Essays are the least important thing right now.
More important is a gig report. A long one.
So, Lauren gets to Falmer Station (the University of Sussex station) at 11:45 p.m on the thursday night. I'm not there, so I get shouted at down the phone. I'm wearing my long coat so I feel like I look cool no matter what. I pick her up and we noodle our way back to my flat, to my flatmates, who I forgot to tell that she was coming. Score social communication points for me!
After talking for a bit, we go into my room and mess around on the computer and unpacking. Soon afterwards, we get geeky and sit in bed all cuddeled under the cover playing Mario Kart DS and Legend of Zelda battle mode on our Nintendo Ds's. By now it's about 2 o clock, I have a presentation in 7 hours. Yet we probably don't go to sleep for about another hour.
Sleepy-time falls, and every hour I wake up thinking shit omfg I've missed my presentation only to look at my phone and see it's only 5:30, 6:45, 7:30. So I get up at 7:30, have a shower, look over my notes, make myself look smart, text my presentation partner See you in the room 10 minutes early so we set up and sort out who says what.
I leave late, get there at 9 on the dot, he doesn't turn up 'till 9:15 and he doesn't have his notes, so spends another 15 minutes printing them out. Not a good start. While we're setting up the powerpoint presentation, Polly the seminar tutor asks Have you got a handout for the class, guys? and I jump in and say WE HAVE...um...it's just on the computer, we were going to e-mail it to everyone which seems to satisfy her in a grumpy way. Fair enough.
So, the presentation starts, I'm literally wetting myself, I hate public speaking.
But it went ok. We didn't really base our presentation around facts that we'd researched, it was all our own ideas on the subject which was Questioning Media Practices: Ethics surrounding the production of media. We started off kind of broadly talking about what sort of choices people make in the production of different media like reality television, but we focussed on photojournalism. Which gave us the opportunity to talk about controversial photos (falling man, vietnam, burning monk, Abu Ghraib) and digital manipulation which I love. I remember there was a point where I felt like I was just talking to myself instead of in front of an audience, which really calmed me down. And meant we could do our little uplifting joke at the end without worrying, where we photoshopped Polly's online profile photo and turned it into a police mugshot to emphasise our point about digital manipulation. The rest of the seminar was pretty much about the photos we used in the presentation, our aim was to make a memorable presentation and I think we did just that.
I meet Lauren near the union shop and we go shopping and buy lots of food which comes to a lot more than it should have done. But I have food, and it feels good that my cupboards aren't empty.
We go back to my room and occupy ourselves for a while.
We eat microwave burgers, and I head off to meet my video workshop group to work on editing of our documentary. I tell lauren I'll only be 45 minutes to an hour. I'm there from about 2:15 to 4:00. When I leave, I phone up ticketweb to say my ticket for Queens of the Stone Age hasn't arrived and the gigs on monday and what can I do I want to go. But I'm on hold for about 20 minutes. And when they pick up, I say my name, confirmation number, address and that my tickets haven't arrived and they say I'll just get them reprinted for you. Sorted. I pick them up at Brixton Academy on Monday.
Back at my room, we get our stuff ready to go see QOTSA (yes I'm seeing them twice in the space of 4 days, go away) and head off to catch the train. Armed with a packet of kettle chips and a bottle of water.
We get to town at about 4:45, and head off to find where we're suppose to queue up to get into the Brighton Dome concert hall. We see two guys waiting, and we figure that's where it is. Doors don't open until 7, so we go off to get food, and ask in the box office if they know which door. I get a couple of slices of take-out MEAT FEAST pizza. Lauren wants noodles, so we go to this little japanese place called POMPOKO, she gets chicken noodles and some prawns. We go and sit by the stage door of the Brighton Dome hoping we might catch a glimpse of someone cool. We don't, but it's nice anyway.
I text ben and I'm all like yer, I'm seeing QOTSA tonight, and then on monday, and then again in February and he's all like fucker. I shall be seeing him in a few weeks, haven't seen him for about 2 or 3 months.
It hits 6, and we decide to go and queue up. There's a crowd of about 6 or 7 people, so we just jump on the end. We stand around for ages trying to warm our feets on the ground lights, which did seem to defrost my toes a bit.
Finally, we head in, Lauren goes off to look at the merch and get me some cider while I wait by the main doors. I then head in and nab a spot front-row-center, Lauren follows spilling cider everywhere. And there we stand. I go off to the toilet, and then can't go because two guys come and stand either side of me at urinals. So I manage to get a bit out, then head back to the stage. After another 10 minutes, I realise this was a bad move and that now I desperatly need the toilet. I head back, and find a cubicle, HUZZAH. Then head back again to the stage. We sort out lauren's cameras for taking gig photos, which it's not great at but by the end of the gig I'm getting some ok photos.
The 80's Matchbox B-Line Disaster come out, and they're pretty good. Their sound isn't really loud enough and some twatface behind me is heckling them for half of their set which kind of puts a downer on it. It's awkward when the band thinks that noone wants to listen to them, but everyone was dancing and jumping apart from this shouting twat.
Though they didn't really fill the stage. It seemed too big for them, I'd like to see them in a smaller venue in brighton like the Engine Room or Concorde 2.
I'm pretty bad at describing gigs, as if you read my last entry, I often go into a little musical wonderland. I did in this gig a few times, to be rudely brought back by Lauren. Which was good.
So on come QOTSA, to "Dance to the Music". Everyone is so immensly excited you can feel the crowd buzzing. We're pretty much in the gap between Troy van Leeuen and Josh Homme, infront of Dean on the keys who is a bit further back, giving Troy the opportunity to come and stand right infront of us for a lot of the gig. Setlist:
Hanging Tree
Burn the Witch
Into the Hollow
Misfit love
Do it Again
Go With the Flow
You Can't Quit Me Baby
In The Fade
Little Sister
Battery Acid
Make It Wit Chu
Tangled up in Plaid
Turnin' on the Screw
Sick Sick Sick
No One Knows
Song For The Dead
Photos
Just a few of the few decent ones I got. The gig really was immense. Got completely pulverised though. I kept making eye contact with Troy throughout the whole gig, and at the end I pointed at him in sort of a "YOU THE MAN" sort of way, and he looked at me, nodded, and threw his plectrum to me. Which flew in the complete other direction. Luckily a kind security guard got me a plectrum. That's one from Josh (100 Club) and one from Troy.
Aftergigwards, we sort of hung around, saw some people from the RR forum but didn't go and talk because I just think that would be awkward. So we headed back to campus after some shit about donuts and costing too much. Went back to my room, then headed off to find Katy and Oli, who were with other delightful univeristy people. We didn't stay very long though, Lauren was knackered.
Roll on Monday. Not only do I get to see QOTSA again, but I get to go home for the evening.
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