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.]
So Currently Captivated 