging from both handles so couldn’t let it go). We really are very bossy and demanding. Emma was perfectly obliging, but did then photobomb, so… :P. We also chatted about the return to London and the fact that they obviously knew when we were fishing last week, but couldn’t say anything. I then ended up telling them far more than they needed to know about our ticket stressing yesterday and how I was going a bit mental in the office and entertaining all my colleagues trying to get the website to work so we could get the specific seats we wanted for the last shows. I really need a better filter in these situations. When people already know you’re a bit mad, surprising them with extra crazy is generally considered inadvisable. Anyway, they headed off after that, but evidently didn’t get far, because a few moments later Steve reappeared to check if we’d enjoyed the sofa antics in Whatsername! We assured him that we did and he added that it was ‘something for the blog’, before heading off for real. We were rather chuffed that he cared enough to ask though and I was fairly amused that he mentioned the blog too :P.

So Emma was around for a while, but we didn’t really talk to her much today. We did have a proper chat with Jemma though, so that was rather lovely. After a while, Lucas appeared and said that he had to go back inside, but he’d nipped out for a cigarette and to see us. I was fairly chuffed about that too! We had a good old chat about the venue; how much he’d enjoyed it and how great the crowds have been. I admitted I looked round a couple of times at the end, just to soak up all those people cheering for our boys (I didn’t mean to say that last bit aloud, it just sorta slipped out. It possibly sounded a tad weird and possessive… Hopefully he didn’t really notice). My Friend commented that she’d noticed how well the tickets had sold after Amelia’s TV segment at the start of the week and he agreed that TV promotion makes a massive difference, but apparently it’s really hard to get the slots. It would seem that shows tend to end up low down on the list and they all want the air time, so there’s tough competition too. We mused that having Amelia and Newton might help with that later on in the tour (much as I hate it, I can’t deny the fact that names make a difference. I still wish it weren’t the case though. I’m really going to miss Matt 😦 ). When Lucas headed back inside we asked him to get Alex as we needed him to complete our photo set, since we didn’t see him after the matinee, but Lucas reckoned he’d be another hour packing stuff up. We had to get our Pal to the coach station, but figured we may as well wait until we absolutely had to leave, especially since we hadn’t see Llan yet either. In the end it all paid off and we still got her to the station in plenty of time, so yay.

When Llandyll came out, we made up for missing him earlier with a lovely chat about his plans for his week off and the various places he was off to visit (Liverpool to see a pal and Scotland to visit his family, his sister and the bump. It is absolutely adorable how excited he is about the bump!). We also saw Nick again and asked him what he was up to in his week off, but rather unsurprisingly he’s not actually having a week off. He told us he’s also a photographer and has a bunch of photography things to do next week including shooting a music video and some corporate stuff. We actually already knew he was a photographer (it doesn’t take a whole lot of ‘research’ to work that one out, it’s on all his social media), but didn’t like to admit it in case we scared him off :P. Tommaso was next and chatted for ages, which was rather lovely. He’s so talkative now compared to when we were back at the Arts. I guess we’ve not managed to scare him off yet either :P. Although speaking of which, when we talked to him about ‘our’ seats at the Arts, he knew exactly where they were! He also told us that it had been a quick getout this evening and they’d all been wearing hard hats whilst doing it, which he was very amused by. Apparently Nick has some photos so they should pop up on instagram in the near future [Edit: I’d forgotten about this, but no photos have since materialised and it’s possibly a bit late/weird to ask after them now… Sucks]. He was also one of the few not heading home tonight although he was off to meet Rob at the pub, so I’d have expected him to want to rush off. He did seem perfectly content to hang around with us for an extended period though :).

Alex and Lucas came out together and Lucas commented that we were still there, in a way that suggested he was pleased we were still there to see Alex. They also mentioned that it had been a quicker get out than they’d expected. Alex seemed a bit distracted and was lamenting his lost iPhone charger, but we made him read our shirts anyway :P. We also got our photo with him and Tommaso kept offering to help, even though we assured him multiple times that we were fine as our Pal was our photographer (she’s got a fancy camera and is really rather good at that sort of thing. Her photos of the Idiots at the Oliviers were gorgeous). He was very sweet though! We said we’d get a photo with Tommaso and Lucas too, but then it didn’t quite happen… oops. Alex then randomly started singing I Wanna Rock… He’s such an odd boy. Adorable, but odd :P. Anyway, he was driving Lucas home so they didn’t hang around long as it was already late, but I still managed to end up moaning about not seeing them for three whole weeks before they left. Lucas commented that I was going cold turkey, although I did admit that since I’d coped with the break between London and tour, I’d probably manage. I still pouted at them a lot though and Lucas looked like he thought I was a bit mad (he’s right, but that’s not the point) and I’m pretty sure he was laughing at me… Oh well!

We all went our separate ways then and My Friend and I escorted our Pal to the coach station before heading back to our hotel, all of which was conducted with much fangirling and chatter about the day and, of course, a detailed discussion about seeing ‘the rest’ of Steve ;).

Peace, love & lets hope he turns around next time… 😛
K xx

[Actual publish date: 29/4/16]

Sixty Nine [AI:69 T:14]

American Idiot: 69, Tour: 14 (Stalls BB17 – Palace Theatre, Manchester)

General disclaimer: There are random spoilers of varying levels in this, which I have made no attempt to flag up. You have been warned.

So this one was a tad far for a road trip, but the train journey up was just as fun. My Friend had a headphone splitter for her iPod, so we still had the Idiot playlist to bop along to and fortunately the two women sharing our table didn’t seem to mind the fact we occasionally sang a few ‘did you’s and ‘when you’s at each other. I suspect the bottle of prosecco they were sharing helped ease any irritation they may have felt towards us, which was fortunate since we have 4 different versions of 21 Guns on the playlist! The bears accompanied us, as always, and I passed much of the journey working on the beanie I’m crocheting for Willbear. We also had a bit of twitter interaction with the boys, which certainly helped to spice up the trip and raised our excitement levels even higher. When we got to Manchester, we headed straight for the theatre, picked up the tickets and mused over the cover list; we already knew from twitter that Alexis was off again (we also knew he’d come up yesterday to do last night’s show, but it wasn’t til later that we found out what had happened), but we weren’t expecting Karina to be off as well, so that was a bit of a blow, especially when we were already gutted about Alexis. I really bloody miss that man :(. On the plus, at least Amelia was back and with two people off I realised I’d get Lucas on the bus again and singing a different line to last week, so yay! Silver lining and all that. Anyway, we loitered outside the theatre for a bit, but felt like divs so went to have a brew instead. Annoyingly, the cafe I remembered being opposite the theatre had closed down, so we ended up at a Nero down the road, which was less conductive to stalking cute boys. Nick and Tommaso did walk past while we were getting our drinks though, so aside from being gutted that we only missed bumping into them by a couple of minutes, we still got to squee over boys :P.

My Friend and I were never quite in agreement over what happened that resulted in us not being front row, but there’s a suspicion that it was another one where the venue screwed us over and added a row in front without bothering to tell us. Not that second row was awful, but it was a bit of a kicker that I only got a ticket for our Pal a couple of days ago and she ended up directly in front of us. On the plus, the seat next to me was empty so My Friend moved halfway through Idiot and at least she could see Steve playing guitar from there. We were also in a prime spot to see Llan jump up onto the speaker stack in a very attractive manner when he came out before the start of the show, which nearly made up for how much we miss the way he used to jump on stage at the Arts. Bizarrely, that was actually one of the first things I thought of when they made the announcement – we’ll get to see that jump again! And no doubt I’ll end up in BB1 at some point, desperately fighting the urge to grab his arse when he leans on the stage before that :P. Speaking of which, I should probably explain… We had a rather exciting day yesterday. They finally made the announcement they’d been teasing us with all week and it was exactly what we hoped it would be… Idiot is coming home! I mean, we basically knew it would be, but there’s nothing like the bliss of having it confirmed, not to mention the dates and cast. And after a ridiculous stress over getting the exact seats we wanted for the last show and making sure My Friend organised her New York trip to get her home in time for said last show, we were finally in a position to get excited! And start planning a spreadsheet for the plethora of shows we’ll no doubt be attending prior to the dreaded final two (I actually can’t think about that properly) and after the first couple we’ve already booked :P. Looks like I’ll make the 100 mark after all (in fact, assuming all goes to plan, I already have enough booked to hit 101 and it certainly won’t end there).

Anyway, I digress. Llandyll jumped up, it was hot. Lucas also appeared, then promptly vanished and I sulked until he reappeared shortly before it started. So as I said, My Friend had to move so she could perv on Steve :P. However, the lights were really rubbish on the band so even though I could see them (most of the time), I couldn’t really see them. On the plus, Steve’s hair is BACK!!! It could still do with growing a bit more, but there finally seems to be some proper fluff movement now. I was thrilled ;). Anyway, I watched him a fair bit early on and I noticed for the first time that he sings the ‘to fall in love’ line of Suburbia with the bong about an inch from his face. That’s true love, that is. He then sang in the direction of our group in I Don’t Care, but I don’t think any of his focus was actually on me this time. He also nearly threw a massive box right in Matt’s face! He’d picked it up and turned sharply to throw it, only to find Matt was right there. Fortunately he noticed before he let it fly and Matt avoided a bloody nose and/or black eye. Also, Matt made a right mess with the popcorn before that; it landed all over the upper level and he had to keep kicking it off the edge :P.

I had to lean sideways to see Lucas properly in Dearly Beloved (thanks to not being front row), but My Friend is used to me and it was totally worth it. For some unknown reason, he sniffed the test before he took it (although that’s somewhat less gross than Lawrence sniffing it halfway through taking it…), then looked illogically hot whilst doing the rest of the choreography. Well, maybe not illogically. He’s Lucas, he’s always hot and I may or may not have previously mentioned that I quite like it when he dances? Still, it’s probably a weird scene to find hot :P. And then I got him on the bus too and he sang Karina’s line this time instead of Alice’s (obviously) and that’s the ‘wrapped around a score of men’ line and he was a tad camp when he sang it and went kinda wavy handed at the end and even though the positioning of the bus and him and me meant I couldn’t really see him that well, I was still ridiculously thrilled. Lucaaaaas! :D. I’m weird, I’m sorry [Edit: I’m also sleep deprived, do excuse me]. And since I’m busy fangirling; Lucas also had his coat open in Boulevard again. It was hot. I melted. A lot. *swoon*.

So, My Friend reckons we’re jinxing it now, because Matt’s guitar stopped working (with the amp) halfway through the first bit of Boulevard. I mean, we were close enough that we could actually hear the unamplified guitar, but the bulk of the room weren’t so lucky. It also meant that when Steve joined in, he was kinda on his own playing that part and it sounded a lot louder than normal. It made the whole song sound totally different. On the plus, however, the video for Favourite Son actually worked!!! I’ve missed Ross! Not that I watched him loads, but it was still nice to see him properly again. He’s so pretty. Although I really didn’t watch him that much because no Karina meant Lawrence was on as a cheerleader again and he was epic! When the TV came down, he knelt in front of it, held his hands up as though clutching Ross’s hips, made a couple of obviously crude back and forth movements with his head, then looked back over his shoulder and wiped his mouth with the most salacious looking leer. It was brilliant! And then when they lined up towards the end and Alice started walking over to Cellen, he jumped to the front of the line and shoved her out of the way so that he could get to Cellen first. Cellen did not seem overly impressed and neither did Alice, but we thought it was excellent! I’d love to see him with Alexis again now though :P. I really wish he’d been back this weekend, it’s been so long since we saw him properly :(. Although that said, we all agreed that this afternoon Cellen sounded the best we’ve ever heard him. Which is crazy, really. Who sounds best after a week of vocal strain?! He really did though and we all thought he was pretty f***ing brilliant before. Much as we’ve missed our Sexy Lexi, Tunny has been in damn good hands the last couple of weeks.

I have a few random comments about St Jimmy; I’m sure Lucas said ‘three little bags of dope’ instead of ‘A little…’, then threw two in the air, so I don’t know what was going on there and I may have totally imagined it anyway…? Then Lawrence and Matt had a bit of a pile up on the bed. I didn’t see Llan launch himself at them, but according to My Friend he seemed to aim it so that he’d go flying over them. I certainly noticed when he ended up on the floor, but I’m assuming that was intentional. Also, Lucas didn’t scream at the end and delivered the line in the more chilled camp manner he usually employs when his voice is dying. He sounded excellent though, so hopefully he’s ok. He then absolutely cracked me up in the badges scene. He stuck his lower jaw out really far for the whole section and looked really silly; kinda like a gorilla. He kept it like that right through his speech and looked sorta pouty at the same time. It was bizarre but brilliant.

Steve seemed really stoned at the start of Novacaine today, far more so than usual. He didn’t really appear to know what he was doing and everything looked more laboured. He also seemed unusually shocked by Emma’s entrance. It was like he was having a bad trip or something, trapped in his own mind within a crushing sense of paranoia. Although whatever lessons weed has taught them, it doesn’t stop Johnny from ratcheting it up another notch (it’s a weak segue, but I’m tired) and Lucas’s face when Matt took the syringe from him in Last Night was so hot. He did the widening his eyes thing and smirked in the most ridiculously sexy way… I love it when St Jimmy wins. His success face is seductive as f***.

The interval turned out to be unexpectedly brilliant. We didn’t even know Racky was in until she popped up in front of My Pal and joked that she was in her seat. We all exclaimed excitedly in response to her appearance and I didn’t even take note of the person that had slipped into the empty seat next to me, even though I knew it was no one’s seat as My Friend was meant to be in it. I guess he must have said something though, because all of a sudden I realised it was Alexis. I’d like to blame the shock discovery for the way I immediately threw my arms around him, hugged him and declared that ‘I’ve missed you so much!’, but to be honest I’d have likely done exactly the same thing had I spent five minutes watching him work his way across the theatre to see us. Just the fact he made the effort to come over to us kinda made my day, actually. I really have missed him, so f***ing much. Anyways, in my defence, he did have a cap on (I recognised it and commented so he explained it was his old Tunny hat from the Arts) and we weren’t expecting to see him at all, let alone in the seat next to us at the interval, so…! I asked how he was and he ‘meh’ed in response, then told us that he’d been taken off in the interval last night. They asked about free seats near us too, as they were quite a way back, but we only knew of the one spare next to me, so they went back to their own seats for the second act. I’ll admit I was a tad disappointed, I loved having him next to me, even if only briefly, but I’m fairly sure it was for the best. It’s one thing him reading all my silly fangirling in blog form (speaking of which, I had my blogging phone in hand when he sat down and was halfway through making first act notes… I wonder if he saw anything?!), but witnessing it first hand is another thing all together :P. Also, I forgot to mention it earlier, but today was band shirt day. Another custom design later and My Friend and I were both adorned with the slogan ‘**** you, Johnny. The band don’t suck, they rock!’ emblazoned across the front with the silhouettes of two guitars (the correct models – I actually fixed Tommaso’s just before going to print because I realised it wasn’t quite right), a bass, a violin and a pair of drumsticks below. We also had all the tour dates printed on the back, since they don’t appear to have bothered with merch at all. So much for those hoodies we were promised on tour… :/. We did consider just putting our dates on, but since we’re doing nearly every venue anyway and there’s always the possibility of a last minute addition, we decided it was safest just to get the lot – like a proper band shirt :D. Needless to say, Racky noticed them and she and Alexis both read them. Racky was sad she didn’t have one! We also had to explain that our Pal hadn’t been intending to come and only booked it this week, which was why she didn’t have one too.

Back to the show and Steve pointed out where the weed was to Theo, which I’ve not seen him do since London. Also, after accidentally whacking Vinnie on the head, Steve mouthed ‘f*** me’… My mental reaction to that was ‘Ok!!!’. I’m sure I’ve not noticed him do that before? It was interesting to see Alice back as Ex Girl again, after such a long stint as Whatsername and I think she’s grown in confidence a lot since the last time we saw her. She seemed much more at home and took control of the space and the situation much better than I remembered. In the past she was a bit too fairylike for my taste and I wanted more attack from her, which she gave today. She owned the stage and she owned Tunny, although she still has that original ethereal quality, which I do think works really well, even if it’s taking me a while to get used to it. Anyway, they seem to have changed the choreography again, although not as dramatically as last time and now Cellen drops to his knees in front of her when she’s standing on the bed before the motorbike bit. The way he looks up at her makes him look like he’s worshipping her and I thought it was really effective. Now we just need Alexis back :(. (Not that I don’t love Cellen too, he really is fantastic, but waah. I miss seeing my Sexy Lexi on that stage).

Apparently a week off hasn’t done anything to dim my irritation at the lighting at the end of Enemy and it really bugged me. Again. It’s just the way it even goes back to slightly washed out red again for the end and all that beautiful bloody evilness is all spoiled. Hmph. I really will try and shut up about it now, but even My Friend doesn’t like the way they light Steve in red, which is fair. He’s not the bad guy in this scene and with Lucas suddenly all innocent and white, it just looks weird. Sulk mutter hmph. And I will now shut up about the sodding lighting. Sorry… :/. Anyway, aside from all that, I loved Lucas’s face, although it’s hard to properly categorise his expression. I think gleeful may be the most appropriate word, but it’s a bit more subtle than that. There does seem to be a strong element of joyful satisfaction, though. He’s so sexy when he looks like that, all smirky and smouldering.

So Lucas may not be allowed to say much during the letter, except when he delivers the final ‘don’t wait up’ along with Matt, but today he compensated with laughter. He cackled a little more after each of Matt’s lines, building the tension as the climax of the letter approached, and he even threw in some ‘ta da’ style jazz hands for ‘St Jimmy rules’. It was also awesome to have Amelia back in Letterbomb and she sounded fantastic. I’ve missed hearing that voice! Although I still got distracted when Lucas did his wiggley side to side, bouncing from foot to foot, dance when he came on with Matt. We had another different take on Jimmy’s death scene today too and Lucas just seemed so… meh. He sat on the bed beside Matt looking so dejected and hopeless and generally fed up. He perked up slightly when he had the idea of offering Matt the drugs and had a moment of excited energy when he tried out that theory, only for Matt to ignore him completely. I also love the way he laughs with a total lack of amusement when he crawls across the floor after the paint incident.

My note for Rock GF was just; [Steve] was so insanely hot!! But since I failed to elaborate any further on that point, I’m not sure if he did anything different, or if I was just stating a fact. The video worked again then too, so that was novel :P. Then Home Again happened and I nearly cried, I was so emotional. I was so SO happy to be there and I know it’s only been a week, but apparently even that short period was enough for me to get less used to coming all the time and for today to feel a bit like a homecoming of my own. I remember being like that in the West End too and whilst I wasn’t expecting to be so emotional about it, it perhaps shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise. I just had no idea I’d be so stupidily happy to be back. On a less self-centred note, I love how nervous Cellen gets over his reunion with Matt. He looked so forlorn when Matt first ignored him and so uncertain as to what to do next. Plus it was really cute when he looked back at Alice for help and she had to encourage him to try again.

So… that Matt show I promised myself never quite materialised, but I did mostly just watch him in Whatsername, so that counts for something, right?! Although Llan caught my eye in the Boulevard style lineup and there was just something about his stance and expression that made him look really Jimmyish. I don’t know if he’s always like that and I’ve just been too busy watching the actual Jimmy to notice, or if there was something different today [Edit: I think Karina is usually in front of him, so maybe that’s it]? Anyway, despite our lack of front row, it didn’t seem to spoil our chances of cast interaction in Good Riddance. Nick saw us as soon as we started clapping along at the beginning so that was a yay moment all on its own. Plus Lucas kept grinning at us and so did Steve :D. Llan and Steve also had a bit of a moment, with Llan leaning back against Steve, then turning and strumming Steve’s guitar. It was very attractive. I did my air guitar bit as usual, but I guess I’ve been away too long, because I think Steve forgot. Only we laughed afterwards and Steve noticed us then :P. He also motioned to our shirts at one point too, so I guess he was suitably teased by the teaser tweet we sent the band boys this morning!

Our conversation while we waited at stage door was fun and mostly just went; Hot, hot, hot, really hot, angry, hot, hot, hot… :P. Although we did rein it in a bit when people started to depart! Anyway, today was all about the band boys, so we were on a photo mission to get one of the two of us with each of them. We saw Tommaso first, showed off our shirts and complained to him that while they sounded ace, they weren’t well enough lit and we couldn’t see them properly, plus we got our photo with him. We had a brief chat with Rob too and got a photo with him as well. Needless to say, the design went down well with both of them! When Nick appeared, he implied he’d come out specifically to see our tshirts, so that was rather cool (whether true or not). He seemed to like them too, so yay! We also chatted about how much better the sound is here compared with Bromely, although it was pointed out that we we were right by the bass box thingy when we were there (except that said, we weren’t in the same seats more than once and they weren’t all by bass box thingies yet still sounded fairly rubbish). He then shared an anecdote about seeing Muse and being so close to the speakers he could feel the bones in his nose vibrating. I’ve definitely been too close to the speakers at gigs before, occasionally to the point of pain, but that really didn’t sound at all pleasant! We also chatted a bit about Cardiff and I sulked about not being able to go whilst lamenting the fact it’s going to be three whole weeks until I’m back :(. We chatted to him for quite a while, although we did have a few awkward moments of ‘help, what do we talk about now?!’. I’m fairly used to that at stage door, even with my favourites that I’ve chatted to dozens of times, so it wasn’t too bad, but we really need to get better at this! Anyway, it was lovely nonetheless and we made sure to get our photo with him too, in which he looked beautiful and guylinered [Edit: I tweeted the pictures later in the week after My Pal sent them over and Nick commented that he looked like a panda. I assured him I love pandas and then My Friend and I ended up discussing whether there was a connection between our love of pandas and guylinered boys]. I’m not really sure what happened after he left and my notes are less helpful than they could have been. For one, I don’t know what the single word ‘filthy’ was meant to relate to…? We want him filthy? We like him filthy? We have filthy minds when we watch him? Nothing to do with him and I just put the note in the wrong place? All equally plausible possibilities. Although I did manage to properly record My Friend musing that she could really see him as a crossdresser… And I… Well, let’s just say I did not need those images in my head. I mean, f*** me… o_O. (He’s never going to speak to us again if he sees this, is he…? *hides*)

So to shift back to slightly safer ground… We chatted to Cellen when he came out and told him how brilliant he sounded today, plus he mentioned what had happened with Alexis going off halfway through last night’s show. He couldn’t hang around long as he had to head back inside to meet Tommaso, who’s giving him guitar lessons (he can play already, as we well know, but he’s trying to get better). Then the crew guy from Leicester walked past, laughed when he saw us and asked if we knew they call us ‘crazies’… What a charmer :P. Although now we want to know who calls us that?! Although it could be so much worse. I’ll take that :P. (I really do dread to think what they say about us, I’m sure it is much worse :/).

Alexis and Lucas came out together and I gave them both big hugs. We commiserated with Alexis over his illness and asked after his family who’d all had it as well, so it must’ve been fun in his house the last couple of weeks. He was also complaining about how much weight he’d lost and all that money he’d wasted on proteins and the gym trying to bulk up before he got sick… I personally thought he looked really hot, but anyway :P. He added to what Cellen said about him going off yesterday and explained that after weeks of being stuck in bed, his body couldn’t handle the shock of all the running and jumping around the stage and since he’s got to lift Alice in the second act, they couldn’t let him go on for the rest. When we mentioned London a little later, he just shrugged and when we pulled him up on it, he complained that he just wanted to be back on stage, he doesn’t care where. Poor baby :(. And in the meantime, Karina is off too. I’m sure he told us she has a torn ligament, but she’ll only be off for a week, so hopefully she’s ok. He said she was giving him a lift back today, which was why he was still hanging around. He then told me he’s interested to read the blogs that he’s not in and when My Friend pointed out I’m still only up to Leicester, he assured us he’s still reading and is up to date… Which just makes me nervous that he’s been so quiet about it :P.

We chatted to Matt about the Boulevard guitar f*** up and My Friend joked that we must be jinxing him. He explained that he couldn’t hear himself, so was singing out of key and time, but I think he was being overcritical. He sounded fine! He did do a rather funny impression of himself singing like that, though. He asked where we’d been sitting and when we explained we were right in front of him, he told us he hadn’t noticed… Although he did have a fair defence; he was looking straight over our heads, which is perfectly reasonable in a theatre that size. We also discussed how weird it was to have a show like Idiot in such a beautiful, plush theatre. I certainly felt very odd about it when I first arrived. Then Racky appeared, said hi and stole Matt away! We saw Karina and Llan too, but they just waved. Meh.

When Steve eventually appeared, we asked him if he liked our tshirts, only he seemed really unsure of the situation before he actually looked. I’m slightly concerned over how scared of us he seems sometimes, what on earth does he think we’re going to do/say?! Anyway, he did then read them, only to ask who thought the band sucks… Idiot :P. Quite apart from the fact it explicitly says ‘Johnny’ in the design, he’s frickin’ in that scene. He looks at the band in response to that line and everything! Sigh. He did get it once we pointed it out. Anyway, we wanted a photo with him since he’s in the band and all, only he had his hood up and insisted on keeping it up, even when we objected and said we wanted fluff. His excuse was that he’d just come out the shower and proved his point by temporarily dropping his hood and fluffling himself. To be fair, his hair was a bit damp (although the fluffling was still pretty awesome), so we let him off with a warning :P. We made him promise to take one with us later, sans hood, then My Friend added that he needs the hair and the guyliner, so he called her bossy. Lolz. It’s nice that he’s starting to get to know us so well :P.

So we gave up after that and headed off back to the coffee shop to await show 2, or rather, show 70. I did enjoy 69 though ;).

Peace, love & rock ‘n’ roll,
K xx

[Actual publish date: 28/4/16]

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.]