"Almost...Almost..."AKA. "All Crowd Surfers Should Die"; and "An amazing Week"

I write this towards the end of one very long day for me, but as today was so good, I wanted to be the first one to write about what went on.

So first, this day started (for me at least) with my alarm going off at 6am. Not a very regular occurance on a Saturday for a Student, but with the opportunity to go on a Notts Uni "Rag Raid" to Manchester, it was something I was not going to miss(well, i wasn't going to miss the bus at least, as I didn't actually do the Rag Raid[its a charity run basically while getting completely pissed]) About 30minutes after everyone arrived outside Spar to meet up for the Trip, we got on the bus and were on our way. Unfortunately, the driver decided to choose one of the weirdest routes imaginable, and due to having to find a Service Station Stop somewhere along the route, we were ushered into an empty Service Station for 30minutes less than an hour after getting onto the bus. From there, it was a strange route through the Derbyshire Dales, and trips through Chesterfield, Stockport and finally into Manchester were we stopped off about 200m from Picadilly Station. Upon leaving the main group with Dave, a guy on my course and who was also from Manchester and i'd spent part of the journey talking to(when not trying to catch up on some sleep), we walked towards Oxford Road, and then down towards where Scott is staying. After meeting up with Scott, and meeting 2 of his flat mates, the 3 of us walked to Tescos where Scott(and I) did abit of shopping, and then Dave met up with his brother and headed off home. Meanwhile, Scott and I headed back to his flat for a little food, and then watched Highlander. After this, we headed out to meet up with none other than Mr James Clarke in the centre. Although Scott stopping us from getting on one of the first 20buses to pass(due to him not being able to use his bus pass on any of them) was annoying, we finally managed to find the "right" bus to get into the centre.
After a short wait on the bridge in Picadilly Gardens(watching a little kid run into the fountain, and me pointing out the people from Notts uni who were suprisingly not in a pub. I guess it must get boring when you are a second year) we walked towards Philpotts, which unfortunately was closed, and after checking that the one closer to Deansgate was closed, we headed off to China Town for the Buffet.
About an hour and a half later, we walked out full and headed towards the Printworks, after admiring the new Wheel of course, and then went and bought our tickets for "Wallace and Gromit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit". Two fun filled hours later, after watching what is definately a Must-See (even if you do live in a Country where you are deprived of such greatness), we headed to Deansgate so that Mr Clarke could try to get some Waterproof trousers, but in vain. Then we headed off to Scotts again where James copied the amazing CD from Army of Freshmen, and then we picked our stuff up and headed to Scotts Residential bar for a beer and a few games of Pool. After being beaten by blatent cheating by Mr Clarke, who then went on to lose to Scott, I beat Scott, and then James twice in a row before James finished off the last game by beating me after a very poor safety by myself, although it did take a very flukey but bad shot for him to actually win. We then headed to John Dalton Street, where I said my goodbyes to Scott and James(after spending 9 1/2, and 6 hours with them) and headed home for the first time in around 4 weeks.
After Kat constantly trying to hug me, and subsequently being picked up and thrown onto the sofa/floor, I headed upstairs to sort some things to take with me back to Uni tomorrow, and to generally relax, before coming on here to print off LOTS of lecture notes(well, its cheaper here than at uni....) and to type this.
Tomorrow takes me first to my Grans for Lunch(i think) and then back to Nottingham ready for another week of lectures.

Saying as I started with today, I might as well start with yesterday, well at least after getting home from the concert(so from 2pm basically)
Once i arrived back from the Train Station, i had a shower and headed off to the last lecture of the week(I may have skipped 2 on Thursday, and a further 2 on Friday, but i still made one at least, hehe) Then after this, i went back to the flat, and then about 2 hours later headed off to Nottingham City Centre with some friends to see The Corpse Bride, but not before grabbing a sandwich in Subway, a place that is really starting to grow on me. I started out sceptical about the film, but it is definately one to watch and was thoroughly enjoyable, if not a little predictable(but what movie isn't?) The rest of the night was spent playing various card games, before heading off to bed(for me at least) at the relatively early time of 1am.


I'm sure you have all read the review of the BFS gig that me, James and Charlie went to(if not, check out James' blog, and the soon to be published i believe Charlies') but i want to talk about my experience of the night.
After sitting through 2 lectures, i rushed off to catch the bus into Nottingham to the Train Station and picked up my tickets. An hour later, I arrived in Sheffield, and met up with Charlie at the station, and about 10minutes later, James arrived and we headed off to grab a bite to eat(Fish and Chips for me, Burger and Chips for the others) and went back to Charlies flat to finish off the food in James' case, and to eat it in Charlies and mine. We then headed off to a local Pub where we got ourselves a couple of drinks, and played a few games of pool.After talking Charlie into joining us at the gig(his first, my 10th i believe and James' 12th[we worked it out between bands]) we headed to the Octagon, the venue for the nights event. Charlie went into his SU to buy a ticket, while me and James waited outside while getting some money from the Cash machine, where we were shocked to see the guitarist from BFS walk past us carrying what looked like a sand bag. After watching him have his picture taken with some fans, we joined the queue and were soon inside the Octagon.
Having not been able to discover who would be supporting BFS for the concert, i was eager to check out the Merchandise stall, where to my shock,and James' we discovered that none other than American Hi-Fi were supporting, as well as Army of Freshmen, a band i was sure i recognised the name of(they had infact supported BFS the last time they had toured England, although this wasn't discovered until I checked out their website to see where I knew the name from).I quickly bought an American Hi-Fi poster, and stickers, while James bought himself a Hoodie. Due to the Army of Freshmen stall being empty, we headed towards the stage in anticipation of the first band. Right from the start, Army of Freshmen had the band's attention, with their Rocky Sound, and the presence of the lead singer. Songs of note were "Get Um Up"(you know the lyrics James, we sang them to you enough today, lol, when not singing the W&G theme tune of course) and "10,000 Years"(which was used as a Sing-Along). The introduction of Jared from BFS for one of the songs(unfortunately I can't remember which song it is, It's on the EP that Scott with *hopefully* get for me) got the crowd going even more, and by the end of the set the crowd were loving the band. The lead singers stage dive off the top of 2 Amps was very impressive indeed, although it did look like he hit the floor.
I quickly headed off to the merchandise stall(although James and Charlie weren't too keen to start with) where non other than the lead singer was selling Army of Freshmen merchandise. Once i got to the front, i told him how amazing the gig was, got both mine and James' tickets signed, and bought the album, a shirt and a poster, all for the low low price of £10(seperately they would have cost 19 i think) as well as a badge and sticker set(i seem to be collecting these) I then asked him if they had supported Green Day when we went to see them at the MEN (because James and I both realised they sounded quite like New Found Glory, a band who had supported Green Day and we werent sure if AoF had also supported) to be told that they hadn't been in England in this calendar year yet. I also proclaimed how I liked the stage dive and was told that he had infact been caught by the crowd, but he had been close to the floor. After heading away from this corner of the foyer, i went to the BFS table, signed us all up for their mailing list(we each got a free sticker for doing so) and then bought myself a BFS shirt, some more stickers and badges, while Charlie bought a shirt for himself.
While, buying the merchandise, we missed part of the set of MC Lars, who was nothing better than average at the best of times, although as James said, once BFS came on stage the song they played with him sounded much better.
After MC Lars, were the impressive American Hi-Fi, who started off with the Rock Tune "The Art of Loosing" and got the crowd really up for the band they were to be followed by, BFS. As you will have probably heard, James caught himself a Drum Stick(much superior to one a certain girl has in her room) which he is very pleased about
Upon the arrival of BFs on stage, the crowd went wild, and as great song was followed by great song, we all were jumping around, singing along, and generally just having a great time. Songs of note were Trucker Hat, Ohio(always a crowd favourite), My Hometown, Emily, Girl All The Bad Guys Want, Bitch Song, Summer of 69, well basically all of the set they played, but there are 2 songs in particular I would like to talk about.
Firstly, Belgium, the song has appeared on all 4 BFS albums, on the last 2 as Bonus tracks, and has been one of my favourites since I first bought the album Drunk Enough to Dance. However, this seems to be a song less known by the fans, which is a major shame. However, myself and James had great fun shouting the words to each other, which was made even better by the fact that there were so many people just listening along while we were getting hyper about the playing of a great song. This song has always reminded me of good times, and of course Belgium the place. It was one of the last songs to be played the first time we saw BFS play live, and its slot as the third song of the night(i think) was slightly surprising, and a bit risky, but in the end it was pulled off to perfection(although to my *slight* disappointment the trumpets that appear on the original version were nowhere to be seen)

Then, there is Almost, an amazing song, one of my favourites from them, and probably my favourite from the newest album, and due to this i made my way as far forward as I could to get into the "action" properly. Throughout the gig, there were crowd surfers, most of whom pass over you fairly easily, but there are always the odd few that end up kicking you, or landing on you, or, as happened a few times, end up with their arse in your face(luckily it was only girls who this seemed to apply to on the night), but there was one that really got to me. While Almost was playing, this guy came over and as you do, i pushed him as hard as i could forwards. However, his arms managed to knock into my hands and managed to knock the ring i treasure from Inge right off my finger and away onto the floor. Despite frantic searching around where I was stood, which involved pushing quite alot of people out of the way, I was unable to locate my ring. Very upset, I made my way back to James and Charlie where I told them that we needed to stay behind to search for it after the gig, but luckily James spotted something shiny on the floor, which just happened to be my crushed, but still in one piece, ring, which had somehow flown back a good 3/4m and landed right by James. However by this point, one of the songs I was really looking forward to had been ruined by some wanker who obviously didnt know how to crowd surf(not that im an expert....) I managed to get into the last 2 songs after this, and it didnt stop me enjoying the concert as a whole, but it definately made me feel, at least at that moment, annoyed, upset, and definately angry.
After what was a great concert, despite that one moment, we decided to head back to Charlies instead of trying to find the train station(in what would have been in vain probably) where we had a wash, and were thinking about going out and getting drunk but nothing materialised in the end. After a night of sleeping on the floor, sharing the sleeping bag with James(we were both wearing quite a few layers....) we headed off to our respective "homes" around 10am leaving Charlie to try and make his lectures of the day, while we went for the long walk(well we did go the long way....) to the train station, walking through the wind rain and cold getting completely soaked(although James was kind enough to lend me his Oakley Hoodie) before finally getting into the warmer climate of the station. We had a burger and bacon sandwich each while waiting for our trains, and then it was off on our seperate directions both wanting to get back to our flats i presume. After spending 20minutes on the cold platform, i was at least happy to get on the train, and then to discover that the rain and cold that had plagued us in Sheffield was nowhere to be seen in Nottingham.


If you managed to read all that in one go, then you are one very bored person....and a great person of course ;)