Posts Tagged ‘live music’

Last month I went to see Nickelback in Leeds. It was the first time I had been to the Leeds Arena. It was pretty good. Nothing amazing, but it is quite a nice layout.

Nickelback were entertaining live. They weren’t a band where you come away from the show thinking “that was absolutely amazing”, but they were a lot of fun on stage and far less serious than I imagined them to be.

I didn’t get any good photos.

I did finally get a chance to use my massive goth boots to see over everyone’s heads though. Well worth the investment!

Last week, myself and James went to the MEN to see Evanescence. They played a very similar set to the one I saw last year in Leeds, but with a few changes, taking out some of the stuff from their new album in favour of a few classics.

Photos did not turn out well though lol.

Having had a long debate about what time Panic would come on, I decided to head down there for 9:45. Kick out is at 11, so they will probably finish fifteen minutes before that and based on an hour set, that means they will come on at 9:45. Seemed sensible.

As it happens they actually came on at 9:30 and I didn’t get there until 10 🙁 . Still, this did have the advantage that I got to piss most of their new stuff and arrive safely in time to hear I Write Sins Not Tragedies and their cover of The Darkness’s I Believe in a Thing Called Love, so I’m going to chalk that one down as a win 😀 .

Last week, I went to see All Time Low. I was probably the only person there old enough to buy alcohol, who wasn’t there chaperoning their child. I was worried every time the security guy walked past that we was going to say “excuse me sir, you’re clearly not a fan of this band.” Unfortunately, I have to go see pop punk bands like All Time Low because all of the bands I used to like have stopped touring after all their other fans grew up and matured.

I didn’t get there until they were half way through their set, but that actually worked quite well as I just got to hear their good songs :D.

Last month, I went to the Leeds Academy to see Evanescence. The gig was enjoyable, but not quite as good as I was expecting. I had a similar experience when I went to see Feeder in February, so I’m wondering whether it is the venue.

Never the less, I got to sing along to a great mixture of songs from their new album and the old classics as well. A very enjoyable night!

I also bought a t-shirt and unfortunately I was given the wrong size. Due to my expanding belly, I definitely cannot squeeze into. Still, at least that’s Elina’s Christmas present sorted :D.

Last December, tickets for Rihanna’s next tour became available. It was ten months away, but I really wanted to get floor tickets, so I went onto the priority booking site to ensure I got some of the elusive standing tickets.

Ten months I waited.

Then, I was ill :(.

To avoid entirely wasting the £40 ticket I sent George with my camera instead. Still gutted though.

Last Tuesday myself, Si and Norm headed down to the Leeds Academy to see Feeder. While both of my friends had seen them many times, this was my first time, and I can’t help feeling that it was somewhat a fall from grace to them to be now playing a relatively small venue such as the Leeds Academy.

The gig took a bit of time to get going while they insisted on playing their new stuff but from Buck Rogers onwards the crowd picked up and despite scary comments from Si on the subject, they did manage to make the rounds on all their classics.

They also played a brand new song off their upcoming album during the encore which was somewhat annoying – I can’t help feeling everyone would have been much happier if they had simply played Buck Rogers again, but of well.

On Friday, myself and Norm headed over to Manchester to see Tim Minchin at the MEN.

Tim certainly didn’t disappoint! He is currently touring with a 55 piece symphony orchestra which he uses to great affect and left us all coming away with some brand new favourite Tim Minchin songs, number one for most of us being Sam’s Mum’s Cataracts (btw, the official name of the song is Thank You God if you were wondering).

The best part of the evening though was finding out that even though Aimee had booked her tickets five months ago, and I had booked mine on Tuesday – we were closer to Tim than she was 😀 .

Of all the gigs I imagine I would have shortlisted to go to this year, I can’t say Meat Loaf would have been one of them. But when I got a text off Norm saying he had two tickets to the o2 corporate box, I thought to myself, “I could go for a bit of that.”

So we headed over to the MEN in Manchester for a bit of corporate hospitality. Which is a codeword for free bar. Good times :D. The box itself was quite nice, it also included some tasty food (that they come in and steal in the middle of the main gig though) and it’s quite a nice level to watch the show from – could definitely get used to this kind of thing!

With Norm having a spare ticket to the Gorillaz gig at MEN last night, I decided to take him up on the offer and head over. The train journey over there was a nightmare – pretty much every train in or out of Leeds was running late and so we started off fifteen minutes late only to find we could only crawl to Pudsey.

So an hour into this journey we hadn’t even made it out of Leeds yet with the official reason for the problems being a combination of a gearbox problem and “the track being wet.” So we spent another twenty minutes or so waiting for the Blackpool train which was only a few minutes behind us apparently so turn up so it could push us into Bradford at which point they gave up on our train and cancelled it.

Once we had found another train the journey finally got going and I ended up reaching Manchester about quarter past nine – over three hours after having set off but just in time for the set – Gorillaz had just taken to the stage and were onto their third song by the time I got to my seat.

Some, who regularly go to bland and unpopular bands who can’t fill a large audience, would wonder whether they were looking at musicians or ants at stadium gigs but luckily we had no such problems – the seats themselves were really good – it was as far forward as you can get (I was in seat 3) on the left side, about half way up the lower tier.

There were a huge number of people involved in the performance. The regular act consisted of Damon Albarn, three guitarists, two drummers, four vocalists, a five piece string orchestra and two or three other people meaning just as standard there were nearly 20 people on stage, plus on top of that they had a brass band and another orchestra that did some sets and maybe 8-10 guest vocalists as well resulting in there being probably 40 people on stage at various points throughout the gig!

Despite not being that familiar with a lot of Gorillaz’ music I really enjoyed the gig, well worth the wait.