friends | subscribe
Today I was suppose to go Tate Modern, there were 2 previous attempts of going but were all cancelled out on the last minute (literally). The 3rd one no doubt followed the same pattern (again, cancelled at around 5pm odd). So I decided to invite Michelle to spend the night in London and piss about. Tate Modern was actually closed by the time I got there so there really wasn’t much point in being there. I did take a few really nice shots of the millennium bridge and other things.
Pan shot of London
Millenium Bridge
Really really love this shot. The blue in particular. Its so yummy. Alot of people have done this shot before but I really enjoy this one purely because of the blue sky. It was quite a fun day taking photos without a tripod. Things would have been a hell of alot easier if I was carrying one but sometimes you simply don’t plan these things and just forget to bring them. I had my elbows on the back of the bridge to take this shot. Took me a few goes to get it JUST right. Bit annoying when people walk by though.
Michelle arrived at around 6.30pm and we just had a nice night out around London. Michelle was very supportive in my photography and encouraged me to take alot of nice shots, especially this one.
The ubiquitous shot of Westminister’s Underground Logo next to good old big ben. Taken to show a weird sense of perspective etc. Quite alot of people had that photo on their flickr but it definitely seemed right to do another one haha. I kept doing alot of tourist accents when I was around big ben. We talked about spending a whole day following a tourist and taking photos with them hehe. It’s weird that we hardly take notice of places like this. In a way, the whole photography vibe has made me appreciate London more.
We also went to Buckingham Palace to take photos of the place, there wasn’t really many people around so it was all good.
We ended around Picadilly Circus and had some food at a place called “Miso”. Though we initially were going to go to some Italian restaurant, and Wagamama, and Yo Sushi, but passed them all up haha. I had duck and noodles whilst Michelle had a nice big bowl of Ramen Noodles. She couldn’t finish it off bless hehe. Also tried teaching her a bit of chopstick action but that didnt turn out too well. I guess it is a bit tedious, some waitress had to hand her a fork hehe.
We then had a quick visit in funland, hoping to play with the mechanical bull, but it wasn’t active that night so boo. So yeah, pretty much did the typical stuff ie. Play DDR, a few games of air hockey and this…
Was a very pleasant evening. I felt slightly better from being stood up 3 times in a row for one event but yeah.
Today was quite an impromptu day, I was contacted by Inn about a spare ticket to see Nine Inch Nails at Brixton Academy. She initially wanted Max to go but he wasn’t free so I was second in line (nice to know eh?). Her condition (well it wasn’t really a condition but I had to do it so I won’t feel too bad about accepting a £30 ticket) was for me to buy her some millies cookies. The hard bit was the fact that there wasn’t many Millies in London (that’s a lie, but most of them require a crazy diversion in terms of getting to Brixton Academy).
So yeah, after successfully smuggling a DSLR into Tilly and Wall I thought I’d give the whole smuggling a camera another shot (the place where I smuggle it is genious and I don’t think even I’d think of it if i was a security guard). I got the feeling I would be caught during the gig taking photos of the band and all so I decided not to take photos in the front row since theres security guards there ready to swipe it away from you. So i decided to bring my 55-200mm lens (well it’s Kazzies but still) to the gig and take photos from afar. I wasn’t really keen on using the 55-200mm lens to take photos since the quality never compares to small focal ranged shots (or prime lenses etc). So yeah, I brought that as well as my 50mm prime lens (in case situation changes or something).
After a bit of preparation I was ready to head off to buy Inn her cookies and meet her in Brixton.
The tube was a bit chaotic today, it turns out the distrct line between Earls Court and Whitechaple was down so I had to take the Picadilly Line to Green Park and then change to get to Victoria and ultimately Brixton. I was standing around Earls Court for a bit because noone informed me about the lack of district line service, I eventually figured it out with the help of a delayed announcement etc.
Arriving at Victoria I got Inn her cookies, I picked 8 random ones and quickly went back to Victoria line to get to Brixton, this is where Inn phones me up for some shouting haha. “Where are you!?”? YOU’re LATE!”. I accept it with pride, but I blamed it on the cookie buying haha. So yeah, I told her I wont be long since its just a few stops from Victoria and all. As soon as I got out of Brixton I galloped straight to the Academy, Inn kept saying that she was at the “other” door, and it was the right hand side door thingy.
Now here’s where some orientation classes kick in. When you say the RIGHT doors, you instantly look at the venue, turn your head right (well eyes) and bam, thats the right doors, right? Wrong, Inn did it in a weird way haha. It was the right doors for her when she’s INSIDE. So there I was wondering around on the wrong side, looking at a hectic queue and shuddering at the fact of queueing up, even though the queue was going quite rapidly.
Inn finally tells me to go outside and opposite the road where she’ll spot me when I kinda figured it all out that her right was my left. So yeah, I finally meet up with Inn and she was slightly pissed haha. She had her ticket and all and passed it onto me, not sure why she gets to use the other doors to enter (it lacked a painful queue and all) but I managed to pretend I was with her so I got in using the doors she went too so WOOO! for not queueing up with the mofo’s haha.
Inn introduced me to her friend and we got right into the venue to pick a nice spot for photography and gigging. I chose the barriers on the right (left if you’re on the stage looking at the crowd, if that makes sense :P) since the left one was a bit naff and the center looked pretty full already. The idea of a barrier meant that you were safe from hardcore moshing and sweaty people. Not to mention you only get a mild pushing from behind rather then a 360 degrees push fest.
I went to use the toilets, got myself some water (was really thirsty) and showed Inn where I smuggled my camera and lens. She was impressed. I also showed her how good the shots would be by zooming in with the 55-200mm lens. It was enough to get a good glimpse of someone’s crotch on stage. So yeah.
Anyhow, Ladytron were up, the singer had funny hair. I really wanted to see Ladytron and only found out in the gig that they were playing, was quite exciting. They had a screen to project during the gig and all with random footages of..stuff *shrugs*. Right, now for some photo taking.
The gig only started so they were using shitty red lights, I didnt really like the 55-200mm lens, things were really soft in the 200mm region. But some photos were alright I guess.
Here’s the best bit! During the gig, a security guard comes by and speaks to me. We know where this is going now don’t we? Now, how did he know i had a dslr camera? Well, when you’re using a 55-200mm lens and using the 200mm region to take photos, the camera is about half a foot long. So yeah, things are a bit TOO obvious! haha.
He asked me to show him my camera, I showed him the LCD side of it trying my best to hide the lens but he knew what I was doing and asked me to turn it over to see the lens, so I shamefully turn it around to reveal the huge lens haha. He told me how I’m not allowed to bring professional cameras into the gig and all and I had to come with him to hand it over to someone to look after for the gig. I would obviously get it back, Inn thought I was getting kicked out haha but I guess you can’t really kick someone out who’s paid for their gig and “didnt know about taking professional cameras” and all haha. But yeah, I was done, busted, caught red handed, pwnd etc haha.
Deary me, the process wasn’t too painful, I didnt feel too guilty about smuggling the camera (in fact it’s made me want to do it again since they’d just confiscate the camera and put it in a safe place for you to redeem later). So yeah, he was pretty polite and all and the process did go smoothly, I met some random old lady who was the keeper of digital cameras and all things deemed dangerous for gigs haha. I got a raffle ticket, wrote my name and mobile number and was escorted back to the gig. Wasn’t a shabby experience I must say hehe.
I managed to catch a few songs I wanted to hear at Ladytron (Seventeen in particular) and enjoy the rest of the gig. It was nice to know I didnt need to take photos and just watch the gig. But this is probably talks from someone who had their photo taking abilities stripped away and is only saying it to comfort themselves haha.
After Ladytron finished we were left to talk about my misfortune haha. Twas shameful going back to inn but meh. She told me I was simply too greedy bringing the 55-200mm lens as well as taking too many photos when support were playing and all. I should be more reserved in future I guess.
There was only one support (which was good) so Nine Inch Nails were up next. The wait was pretty long as they did alot of sound checks and lighting checks, it did look quite elaborate (but not as elaborate as Rammstein haha). There was alot of smoke involved, things got a bit heated up and all. During the wait, alot of people stood in front of Inn blocking her view, I had to tap them on the shoulders and ask them to move because Inn couldnt see hehe (I kept emphasising the fact that Inn was very short haha).
They finally started, they started with “Pinion”. The build up was pretty long I must say but nonetheless the band appeared haha. Trent looked funny with short hair, it was really weird. The guitarist was crazy, he kept going around the stage and flinging his guitar around like a monkey haha. The whole gig was spent camera less (was jealous that Inn got all the camera action haha).
Some songs required some hardcore head banging (March of the Pigs in particular). Inn looked pretty funny at the gig with her hair swinging all over the place, I’m glad she tied her hair back otherwise it would be all over the place. We were standing right behind a bunch of crazy moshers which added to the fun and all. There was this one guy and his girlfriend. He was pretty bad tempered throughout the gig and there was one point where we thought a fight would have started, alot of glaring was involved when he attacked someone who barged into him during the moshing. His girlfriend was constantly telling him to leave it, it was quite a funny scene I must say haha.
There was some annoying girl in front of us with her boyfriend who managed to barge in to their spot which was blocking inn’s view. The girl was really annoying, she talked throughout the gig and constantly had her elbows resting on the bar which meant I couldnt hold onto the bar myself haha. At one point she wanted to sit on the bar, Inn wasn’t too pleased on that and if she did do it, Inn would have done something (girl fight? dunno).
Anyway, the gig and music itself was amazing. The atmosphere was lovely. I liked the obvious songs they played (ie Closer and Into the Void). And in particular pre Into the Void where he played La Mer and threw the keyboard to one side right at the end after some crazy keyboard bashing.
I was sad that they didnt play Sin or We’re In This Together :(. But they did finish with Head Like a Hole which was awesome. Inn was probably super crazy at that time (she did get up on the bar a few times to go nuts haha).
After the gig I managed to get my DSLR camera back, nip to Sainsburys for something to drink (was REAL thirsty, got myself a whole carton of Tropicana Original, yum yum) and went back home. Inn and her friend left at Pimlico (where their hotel was) and I went back home safetly using the same route.
During the journey a few chavy girls and guys were on my carridge. They were really rude as they barged into the carridge regardless of letting the passengers off the train. Some guy who was exiting the carridge was pissed off and told them off but was soon ridiculed. They were right c**ts. I blissfully ignored them with my shure earphones and played Castlevania. I was listening to the NIN gig all over again, though it blocked out most of the sounds, at some points I could hear them talk about my DS playing. One girl kept going “is he playing Mario?” yes dear, Mario is the only game you know. Have a f**king gold star (and a c**t punch) haha. (Sorry about the language but I really hate chavs, theres the well behaved chavs (which are rare) and the ones that are OOZING with attention seeking boosts to 255 points, constantly trying to impress their ladyfriends so they’d stand a chance to get into their knickers (which they will since they were wearing your typical tracksuit bottoms haha, piss easy to take off for a quickie eh? :p).
Anyway, all I kept on hearing was “is he playing Mario?”. Sounds like they were asking for trouble. One of the boys thought it would be impressive to put his arms around me to impress the girls, when I saw that happening I grinned and gave him a proper elbow. God that was good. He stopped being an arse and left the next stop. The girls kept checking me out but I just ignored them and played my good old Castlevania. I left at my stop and went back home, nice and tired.
I had a bath at 3 in the morning and slept at 6 haha. Far too much buzz for that gig I must say. Quick lesson; never bring a 55-200mm into a gig expecting you won’t get caught and buy some decent earphones, its lovely to drown out the crap from the outside.
Tilly and the Wall (More dslr action)
28 FebMe, Jason and Rachel had planned on going to see Tilly and the Wall perform at the Scala, Jason and Rachel booked their tickets well in advanced so I was pretty much joining in on the fun. I was pretty drained from gigging still, I was still recovering from my crazy weekend of Muser Meetups and Howling Bells madness.
Jason told me to meet up with him at Russell Square where we would find a local Nando’s and just eat there before the gig. Jason and Rachel were working so we had to meetup right after their work and all. Both were slightly late. Rachel being the latest (about 40 minutes late!). Anyway, we went straight down to business and got to Nando’s in no time (was pretty easy to find one must say) I really should have met them there so I could just munch on food whilst waiting haha.
We talked about DS lites, their holiday they were planning on going, stuff that was happening (and stuff that wasn’t), and my DSLR camera. I told them my plan of smuggling the camera in my laptop bag. Theres a wee compartment in the back of the bag which looks like its just padding (but it has zips and everything for storing extra stuff). So yeah, I also showed them my new lens I got, I was planning on using that lens if I wasnt at the front of the stage. We managed to munch down our nando’s pretty quickly and spent quite some time talking and drinking bottomless fizzy drinks.
Eventually we made our way to the gig, Scala was pretty close from where we were at so that was good. We initially thought the band wouldnt have sold out and I would have easily bought my ticket on the door without the need of booking fee’s and p&p charges. Turns out I was wrong, Tilly and the Wall actually managed to sell out tonight! There was queue going on outside which meant we had to wait a bit. At this time the bottomless drinks had kicked in and I needed to use the bathroom, thankfully that desperation disappeared when we managed to swiftly get into the venue without much hassle. Jason did get some hassle though, the security guard said they werent allowed to bring bottled water into the gig, so jason had asked them to hold onto the bottle until he left the building, he even had a ticket for his bottle bless him!
I managed to smuggle my dslr camera in without any problems. After using the toilet, I met up with jason and rachel who were buying t shirts from the gig. We went down to the dance floor/stage and immediately I said we should goto the front and watch the gig. It was a pretty risky decision as the security guards can easily spot a dslr camera being used and all.
I was a bit nervous about bringing the dslr camera at such close proximity to the security guards, but I decided to risk it and only take photos when needed (not doing a Regina Spektor again where I get told off for going nuts on the flash!). Anyway, the support bands were alright, the first one was Kate Nash, apparently she was a friend of Lily Allen and has the same style as her and the notorious Regina Spektor (no idea why I called her notorious, perhaps she sings too fast that it offends people or something i dunno?) anyway, the second band were called the small ones or something haha. They were an american band and played pretty chirpy songs. At one point we REALLY thought they were going to play coca cobana! They had the bells and everything! Unfortunately they didn’t.
Anyway, most of the time I was perving over band photographer and their photo pit access. Though one thing I had to remember was the fact that they were only allowed to take photos of the band for a limited duration (usuaully 3 songs) then after that they would be ushered out of the pit by security. I think the security guard took more notice with the photographers then with my smuggled camera.
I noticed that most of them used 50mm prime lenses for their photographer, I’ve already read alot of reviews and positive comments about this lens (it was even recommended by this author of an lens guide article who had pretty much slagged off every cheap lens there was out there). So yeah, I’m pretty certain that this the next lens I was going to be getting since it’s faster then any lens I have right now and was a f1.8 lens. (£60 too!)
Eventually Tilly and the Wall came out… no not to play, but to set up their own gear!!! I was pretty shocked that they had to do it all themselves, the venue roadie was pretty much standing about doing nothing. Though jason did tell me that previously when they let the roadies do the gear and all, they’d fuck up and it ended up with the band themselves fixing it. I guess its useful knowing how to do your own gear but its not good for the fans to see you doing it yourselves hehe. Though you must remember that this was no ordinary band, this was a tap dancing band haha. They had to install their tap dancing booths JUST right in order to really show off the tap dancing and all. The main tap dancer had to put a metal plate over her large platform. Was fun watching her gaffa tape it all together on her own. I felt bad for the band but then again, they’re not THAT big and their setup is pretty complicated.
Once the gear was all set the band pretty much started.
Photographers on your marks, get set.. SHOOT!
As always, the photographers go nuts when the main act comes out and starts their first song (wouldnt blame them, thats their third to last song they can have photo pit access to haha). I was doing some pretty discrete shots since I really didnt want to get caught, more photographers arrived on the scene and it was a hectic slush of photographers in the pit (as always).
At one point of the gig they played a new song in which the singer had forgotten the lines, that was pretty funny. The tap dancing was amazing. Its pretty cool how the tap dancer was doing it right in front of me, waas like my very own dancer 
haha. The second song they played was Fell down the stairs, that was pretty much my favorite song so it was nice to hear that.
The stage was pretty dark I must say, taking photos of the people on the right was hard, my lens wasnt wide enough to take a whole band photo so that was a bummer too. This was where I began playing about with settings too. At times I had to surrender to the camera and use ISO 1600 which took some slightly grainy shots but most of the time I was stuck on ISO 800.
The photos were pretty nice
Notice the third shot has a bit of light. Those are the fortunate shots you take where another photographer went nuts on flash and you’re using their light to take a nice photo haha. They were pretty sharp photos I must say
They even did some synchronised dancing at some point. I was really enjoying the gig and at the same time, enjoying taking photos of them.
The band did an encore of “requested” songs in which they pretty much pretended to hear what the fans said haha. Looking at the setlist they pretty much stuck to what was on there rather then listen to the fans. It was fun, the term used for it is “selective hearing” when you hear only one person suggest the song you already had in mind :p.
The ended with Night of the Living dead in which it was joined in with the support bands. The stage was pretty much invaded and mental looking haha. Hoepfully the last photo shows how mental it was.
I was really happy about the photos for the gig, I managed to juice out a whole gig worth of photos and also got the setlist (and guitar pick which i gave to jason) which was an added bonus.
And yeah, that was pretty much it, Rachel tried using the camera a few times and was jealous of the photos I had taken hehe (she tried taking some on her mobile and all bless).
our journey back was quite fun, since Rachel lives in Wimbledon it was quite an cosy journey back (ie I had company haha). I immediately reviewed the photos when I got home and deleted whatever I thought wasn’t “flickr quality” haha. I mananged to figure out a new system for my band photography in which I would only take a limited amount of photos, I made the number the same as the number of photos a 35mm film would store. inn said that was 32 but later on i found out it was 36. So yeah, I managed to squeeze the best photos from that gig and upload them to flickr. They’re pretty nice and varied so overall I was pretty proud of them :).
Right, this pretty much continues from the previous post where I leave the pub with Michelle and Caff to enjoy Howling Bells. Michelle and Caff were pretty much sorted with guestlisted and I had managed to buy my ticket a few days before the gig and collected it on saturday.
Anyway, we quickly made our way to Camden Town, the gig was in Mornington Crescent but that station was closed off due to engineering works and all. Once we were there we had a nice walk all the way to the venue. We were slightly worried that the gig would start before we have arrived since we got there at around 9:15 odd. Turns out the band wasnt there still! Michelle and Caff managed to get aftershow passes with their guestlists. I did contemplate whether or not I should go, Michelle did tell me she probably could get an extra aftershow pass from someone but suddenly the thought of travelling back home in the middle of the night on a sunday using the night buses suddenly brought shivers down my spine. No way was I going to take the night bus, so I decided to just leave the thought of going to the aftershow and just enjoy the gig.
Anyway, I managed to catch max and aino at the venue, they were pretty much hanging back for the gig whilst I had an urge to get to the front, and so me, Michelle and Caff went to the front :P. The funny bit was when I told Aino that I was heading to the front, I said “right we’re going to head to the front”, and she must of misheard me because her reply was “oh its ok, I dont think we’re going to goto the front”. So i told her that I was going to the front, not them haha. Was fun.
We managed to mingle our way into the front (always take the sides). We reached a point where we couldnt go any further and all. Was pretty close to the stage, about 2 layers of people in front of us. Sadly the front was infested with quite alot of tall people.
Howling Bells finally arrived on stage, the crowd roars and the band goes right at it with “The Bell Hit”. The gig was amazing, I was so glad I managed to see them play again. I was very disappointed when I was late to see them at Wembley Arena. I must say, some songs really started to hit me as being really good songs, in particular “Blessed Night” and “Setting Sun”. I really like how she uses a distorted mic (or perhaps a talk box modulated mic) to sing them. She sings it in a funny way too.
I took quite alot of photos, most of them were bad, the initial batch were bad bad, but slowly I managed to squirm my way a bit closer to the stage, one of the girls in front of me thought i was leaning my arms on her friends back to take photos and told me off, silly blind bint haha.
I eventually stood behind some tall girl and her mate who were constantly dancing to the songs the band played. Nobody wanted to stand behind her because she was ridiculously tall. Taller then me!
Anyway, I managed to squirm a few shots whenever her head moved to the left. I’m getting alot better with photo taking since I rely on shutter speed settings and really keeping my hands steady when taking the photos. I’m really happy that I’m making full use of my compact camera since I previously wouldnt have used the shutter priority functions, it would have been hardcore automatic all the way.
During the photo taking, the tall dancing girl in front of me kept wiggling her butt at my direction. It was rather distracting whilst I was taking photos and enjoying the gig haha. She did it about 7-8 times, was practically a lap dance. She was ok looking so I didnt tell her off haha
Howling Bells were fun during the gig, so were the crowd, occasionally the crowd would heckle and the band would reply to them, one in particular was a guy going “I want your babies” to Juanita, obviously it was directed at her but the guitarist replied “do you want my babies?” whilst Jaunita continued to joke around and ask the guy in the audience whether he wanted his babies and how that could be arranged.
Juanita even managed to tell a story while the band was sorting out their gear, she asked the crowd “do you want to hear a story” and the crowd jeered “yeah”, she quickly replied “i dont have a story, but if you give me a topic I’ll make something up really quickly” haha. She talked about how she didnt like potatoes, how she took a photo of a giraffe in the zoo and how psycho britney spears has become haha. So yeah, we all had a laugh and the gig ended pretty nicely (with Low low low low low happening).
Afterwards Michelle and Caff needed to use the toilet but since there was a queue we decided to loiter a bit. When the queue died down a bit I told her I was going to head off since I was pretty much wrecked from a two day meetup anyway. Not to mention that… DUN DUN DUN! I had ANOTHER howling bells gig to attend to tommorow!
So yeah, I pretty much dashed back home after the gig, Michelle did send me a text during my journey home saying how she managed to get an aftershow pass, but by the time that text arrived I was pretty much in Victoria station, the point of no return haha. I was glad I didnt regret not heading home, I really needed that time to relax and sleep from a hectic day.
Rightio…
Howling Bells part two!!!
I cant remember what I did before the second howling bells gig, I think I pretty much slept till the time I needed to get ready haha. Howling Bells was doing a signing at Virgin Megastores and Michelle had got guestlists for the signing. This meant we were allowed to watch the gig down at the side of the stage, it was a slightly fancier place but still *shrugs*.
Today I went all out and brought my DSLR camera. Since it was an instore signing there was no way I was going to get turned down for carrying my camera. This meant I can really take some nice shots to make up from the slightly shabby shots from the previous night.
Me and michelle met up at the back of Virgin Megastores where we got our guest passes, we were then sent back into the store and went down to the basement for the gig. My pass was a “Guest” pass, and it appears that photographers had “Media” passes. So I guess I was out of bounds with the photo pit people haha. After a wee bit of waiting and bantering with Michelle Howling Bells arrive on stage. Juanita wasnt wearing her crazy leopard print dress and red sparkly head band (well she wouldnt would she? she’d stink if she wore it a second time and people would say nasty things about her haha). This time it was a black jacket and some black top type thing.
During the gig, I used my new 55-200mm lens to take photos of the band from the side since the front was riddled with band photographers going nuts at the band. It was harder taking photos at this angle but the plus side was I got to shoot the entire band from this angle, and they were pretty neat.
Anyway, the snapping was awesome, I felt quite alive taking photos with my DSLR camera, its a different feeling compared to snapping them with just a shabby compact.
Eventually Michelle persuaded me to just ask the security guard whethere I could goto the pit and take photos there. The beauty of it was that you didnt need to say “could I get in, I’m “media” “. I just asked if I can get in, not telling him that I am a press photographer or that I have a guest pass instead. So yeah, he pretty much assumed I was one of them and let me in the photo pit, with the other lions snapping at poor Howling Bells haha.
I managed to change my lens back to my 18-55mm lens since I was pretty close to them. The photos were so much nicer when you’re only less then a meter away from the band.
So yeah, those are some of my photos I took for the signing. The gig itself was amazing and we managed to hang around and get a few things signed, including setlists and my album. The day was pretty nice I must say. Got quite alot of positive comments afterwards from flickr about my photos. You can compare these photos to my previous night photos or even to my photos of howling bells during placebo.
Right, part 2 of this epic epic journey haha.
After waking up we were STRAIGHT AT IT with super smash brothers. yet again it was a two on one situation. It was particularly funny how stu just jumped STRAIGHT out of bed and went straight into gaming mode. It was proper intense, I got a glass of tropicana to drink whilst playing (was good shit, woke me up like a motherbiatch).
Kazzie and adam were pretty astonished to see us at it STILL. Adam did join in for one bit and surprisingly won the game by beating me. Of course, one has to remember that I was playing against adam and popey (dunno if inn was there, i think a computer was playing too) So i had to kill off 10 or 15 peeps out of the 5 lives I had. The end was annoying because i actually landed on a bomb which is why he won. Now he’s all smug about it. I think they were all starting to get smug at it, but not until they started giving me one on one matches where I showed them who’s boss haha. With stu i managed to kill him with just one life (didnt lose one), with adam I only got hit 5 times whilst he managed to lose all 5 lives.
Inn played a bit more too and then eventually it was time to pack it in and all. We were all up and ready to start packing things up and tidying things so that we didnt trash up kazzie’s house and all. I was in a tantrum trying to find my lens cap haha. Adam recalled seeing it somewhere but then kazzie was far too lazy/not bothered to help me find it (grr). Eventually I gave up on the idea of finding it and just started to pack things up. Kazzie brought my some rice cakes that she forgot to show me last night. I managed to munch a few down that time haha.
Anyway, after all the packing up, pissing about with kazzies 55-200mm lens, (taking photos of her cat haha), we were heading back to London for some more meetup action. I had a wii, and a dslr camera to take care of which meant I had to split up with everyone to go home, have a bath and meetup with them all.
This time kazzie decided to drive us to a decent station this time, Brent Cross station. Adam managed to lead us to the wrong station and got us a bit lost and all. Was tedious but at least we didnt have to take the watford route and all. The whole journey was painless and I managed to get home quite quickly and all.
This is where I lounge about for a bit, surf the web, take a bath, charge as much battery as I can, and get changed into a new attire, this time I was sporting some stripey green top.
Everyone else was partying it up at funland whilst I was getting ready and all. I left at about 3pm but was informed that they’ll be in nando’s so theres no point in me going to funland anymore :(. So yeah, quick travel to nando’s
Everyone met up, popey, inn, kazzie and adam all arrived late due to the fact that people were far too tired and lazy to wake up early and get to the damn place. people mingled but apparently they were all bored until I arrived haha (kidding).
I got straight into business and ordered some nando’s. The waitress was weird, her name was Serena and she seemed to be a trainee at nando’s, during my order she was complaining about being tired and was frustrated when we’d order things AFTER she has taken the order. Kev wanted to tap her.
After ordering food I got nice and comfty with the likes of kev and co and got down to the crazy array of challenges
Tetris challenge
Not exactly a challenge but we had 5 ds’s going playing tetris ds, was pretty fun. I managed to kick everyones arse at it haha. People were clueless about the items option and better yet, kev (the second best player there) is a nobody in my books haha (22-1). haha thats pretty harsh, but you know, I have played it for a long time haha.
Wasabi challenge
hm, I went to yo sushi to get some sushi and wasabi to do the wasabi challenge (was very successful the previous day and it ACTUALLY has some levels of difficulty and all!)
So yeah, ordered 4 maki cucumber rolls and 2 salmon nigri. I asked the crowd who wanted to participate and got the 6 people i needed (next time i’ll buy more haha). The participants were:
Me, Mona, Kev, Adam, Abbey and Aino.
I managed to ooze out as much wasabi goodness out of the 4 wasabi satchets I ordered. Me and mona picked the salmon nigris and we all ate the sushi at the same time. The best bit was the aftermath, cameras going wild whilst we take photos of everyone’s reaction to the sushi.
It was explosive. Me, Mona (and apparently kev) were cool with it, Mona still being the true winner since she actually ENJOYS the wasabi haha. The other two went running away like little 6 year old pubescent girls as the wasabi started to hit their noses, causing them to either spit it out or just cry in their nose.
Salmiakki challenge
This was the highly random and unpopular challenge made by aino haha. She made a few participants eat some of her random sweets and stuff. I managed to dig them into my nando’s chicken and eat it some time later when i was eating my chicken haha. Uhm…. yeah, the wasabi one was better haha.
Mona’s “I’ve never” game
Mona managed to do a quick game with everyone which involved revealing stuff people have or have not done. I won’t explain the rules since its tedious and confused kev but yeah. This game we get to discover hardcore muse fans, and other forms of muse board mind games. The game got a bit tiring since it was suppose to involve people drinking whenever they have done that particular thing, but uhm. we stood up each time and it ended up being too tiring to play haha (kev moaned).
The concoction game
A very spontaneous game I made up on the spot when people were trying hard to find a game to play haha. Rules were to pour stuff into a glass, and drink it, the next person then adds something else into the glass and drinks it, and yeah, its just a test of who dares to continue to drink it.
All sorts of stuff were added, including; salmiakki crap, salad leaf, peri peri sauce (extra hot), olive oil, ketchup, chips, coke, PEPPER! cheap nando’s mayonaise sprinkled with peri peri spice and all sorts of shit haha.
It became pretty vile, and then I wagered £5 for someone to drink the glass of vile. Abbey was brave enough to accept the challege and drank the whole damn glass (well, ALMOST). It wasn’t a good sight haha, she went to the toilet to puke it all back out haha. She was definitely brave for doing it and i felt slightly guilty for making the bet haha (though i was hoping someone manly like kev or chizzleface to actually accept the challenge (panzies))
Nando’s chicken wing challenge
This was meant to be the main challenge that everyone planned to have but it didnt happen, people started leaving too quickly and the other challenges were crazy enough, this meant I didnt get any free extra hot wings to eat off people 
Other bits and bobs in nando’s
Nowt much really, michelle and caff later on joined us all but sat on another table and drank red wine, Michelle got a bit tipsy from it all bless her. Meanwhile back in our table, some truth or dare questions were asked, quite alot of table slamming and phoenix wright style pointing were made
Alot of greasy chicken was consumed. Well the annoying thing was that I couldnt eat my food in peace without people playing that damn “I never” game haha.
The waitress, “serena” was a bit arsey haha, i tried to dare her to get someone to drink that glass of vile for a pound haha.
We stole some nando’s cocksticks on our way out mwahahah, now I have two haha.
Randomness outside
After nando’s a few people left and we were wondering around for stuff to do. We eventually went to play DDR where kazzie wanted to challenge me into a game of DDR.
Played a few songs and it was fun. Wincy tried the other DDR like game made by konami, it required the use of your hands to dance as well. Its not as funky as the one you see in funland where people try to make something cool out of their hands by doing alot of unneccessary bits and bobs but yeah.
Kev and strippers
We were walking down soho where kev was trying to find some gash, he did go into a “friendly society” which was apparently a nice bar instead of strip club. A few strip club ladies wanted to entice kev to go in, we even got a 3 for £10 deal going on but we eventually passed haha
Pub
We eventually went to a nice pub called Ben’s Crotch (Croutch, whatever). And settled in for a bit of ds lite action, well lite and phat, wincy had let us down by still owning a crappy ds phat haha (though she bought a lite later on). Anyway, games that were played were mario kart and good old tetris. With mario kart I managed to win the first two races and then came second for the other two. It appears that some fucker kept throwing red shells at me so I couldnt overtake kev. Twas pretty unfair but meh, least i didnt lose to him haha.
We also played tetris, whoever played me kept going “shit, wtf?!?” as I pounded them with multiple tetri, it was only at the last game where kev suggestion slightly tipsy michelle to distract me whilst I was playing. I was groped senseless during the battle and lost to kev of all people eurgh haha.
We had some more banter, and finally the goodbyes and all. Loads of man hugs, girl hugs and banter near the end.
This was where me, michelle and caff said our goodbyes as we went to see Howling Bells live. That will be on another entry since its a gig of its own and all.
This two part meetup was by far the most intense and exciting meetup ever haha. It involved wii’s, failed bbqs, crazy wasabi challenges and a host of other crazy antics.
I’ll keep everything in summary form since most of the day can be found on Inn’s blog (she’s pretty much summarised the events in her own account).
Anyway, this 2 day muser meetup was planned ever since Mona (muser) was coming down to London from Sweden. We have organised a small gathering which somehow snowballed into a massive muser meetup involving nando’s, ds lites and dslr cameras. Sooner or later when I bought the wii, the wii became another main attraction for the meetup. Kazzie managed to persuade her mum to hold a small party for a few of us to play wii as well as have a bbq. This wasn’t part of the meetup but something me, stu, inn kazzie (and adam later on) wanted to do. Me, inn and stu were big fans of smash brothers melee and we were excited in getting that going and having dangerous battles all night long.
Anyway, thats a bit of the history to the meetup. The main meetup itself starts now.
Plan was, 1pm meetup, eat wasabi sushi, lounge about in some coffee shop and have a nice banter (followed by our own little wii party). Thats the plan in its most innocent form, one must remember that muser meetups NEVER Go as plan, its usually filled with late comers, lost souls and over doing something to a point that timekeeping is impossible (not to mention sleep).
Everyone met up at Victoria station at 1pm. I had several errands to do, first I had to pick up my howling bells ticket at the Royal Mail delivery office, then I had to pick up my memory card from B for my camera since she gave it back to me without the memory card. This pretty much delayed my arrival at Victoria to about 2pm. In a way, it was good since nothing was done anyway, we were still waiting for people, the group didnt have a clue where to go and sit and Kazzie and Adam were going to arrive 30 minutes later. When I arrived I immediately said my usual hellos, and just fucked off to a Yo Sushi for some made to order yakisoba. People were just waiting there and seeing that it was just going to be waiting at Victoria in the cold, I’d rather pop into a Yo Sushi and get some action before I do a Wasabi meal.
More people turned up then I imagined, it didnt really look like the intimate pre meetup that I had imagined it to be, but nonetheless, we continued on.
It was fun leading people to embankment, most people were still confused as to how to take the tube, its probably the most intuitive thing ever, if you dont understand the map, just follow the pretty colours. But yeah, its all about sign reading but people lack that
We finally got to the wasabi stu was planning on taking us, but it didnt have seating so we were considering going to picadilly circus to try out luck at the wasabi that had seating, I was pretty much leading the way again, and to do a meetup, one must be totally oblivious to preparation in order to have the perfect meetup (becauase planning sucks the fun out of adventure). Anyway, i chose the wrong direction to get to picadilly but lied to everyone and said we were going to take the bus haha. People got a bit frustrated and we ended up going to wasabi in embankment and sitting in some random park.
I managed to bag myself TWO bags of wasabi. It looked like I was going all out when in fact it was a bag for the sushi and a bag for the chicken yakisoba. The park was a bit shite, you couldnt sit on the grasss and the benches were already filled with people, we managed to find 3 benches next to each other that were empty and decided to camp there and eat.
We met some random muser who wanted to meet Stu and the rest of the gang, she was surprised to find out who we were and said how she’d never expect us to look like that etc. Anyway, we had our sushi and immediately began our wasabi challenge. I had an extra packet of wasabi so I decided to use that to smother other peoples sushi to make the challenge, challenging.
The challenge itself was pretty awesome, about 5 people participated (me, Inn, Mona, Aino and some random person). Mona was indeed the king of eating spicey stuff, just check the aminated gif and you’ll know what I mean haha
I though I was going to be able to survive it but the sensation is like a volcano erupting out of your nostrils. The sensation lasts for about 3-5 seconds but it makes you explode inside.
Stuff you experience are runny nose, tears in your eyes, nice puffy red face and of course the dying need to go ARRGH! Afterwards its all good haha. Mona continued to tempt fate by eating wasabi raw. Though there was much left so yeah. Its only good with sushi to be honest. The challenge was so fun that we HAD to do it again the next day haha.
After some banter, we decided to head off to a coffee shop. We noticed some protesting going on so we decided to go and check that out. It was a “No war on Iran” protest held in trafaulgar square. We decided to advance into the area, I managed to find some signs people used to protest (probably left there by people leaving the area) I began getting one for myself and started protesting, soon the group all joined in with the protest, it was a nice feeling, though we were probably taking the piss haha, were we? Who knows.
After a nice protest, Aino and Max decided to go do some babysitting whilst the rest of the crew went to a starbucks to lounge about. We did a quick walk to leceister square and I managed to find a starbucks that we could drink in before it starting raining.
Twas a friendly lounge about, inn had trouble finding chairs and then she had to order the drinks for everyone haha. Once things settled in we just had a nice banter. I think I tried using internet and all. But yeah, this was as relaxed and chilled as the day goes. Afterwards it was time for us to all say goodbye. Mona needed to get back to Oxford Circus so I led them all to that general direction and along the way, go into Soundcontrol for some instrument abuse.
I managed to demonstrate a few songs but that was about it, I really need to learn some new songs haha. Everyone was tired after that. Inn in particular. So we decided it was time to go back to Kazzie’s place.
The train journey was pretty painful. We had to get to Watford and then Kazzie would drive us to her place. Most people had some beef on the idea that we had to get Zone A passes just because of this, and that it would have been easier if Kazzie parked her car at Brent Cross and did the driving there. The journey was just painful. We had to take buses, taxi’s and did a bit of walking to get to her place. Inn’s account is probably alot more detailed so its best to read her post haha.
Right, lets skip to the fun bit, at Kazzies house. Her mum was very kind to buy loads of stuff we requested, including my rice cakes, beer, and gay malibu. We managed to nip to tescos to buy some food for BBQ’ing, but lacked the special ingredient for BBQs… firelighters. I was guranteed by inn and stu that they could get a bbq going so I went along with it. I had to pay £5 to buy the damn charcoal and all.
Anyway, while inn and stu did the hard labour stuff (ie set up the bbq). I did the stuff that people got paid highly to do. Set up stuff haha. Though when you think about it, I dont think anyone knew how to set up a wii, and more importantly, I wouldnt allow people to touch my wii haha.
Twas a bit annoying Kazzie’s TV, she said there component but i found out that there wasnt. Was lucky to have brought my composite cable otherwise there would be no wii! So yeah, that waas pretty much set up, and I wanted to get her wifi sorted too but they were all too busy surfing on the board, or making bbqs. The BBQ itself failed misrably, I did touch it at all but it seems that they couldnt keep a constant fire going. I’ve seen people fail with the liquid stuff so i wasnt surprised that bits of card and candles didnt do. I myself use about 12 cubes of firelighters to get a PROPER bbq going haha.
After all the bantering, we finally got into some wii action. This was what the whole night was all about. Battling it out, me and stu had a quick game of smash brothers to see who was full of it. Turns out stu was haha. I whooped him silly!!! Not your average silly, silly silly. The kind of silly you see in the bible when David tries battling a giant, only to find that his weapons were pawned for booze money and that he was drunk during the fight.
Inn made her pancakes during the fight, I didnt get to try some, but wasnt keen on the idea of pancakes in the evening. I’m not a fan of sweet things either. Something wrong about that. Dunno what.
I decided that we shouldnt waste the burgers and sausages so whilst people were doing random stuff (ie surf the web) I cooked the sausages and burgers. It was nice that we onions, otherwise the burgers and sausages were just plain lame.
People were a bit intimidated by smash brothers, when I refer to people I pretty much mean kazzie and adam, they both suck at it and did nothing but fall off the stage like the losers they are haha.
Wii sports was where it’s at. We had alot of intense battles on the wii, we started off with a bit of tennis, then it got into stuff like baseball and ultimately, wii boxing. I think I ruled at wii boxing, doing some mighty fierce jabs and managed to beat adam in the first round with 3 knock outs. Bowling wasnt that fun, I beat stu with loads of spares, stu had a spin going on whilst I was able to control my ball to get strikes or spares.
Baseball was fun haha, most of the time it was strikeouts. Me and stu played and it ended in a 3-2 victoria (or maybe 2-1). We hardly did much home running. Stu did some pretty fast bowls and all. After wii sports inn kinda took charge of the multiplayer mode in wario wares smooth moves. We tried one of the sub games where we had to get cake and jump over holes, that was fun. Me and inn managed to get a cake and fuck up only a few times. Adam and Kazzie tried it too but missed out on the cake.
We then played a variety of multiplayer games which we would pass the wiimote to one another. It was pretty exciting, I managed to come second all the time in that :(.
After all the wii goodness it was back to the game we were all creaming over. Super Smash Brothers… MELEEEE! This time we excluded kazzie and adam from the game purely on the fact that they were rubbish ahha. The games were pretty intense. I was cocky enough to play against them handicapped, they knew they wouldnt have won if it was a free for all so it was probably the most fair way to play. At first I even threw in a jigglepuff to aid them, but consider this. I had 5 lives, I had to kill them 15 times to be able to win. A good victory if i managed to pull it off. It was definitely a challenge to fight humans handicapped. They’re not like computers, least you cant hold grudges against computers anyway.
It waas a vicious vicious battle. The games kept coming and coming, we would scream and shout if we lost or won a battle. Near the end, I was finally getting the hang of it all. My strategies in the past were focused mainly on computers, usually my tactic was to let them kill each other and then go for the kill but this time, they were all after me Stu kept using pikachu to throw lightening bolts whenever i was above him and inn would just run away everytime she got a beating.
It was tedious nonetheless. Sooner or later I managed to figure out the best ways of defeating them and then it was apparent that I was defintiely a threat to them, EVEN when being double teamed haha.
The battles lasted all night to about 4 or 5. It was depressingly awesome haha. We were well aware that another meetup was scheduled tommorow but we just couldnt put our pads down and goto sleep, there was so much animal instinct built up inside of us that we couldnt of just called it a night. We finally did, but probably because we were far too tired to play and that the characters were becoming more and more blurred haha.
We decided to call it a night. Kazzie had sorted the airbed and all for me to sleep whilst the other two were sleeping on the couch (separate ones obviously).
Anyway, since the meetup was held at 1pm we had to wake up at around 9 and leave around 11 to kinda make it on time. I managed to set a few alarm clocks (my ds lite and my phone) to go off at that time. I put my ds in an awkward place which required me to get up to turn it off so it should be bullet proof.
Anyway, sleep time, had a bit of a chat but eventually we all went to sleep. I had NO idea who it was but I was woken up about 5 or 6 times by some VICIOUS snoring. It kept building up, and I was so close to just throw a pillow at whoever it was (i think it was stu!) but yeah. That didnt help with the sleep haha.
At 9 I did managed to wake up, thanks to the ds lite and mobile phone, but guess what? Everyone was tired as fuck and still needed to sleep. GARGH! There was hardly any motivation in getting up so I just gave up and went to sleep a bit more. It finally got to a point where I HAD to turn on… the wii. and Play SMASH BROTHERS
Stu bounced right up and we were immediately playing smash brothers, that REALLY got her heads working haha.
Thats part 1 done 
Today I was invited by the manager of Murder in Monochrome to take photos of the band. It was quite an honour to be invited to take photos for a band. I accepted it and was gustlisted (plus one) to the gig so I could take photos for the band. It was quite an impromptu invite, I was tempted to goto the gig anyway but being guestlisted kinda pushed it for me. Since it was all promptu I managed to invite B as my plus one.
Michelle and Caff joined in too. The gig was pretty awesome, I had all the freedom I wanted to take photos, pretty much my little photo pit haha (except I wasnt with other peeps). I had a word with the band and they told me to go nuts on the photo taking and even if it needs be, I could go on stage to take photos haha. So yeah, was pretty awesome knowing that I had that freedom and all.
The gig was pretty awesome, the photos were pretty good. The venue only used blue lighting so I was pretty restricted in terms of lights.
I loved making the keytar look like some space weapon of some sort.
Some panorama esque photos.
After the gig, we went to a pub to see Stevie, I havent met him in ages, it was his birthday and a load of his friends were there to celebrate with him. It was quite, we didn’t talk to most people (Stevie included) but it was fun nonetheless. I’m usually good at finding things to do when I’m bored haha.
Michelle managed to get guestlisted on two gigs tonight. She invited me as her plus one so I instantly jumped in on the deal. The only money I needed was travel money, I had access to a bus pass so I could have went for free, but since I always ran late and didnt like the idea of taking a bus unless its a night bus and I’m forced into it, I thought I might as well took a tube to the location (so thats £2 gone for the rest of the evening).
The first gig was at Bull & Gate, we were to watch Brontosaurus Chorus play, was a pretty chirpy gig. Reminded me alot of Tilly and the Wall. I spent more time checking out the gear though haha, in particular their use of cubase for drums hehe. I really should ignore stuff like that but you know. I saw the photographer who was at White Rose Movement, should really say hello and talk about dslr cameras haha. Though she’d just laugh at my Canon 400d hehe.
After the gig me and Michelle left to see TCTC at Koko, we didnt get a chance to say hi to Matt but I’m sure he was pretty busy that time. So yeah, off to Camden Town. I had no idea about the other bands who were playing, probably NME endorsed bands for fans of NME type music. We took a bus there and already saw a massive line for the gig. The people going to the gig looked like twats, most of them reminded me of the people in Nathan Barely, only worse because they’re right in front of you. One boy in particular really needed a punch in the face, he sported some proper emo clothing, wore a stupid tight jeans and a tight pink top that made him look like a cock, and lets not forget to top it off with stupid hair and some crappy glasses. *shudders*
Thankfully the queue we were waiting for were filled with slightly more mature people, though you still get the occasional knobs. We managed to get slightly nicer guestlist tickets, they were “Directors Box” tickets, which was basically a private ledge for pass holders only. It was guarded by security and all so it was pretty cool. Most of the gig was spent focusing on things other then the band, we werent really there for them and their music wasn’t too good anyway.
During one of the support band gigs Michelle managed to toss an ice cube into the crowd haha. We initially thought it’d just hit the floor or just hit them somewhere like the shoulders or arms but nooo. It hit some random bald guy RIGHT in the head. We INSTANTLY ducked down as the guy tried to find who did it, it was really funny. Michelle was slightly guilty about that but it was just too funny to feel guilty for haha.
Anyway onto the main attraction, The Cooper Temple Clause. Since they had a new album coming out, about 2 thirds of the songs were from the new album. I’ve had a few listens to the album before the gig and it wasn’t too bad, though they have kinda gone downhill a bit.
Since Didz isnt in the band anymore, Kieran was left to play bass for a couple of songs. It was pretty cute and funny at the same time (funny in the sense at how interchangeable the band members are). At one point Ben went over to him and said something, I imagined it was something like “How’re you doing with the bass there? you ok?” hehe.
Halfway during the gig some photographer just barged in between me and Michelle so he could take photos of the gig. Was pretty rude, though I get the feeling some of the bitterness was based on the fact that he owned a decent dslr camera haha. His photos looked pretty good as well. Though I’m guessing not as good as the photo pit people.
Someday I’ll be in the photo pit (hopefully Howling Bells hah) and making people feel jealous haha. I should make my own company and try and blag for photo passes every time hehe. The sound was pretty bad, at one point the volume just randomly went down and back up again. I think the sound techs for the venue messed the thing up pretty badly. They tried their best I guess hehe.
The show ended in some panzer attack action. Was a bit weird at the beginning but eventually jumped into some proper moshing action haha. Notice how Tom had to take off his jacket because he was really into it hehe (I think someone threw his jacket back at him, Airplane style).
Anyhow, I really enjoyed both of the gigs, was good that I only spent £2 on travel to see the gigs. We left the building as soon as the band finished. Michelle booked a cab back home (15 minute journey, lucky) whilst I waited for the night buses.
This was probably one of the most painful experiences in night busing I’ve ever experienced. The amount of waiting was ungodly. I think I waited for an hour for the bus I needed to board, but that bus didnt even turn up so I just took a N31 to somewhere like Chelsea so I can hopefully find another bus there. Bad thing about taking night buses is when you go to ones where you havent taken before, you get really nervous and scared that you’ve took the wrong one and when to actually stop. At one point I thought I was going to Brent Cross! I tried surfing the n70 phone to keep my motivation up, but msn didnt seem to function that well, was a bit of a waste of £1.
Eventually things got a bit better and I arrived at Fulham, to catch a 14 bus and then a 93. I bought some cookies for the journey as I was getting pretty hungry. Eventually the 14 bus came (waited for about 10 minutes) and I was in Putney to wait for my last bus back home (could have walked but waiting for a 93 was cooler).
During the long wait, I decided to just take some photos of the surroundings. One in particular was at Putney Bridge
I tried using the rule of thirds to compose the image, hence the 3 lights and reflections. I already tried it on the lamp post
Was quite a fun lamp post, and afterwards I took some long exposure shots of traffic, I liked this one quite alot
All the photography kept my mind off the fact that I was outside at 4am. The 93 eventually arrived and I got home safelty woo! Really tiring journey, why do people party so late? Ah well, least it was for free and I did get to take some cool photos.
