Nine Inch Nails July 2009

I got two standing tickets for Manchester !!!
got em presale off the NIN website, cool!

AC/DC - Manchester MEN 21st April 2009

Bloody Hell, if you thought these guys were past it then think again.

The 'RocknRoll Train' rolled into Manchester MEN arena. A place to big for most bands and a venue with the shittest sound around (really echoey) .
However AC/DC pulled it off big time ( i still would prefer to see them in a small club, but it will never happen).
Basically this was a greatest hits gig, a total crowd pleaser.
They did four off the new album 'Rock n roll train' 'War Machine', 'Big Jack' and 'Black Ice' (possibly one more) then intersperced these tracks with AC/DC gold.
At one point they did 'whole lotta rosie' followed by 'let there be rock' followed by 'highway to hell' and that wasn't even the final oncore, unbelievable.

Huge stage with a big Angus posing walkway and rising stage for Angus to solo on, with three giant screens behing them.
Some of the songs had amusing animation to go with the songs and in amongst the stage set appeared a huge inflatable 'Rosie', 'for those about to rock' cannons firing into the crowd and 'hells bell' was swung across the stage.

The band had the crowd by the balls for the entire 2 hour set, and Angus is a amazing performer and guitarist. The guy must be about late 50's by now and doesn't look like stopping.
They also sounded great amongst the monster arena's crap sound.

one of the best gigs so far for me, definatley in my top ten gigs ever!

9/10

the sisters of mercy - Leeds 8th April

DRUM MACHINES AND POWER CHORDS......

I was unsure whether i would be disappointed or pleased with this one.
I have been waiting a number of years to see the Sisters, everytime i have had the opportunity to go, a mate would always pull out of going and i could never go, so i thought i cannot miss this one.
One of the final ticks on my list of my fave bands that i had yet to see.

I just caught the end of the support, some old skool punk band who seemed to amuze the crowd, which is what you want, but no better than a pub band. the name of them escapes me, but it is no great loss.

Anyway.. the smoke machine starts billowing and on they come.

The Sisters are not the same band that they were in the early 80's, floodland era or Vision thing era, in personnel or sound. They haven't been for some time now.
As the band tore into various old tracks and 'relatively' new tracks i could see the older faces in the crowd expecting some kind of recreation of bygone days start to look exceedingly glum.
Plus people in the crowd whom have not seen or heard anything from them since the 80's had the same reaction (infact i saw at least 3 people leave).

The Sisters do not sound like they did, this is not to say that their performace was poor, in fact i thought it was great, however their lack of releasing their material written in the last ten years has in my opinion backfired as half the crowd didnt know what they now sounded like or what many of the songs where.

The guitars are all about power chords with Dr.Avalanche (drum machine) still providing the beat. A full on wall of noise. f'ing brill!

Many of the older songs sounded different, and it could be a few bars into each track before you would realise what song they where playing due to the harder edge sound that they where now playing it at and pace.
This seemed to piss the old skool goths off.

I believe that Eldrich is purposely trying to make as much distance from his past and fashion the sisters into a totally different band. He doesn't seem to want the band to be perceived as the typical stereotype goth band that they are perceived as.

Personally, i really enjoyed it, it was tainted slightly by the idiots around me complaining that this 'wasn't the sisters' etc...

They have sounded like they currently do for a number of years now.
Many of the songs played ' We are the same Suzanne', 'Top Nite Out' etc have been played for years, but because they have never had any form of physical release, the songs are only recogniseable if you have hunted them down from live bootlegs or seen them performed at other gigs. Bit of an error of judgement on Eldritch's part i believe, but then again, they don't conform to the norm either which makes them so special.

They still did old faves like 'Alice', 'Lucretia..',Dominion' Marian, 'First and Last and Always', Temple of Love etc

And i can't recall the name of the song, it is a new one but the main riff of the song rips off 'Millennium' by Killing Joke. Its good though.

I hope i see them again!

my pictures are crap (i never take a good camera, as i lost one once before at a gig)

7/10

The Grand National - Aintree, Liverpool

Whoa!
What a day yesterday, i went to the Grand National at Aintree, really good.
It would have been better if i had won, unfortunatley i was massively down for the day, but you cannot win them all.
I got the winner on the first, third on the second, then lost them all after that.
I got third on the big one but i got very little back, and i had wagered a lot more on other horses.

The one thing that stuck out for me was just how busy it was! The place was packed out, each bar was 5 deep, and the queue for the bogs was at least 10 mins (not good when you are bursting).
Everyone was suited and booted, loads of the scally girls were bright orange with the fake tan, and loads of Irish people were there and a lot of gingers (presumably these where irish too?)

A highly recommend day out. I am definatley going to go again next year, but probably for ladies day as it is a little more chilled.

Finished the day at the 'Red Rum' pub, totally mental, everyone pissed dancing on tables.
I can image there would have been a few fights later on (in good spirit though!).

I headed off into town for a chinese.
Lovely - the usual:

Chicken and Sweetcorn soup,
Dim Sum,
Ribs / Chicken etc,
Crispy Duck and pancakes,
Sizzling Beef / Beef and blackbean / Chicken and Mushroom.

All washed down with Strongbow!

A great day that left me light in the wallet, vastly hungover, but enjoyable all the same.
Well Done to 'Mon Mome'
A big f.u. to all the horses and jockeys that lost me money!

gigs

Loads of good gigs at the moment, extremely difficult keeping up and finding it hard to say no to each gig.
Seems like a gig from everyone i like at the moment.

Killing Joke in Blackpool , Depeche Mode in Manchester and 2manydj's as well.

got Sisters of Mercy in Leeds next week, followed by AC/DC later on this month.

gonna be good!!