Last night, we saw Muse at Wembley Stadium.

I’ve got to be honest, I’m not a fan of Wembley Stadium – for me it’s just too big for gigs, and you end up watching the band on big video screens rather than seeing them in action.  Sure, if you can get standing tickets you might have a better chance – but I haven’t managed that with Wembley yet.

The shows are huge – they have to be – but (in my opinion) I find them quite soulless, that they really are a big marketing exercise.

In the case of Muse, this was the third time I’ve seen them – the last time was back in December 2003 and the shows have grown immensely since then. The set itself last night was stunning – and even more so when it came to life for the gig itself – with huge forced perspective buildings that turned out to be enormouse videoscreens, along with weird balloons around the back of the stage, and a lightshow that probably could’ve powered a small to mid-sized town. Oh, and the now-essential moving sections of stage. Of course.

On that technical / effects side, the entire gig was stunning – well, except for the smaller videoscreens having a lag of about two seconds, so that the sound was coming through before the video – decidedly weird, and not what you expect at a gig that size. But the lighting rig was awesome, the sound set up was spot-on, and technically it was great.

Muse were good too – but in my opinion they’re too small for Wembley. Yes, they music fills the place and is stunning, but performance wise, you just can’t see three people on a stage that size. Any theatrics that were done (including Matt Bellamy’s Glowing LED suit) were just too damn small. Even the moving sector of stage, moving, lifting and rotating was well, just too small. In the O2 it would’ve been excellent. In Wembley it was all just dwarved by the size of the Stadium.

So all told, a tad underwhelmed. Muse blasted the stage and sound system, but I just came out feeling that Wembley was too big – they could’ve done the same gig at the O2 and it would’ve been stunning, but with less people and a smaller scale to fill.

I’ve been a fan of Yello since the mid eighties, when someone introduced me to the Stella album. From there I got the previous albums, and I’ve bought every one since. There’s a couple missing now (The Race, and Essential), but all the same, they’re a collection of CDs that I love.

The last Yello album I bought was The Eye, back in 2003, and I hadn’t heard anything more from them since then.

For whatever reason, I’ve been listening to the Pocket Universe album in the car over the last couple of weeks, and (as always) really enjoyed listening to it – and it occurred to me that I hadn’t checked in a while to see whether there was anything new.

And lo, it turned out that there was – Touch, released in October last year. Happy, happy day.

I received it yesterday, and it’s been on in the car today.

And it’s really good – as usual. Much more accessible than most of their stuff, and much less mad – rather than heavy electronica it’s got a really bluesy feel to a lot of it, which I really like.

I hope it’ll be a lot less than seven years before the next album comes out.

Tonight we went off to see the new Chris Nolan film, Inception.  It’s had good reviews, and I’m generally a fan of Nolan’s stuff anyway, although some reviews had said it was really complex and hard to follow. Mind you, that’s not normally something I worry about. (it’s generally A Good Thing)

As it was, I really enjoyed the film. Personally I didn’t find it hard to follow at all – although there were a couple of irritating plot holes/errors that nagged – and it didn’t feel like 2½ hours of film at all. Again, that’s definitely A Good Thing – I could name a few that felt like every damn second of their runtime, and were the worse for it. (Lord of the Rings 2/3, Matrix 2/3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, I’m looking at you – and a fair few others- here)

One of the things I liked about Inception was the insistence that you just go with the concept of being able to share dreams, and how the entire thing worked. I get irritated by films/books that explain everything and how it works – these things are about suspension of disbelief, of (in my opinion) just going with the story. Getting into the ins and outs of technology just makes you go “That’s not right”, and jars the experience more than it builds it.

All told, I thought Inception was pretty damn good. Maybe not “Best film of the year”, and probably not one I’d want/need to see again, but still good.

Last night I was supposed to be seeing Pink at the Portman Road stadium in Ipswich. I didn’t see it.

Why? Because I couldn’t find the fucking stadium.

I’m normally pretty good on finding places, but must admit that in this case I’d figured there would be some signs to follow. After all, it’s a football stadium for fuck’s sake. Surely they need some signs for away fans to get there etc.?

Apparently not. I have to assume that Ipswich is truly embarassed about the stadium – they sure as shit don’t like to admit that they’ve got one.

Driving along the A14, I got to the first turn-off for Ipswich. There’s a sign there that says “Football Stadium” with an arrow pointing straight on (i.e. don’t take the turn-off). Fine. Second junction’s the same – “Straight on for Football Stadium“. After that, nothing. I got to the far side of Ipswich, no more signs. I turned round, coming back from Felixstowe direction to Ipswich, and there’s not one fucking sign. Not one.

All told I did that stretch three times, checking the exit roads, trying to see any damn signage whatsoever that pointed me in the direction of the stadium. Nothing except those two signs saying “straight on” from one direction.

So in the end I said fuck it, and drove home.

I assume Portman Stadium etc. won’t give a shit, as they’ve got their money for the gig already. But you can be damn fucking sure I won’t be going back there again.

I do feel like a right bell-end for not being able to find a sodding football stadium. But at the same time it’s not just me, others have said it’s a shit to find unless you actually know where it is. Personally, I’m not going to make the effort to try and find it again.

Over the weekend, we went to see Bon Jovi at the O2. It’s their greatest hits tour for the “Circle” album, and they’re at the O2 for 12 nights all told. Now I have to say, I’m not a massive fan of Bon Jovi. Herself is, Brother-in-Law is, so we all went.

The gig itself was really impressive. Bon Jovi’s performance was pretty storming, deifnitely one of the better big gigs I’ve seen – even for someone who’s not a massive fan. I only recognised or knew about a third of the tracks performed, but still, that’s fine.

What was more impressive (for me, anyway) was the stage set, which really was impressive. Right from the start it let you know it meant business, with a massive high-res screen coming down to obscure the view while Bon Jovi came onstage, and which then split into individual columns to travel round the stage.

There were a number of other really stunning technical bits, including some epic lighting, and that same matrix screen also showing that the columns could also split out into individual screens.

But the piece de resistance is the five mobile 6′ x 9′ screens at the back of the stage. They’re made (yes, I researched!) by ABB robots, who say the following :

ABB robots, accompanying Bon Jovi’s “The Circle” tour will be the first set of industrial robots to be a part of a concert tour. The visual intrigue of the show will be enhanced by the five ABB robots positioned toward the back of the stage, each with a 6’ x 9’ LED video panel attached to their articulated arm. The robots and screens will move to the rhythm and beat of the music while displaying real time video footage of the show and digital animations. At various intervals the five robot arms move into a formation where the LED panels become one continuous, five panel screen. The robots will accompany
the nearly two-year long tour, which features over 60 concerts in North America and Europe.

These screens/robots are simply amazing – they’re all articulated in all three axes, and move individually, in time with the music, as well as at one point becoming a staircase. It’s an exceptional demonstration of what can be done now with stage sets if you’ve enough money and creativity.

Stage sets, lighting and effects have always been one of my real geek-out subjects, and that geek in me was totally appeased by the Bon Jovi stageset.

Seeing things like this gig is one of the things that makes me think about What Might Have Been. If I’d stayed in school (and gone on to college, university, whatever) then I’d have gone on to do one of two things : Stage Lighting/Sound/Sets, or working with the Great Apes.

Stage stuff would’ve fulfilled my geeky needs bigtime, and I’d hae loved to do it. Working with Great Apes would’ve fulfilled other parts of me, and I’d have been equally happy doing either. In fact if I were to win a lottery or something, I’d go back to do one of those things. (Most likely the work with Apes, in honesty)

I don’t regret the path I’ve taken, not for one minute. But every so often I do think of the different paths available, the roads not taken. Last night was one of those times.

So last Thursday and Friday I was in London for the Webdirections @Media Conference. It was the first time I’d been in a couple of years (I last attended the 2007, I think – holiday for the ’08 one, and tubularity stopped me from attending the ’09 one) so it was interesting to see what had changed – and of course what had stayed the same.

Of course the big difference was that @Media is now run/organised/owner by WebDirections, rather than through Vivabit as it has been in previous years. I’d not heard of WebDirections before, but apparently they’ve done a number of similar conferences in Australia etc.

To me, it seemed that the focus of the conference had changed quite a bit this year (or maybe over the last couple of years, I don’t know – can’t really comment on the ones I didn’t/couldn’t attend) to be more about design and programming, rather than the accessibility and user experience themes of previous @Medias I’ve attended. And that’s a disappointment.

The focus this year was very much on Javascript (which used to be a real no-no) and about telling designers to not worry so much about making designs work in all browsers and versions. There was virtually no mention at all of accessibility, except in one session through the two days. For a conference where accessibility and so on were paramount at the start, that’s a pretty sad state of affairs.

The other thing I really noticed this year was how corporate some of it seemed. In previous ones there’s been sponsorship from big companies and so on, but this time it was more going down the “stands in the public areas” type of promotion. Again that could be something that’s happened more in the last couple of years that I’ve missed, so it’s not such an eye-opener for other more regular attendees.

It was a good conference though, don’t get me wrong – I’ve got a lot of stuff to take out of it, bits that I’ve learned, bits that will make sites I work on better in anumber of ways. I’ve enjoyed it – it’s just been interesting to see what’s changed.