Linkin Park – MEN Arena

I was highly naffed off at missing linkin Park when they played the Manchester Apollo earlier this year, so when I knew they were playing the MEn I got tickets fairly quickly. I know, I realy need to get out less.

Support tonight came from Kinesis (who I missed *hangs head in shame*) and Lost Prophets, who were pretty good. The sound quality let them down massively, but they still managed to do well at warming up the audience. I’d never heard their stuff before, but I can see I might be downloading some test-tracks, see if they sound better when not in a shithole like MEN.

The entire atmosphere changed when Linkin Park came on though. The stage-set was impressive – and flippin’ huge, spanning the arena, and reaching out into the side areas where the audience were seated as well. More impressively, they made use of the entire stage – it’s not often you see an entire band as mobile and energetic as this one. Recently I’ve noticed a propensity for bands to go back to wired guitars etc., which limits the movement quite significantly. From what I could tell, all of the band were using radio mikes rather than wired, and so they were able to make use of the entire space, particularly the two singers, and the “roving guitarist”.

On this occasion, the photos really don’t do justice to the concert at all – on a total tangent, I’m getting more and more pissed off with the limitations of the current camera, and it’s going to be upgraded before long, I’m sure. The lighting throughout the show was superb, and the sound quality was spot on – hard to believe it was the same system that the Lost Prophets had sounded so (comparatively) shit on.

Linkin Park were only on for about 80 minutes total – but in fairness to them, that’s their entire two albums-worth, as well as a couple of new tracks, so I can’t really fault them for that. Also, from the sheer energy they put into the show, they must have been knackered by the end of it. It was a storming show, perfect sound and lighting, exceptional crowd response, and more energy than the local power station.

Oh, and anyone who doesn’t believe that Chester’s voice really can cover that incredible range – you’re wrong. It’s scary to see, and the only other person I’ve ever seen with an equivalent vocal range is Diamanda Galas – and believe me, that’s a complimentary reference. Hugely impressed.

Policy

Of all the tedious things to write, particularly on a day when the brain just wants to be back in bed, Privacy policies and the like are high on the list. Explaining things like IP Addresses and Cookies is no fun either…

The next breakdown will be arriving shortly.

Blah. I’m sure I could come up with a more descriptive word – but for now Blah will have to suffice.

Among many other things, I think I’ve hit a place where burnout is just about next on the agenda. Last night (well, technically this morning) seems to have been the proof of that. An unutterably lousy night’s “sleep”, which vaguely kind of started-ish at about 4.30am, and was then thoroughly disturbed during the next couple of hours until the alarm went off. Then two hours of semi-decent sleep, which unfortunately meant I woke up just before 9am. Ug.

As of now, my weekend is cancelled. I’m seeing Linkin Park tonight, then when I get home there’ll be wine and/or vodka, and then I have every intention of just turning off the alarm clock, and sleeping ’til whenever. (Hmmm – maybe I should turn off alarms before drinking?) I need to. Currently, curling up and dying seems like such a good idea…

Bloggius Meeticus

Well, the second Mancunian Blogmeet® went pretty well. It was good to see Jane and Adrian joining the motley crew. Damn, we must be getting organised or something.

Thankfully, Topper has maintained his reputation for an encyclopaedic (with, in this case the emphasis on “paed” *Grin*) knowledge of vile jokes, culminating in one about the difference between a pint of Guiness™ and Michael Jackson. Thankfully, from there the conversation happily climbed back up to gutter level, and included such diverse topics as James Bond theme songs and most embarassing concerts (and I don’t care what they say, someone admitting to seeing Mariah Carey three weeks ago runs pretty high on that list, although Chris‘s confession of seeing David Essex was judged to be the overall winner – oh, and Jane, the series was “The River“, and the woman was Katy Murphy *pats IMDB*). Along the way, the Magnum PI theme was played and identified, as were many others. Air instruments came up in conversation (including Air Accordion and Air Harp, all topped off by an exceptional rendition on the Air Bagpipes) as well as the fact that I still want to know what sound a bagpipe player makes when kicked in the knackers mid-rendition.

Some of the lightweights left early, but Sarah, Jane and myself stayed ’til 2. And yes, Sarah was hungover this morning, even having been drinking shandy all night…

We’re thinking about organising a Northern Meet for somewhere around the Festering Season™, although due to time constraints etc., it’s likely now to be mid-January before everything can be co-ordinated. So perhaps a Northern “It’s over for another year” Meet? Leave comments here, or at Lori’s place (when the comments aren’t kippered) if you’re interested, and we’ll try to figure out a decent date for a bigger meet…

Blockage

My brain’s on strike. I’ve been working with validating a site to XHTML all day – and now it finally works. Yay. But Ye Gods what a faff. And now my brain’s shut down and gone home, so work is even less of a priority. I really should be more responsible and less reprehensible – but like that’ll ever happen.

Blogmeet

Yes, another one. Tonight, 8pm, FAB Cafe (again). Should be good. And I’m pretty sure Adrian and Jane will be making it along this time too. Yay!

Westonbirt

As well as everything else that’s been going on today, I also finally got round to uploading a few of the photos I took on the weekend at Westonbirt Arboretum over the weekend.

There’s still loads that I could’ve uploaded, but I thought I’d gauge the boredom threshold before doing many more of them. Be thankful for small mercies.