World of Gav

So yesterday Me, Mark, Rich and Ali went to Newcastle to see The Prodigy. Had been waiting for this day for absolutely ages. Had spent many hours in boring lectures thinking "Only another X amount of days to go until The Prodigy". So I was excited. Very.

 

Rich picked me up at midday, and we picked up Mark, then Ali (who was still in bed!). I had compiled an mp3 CD of all my Prodigy collection for listening purposes in the car, and we stuck it on random. Good shit indeed.

 

Upon getting to Newcastle, we visited Steel Wheels, so Rich could spend an hour and a half buying stuff, then we went to Pizza Hut for tea. Ali and I shared a Cheese Feast with chicken and sweetcorn, with garlic bread. It was nice. Why am I writing this like a spooner? Anyways. Rich had to go back to the car to feed the meter (He had eaten four plates of buffet food and three bowls of ice cream as well, poor stomach!) and we sauntered off to find glowsticks. Glowsticks purchased, we made our way back to the car to set off to the arena. Sadly, a lot of other people were heading out of Newcastle at the same time, and Rich didn't fancy going onto the motorway and being stuck for ages, so we decided to walk to the arena instead. That idea lasted all of 3 minutes when I declared I was fucking freezing (wearing only my baggies and a t-shirt) so we hopped on the Metro and got off 2 stops later, virtually outside the arena. Nice. I've copied my review of the gig from the one I posted on Haxed, but I now feel the need to point out to Mark why you shouldn't take a jacket into the arena if you're not going to fasten it around you in some way. IT'LL GET LOST.

 

-Review Thing here-

 

Gig review – The Prodigy (Newcastle Metroradio Arena, 22^nd November 2005)

 

It’s a freezing cold night, but luckily for us the Aircraft Hanger-like Metroradio Arena is warm. A good job, seeing as how it’s 6:30 and the show isn’t due to end until 11pm. The first half hour sees me struggling with my wristband glowsticks, trying to fasten them around my arms whilst juggling 3 bottles of mineral water (essential for any Prodigy gig.) At roughly 7pm the rather poorly named Backstage Sluts DJ’s come out, and for the next 45 minutes play a hybrid of tunes, ranging from modern hip-hop to reworked versions of Beastie Boys classics. It’s pretty fun, but a bit boring to watch as we stand around and wait for the first band.

 

For reasons unknown, the Audio Bully’s have thankfully pulled out tonight, so instead we get Vatican DC, a punk band with surprisingly little attitude. “We were at Glasgow last night and the crowd were wank!” cries the frontman. How very rock and roll. Sadly it fails to entice the crowd into a frenzy, and they simply respond by chucking glowsticks at them. One hits the bassist, and for a minute he looks like he’s going to walk offstage and sulk. He hurls it back like a baby throwing a rattle out of his pram, and half an hour or so the band have gone, telling us to enjoy The Prodigy. Oh don’t worry, we will. Christ, even the Audio Bully’s would have gone down better than that tonight, and that’s saying something.

 

Back to the Backstage Sluts, as the crowd start to get noticeably restless. We’re right at the front, and people start to push forward in anticipation of The Prodigy coming out. I know where this is going, but hold firm anyway. Around 9:15 the lights go out, the (new) Intro is played, the massive curtain comes down, and Liam creeps onto the stage. Maxim and Keith are nowhere to be seen, however. Suddenly, there’s a massive bang and Keith and Maxim appear on huge blocks either side of the stage. Awesome. The crowd go mental as The Prodigy launch straight into Break and Enter. I’m trying to wave my glowsticks about but am merely being shoved in various directions. I knew it would happen but thought I could maybe stick it out. I can’t, and anyway I want to dance, dammit. I move about a quarter of the way back, and find myself with a nice little circle to dance in. From here, I can properly enjoy the show. By the time I’ve gotten to my spot I’ve missed Wake The Fuck up, and No Good starts up, but luckily it’s just the refrain at this point. Must be waiting to unleash that later. Indeed they are, as they go into Their Law and Hotride, Breathe, and then Jericho. It’s great to hear them mixing up the setlist between songs from AONO, Music for the Jilted Generation, and Experience. I was merely expecting a setlist comprising of Their Law: The Singles.

 

Keith and Maxim’s stage presence is awesome, and they don’t let up for a second. Keith hurling himself from one side of the stage to the other, and Maxim bouncing up and down and screaming at the crowd. Maxim tells us to strap ourselves in, and they do the 2005 edit of Spitfire. Wicked. I’m enjoying this so much. Everyone around me is going completely insane, I’m dripping with sweat and water, and thoroughly loving every minute of it. Next up is Back 2 Skool, followed by the well-known Firestarter. Action Radar and newie track Warning get great receptions, and then it’s the full version of No Good. By this point I’m nearly dying, I’ve got a horrible stitch and sweat keeps going in my eyes, but I don’t care. I used to dance like a mentalist to this song at Trashed and now it’s time to see if I still can. Of course I can, even though I’m out of breath by the end. No time to rest though as Voodoo People follows, and I curse and praise the band at the same time for such an awesome setlist. The lights go down after Voodoo People and the Prodge leave the stage, but everyone knows they’re not finished. After teasing us for a little bit, they come back on and do Climbatize, Poison and Diesel Power, and Smack my Bitch up. What an encore. But they’re still not done. Maxim announces that we’re going to go back in time, and that this next song is for the Rezerection crew. I know exactly what this means. It’s time for….Charly! We’re back in 1991 as the sample of Charly the talking cat from the 1970’s Public Information Films fills the arena. I look around, and everyone is grinning. Again, insane. Surely that’s it? Nope, the guys have one last surprise. A big shiny disco ball is lowered from the ceiling as the opening to Out of Space starts. Unbelievable.

 

After 1 hour and 45 minutes, the gig is over. I stumble, zombie-like and dripping with sweat, out of the arena. My legs feel like jelly, I can’t hear properly, and once again it’s freezing cold outside. But one thing is for certain; The Prodigy proved tonight that they are back with a vengeance.

 

***** (5 Stars out of 5)

One week to go till I see The Prodigy live at Newcastle Metroradio Arena! I'm getting pretty excited about it as well, just checked gigsandtours.com, all the standing seats have SOLD OUT. So i'm glad mine came through the post early last week.

 

Been hammering TLTS on my new video iPod (heh, had to get that in there :P) After listening to the second CD about a billion times, I can safely say that the best tracks are without a doubt: Razor, No Man Army (Featuring Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine no less!), Your Love (A way cooler version than the one on Experience, yet still captures the rave feeling of the original.) and Spitfire (live). In fact the 2005 edit of Spitfire is really cool, even better than the AONO version.

 

I've been buying up all the singles from Ebay, and can now proudly boast most of the early singles. Still need to get the singles from AONO and one or two from MFTJG and Experience, but there's plenty of time for that. Right now, my Prodigy collection reads as follows:

 

 

The Prodigy Experience

Music for the Jilted Generation

The Fat of the Land

Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned

Their Law: The Singles 1990 - 2005

 

 

Charly

Fire/Jericho

Out of Space

Wind it up (Rewound)

One Love

No Good (Start the Dance)

Poison

Firestarter

Breathe

Smack my Bitch up

Baby's Got A Temper

Girls/Memphis Bells (promo CD)

Voodoo People/Out of Space

 

 

Everybody in the Place

Voodoo People

What Evil Lurks (Only available on 12", and only 7000 ever issued, so virtually impossible)

Girls

Hotride

Spitfire

Dirtchamber Sessions (Liam's mixtape CD)

The Prodigy Experience Expanded: Remixes & B-Sides

 

So still a few bits and bobs. Anyway, expect a review of the gig after the 22nd!

 

Till then...

 

Gav

 

So I joined the Comedy Society at Uni. I always said i'd never bother signing up for any societies, but this one is ran by a friend of mine on the same course as me, so it's nice and easy to catch up on stuff. Anyhoo, our first trip was to the Funny Magnet's Debut Gong Show at the Dickens Inn. Premise was nice and simple. Have a warmup act on stage for the first 20 minutes, then the competition begins. Anyone could get up and have a go, and each act has 5 minutes to get up and impress the judges. If they survive, they go through to the final, if they don't, they lose. Everyone who gets the final is judged on audience reaction, and the winner walks away with £100. Not bad eh?

 

The warmup guy was a big Geordie bloke called Steffan. I thought I recognised him, but couldn't put my finger on where until he mentioned he used to be a pro wrestler. Turns out I'd seen him as Judge Mental at a 3CW vs IWF show in Acklam a couple of months ago. He was a funny as fuck bloke though, not scared to laugh at himself either, with loads of fat jokes spread throughout his set.

 

Then the competition started. The first guy was a bit crap, he lasted about 2 and a half minutes. I'm not going to go into details of every single act (there were 13 in total) but the guy who won was a bit of a knob really, his act comprised of swearing every 5 seconds, being racist and sexist and generally offensive. Si from haxed got up as well, but he was pissed as a fart and got gonged off for being racist. There were two standout acts for me, interestingly both had been doing comedy gigs for a while, which sort of showed. The first was a blonde girl who did stuff about being diabetic and did jokes about bad chatup lines, and the other was a girl dressed up as a goth who took the piss out of all sorts, and ironically did some jokes about goths too. Either could've won, and I cheered for them both, but sadly it was not to be. Oh well. The night was a great one, and the Funny Magnet have already scheduled two more dates in the future.

 

The Comedy Society has the potential to be a roaring success if we manage to get together at least once a week, and arrange trips to see lots more stand up comedy. Mike (the chair) has asked me to help him run the society, which is handy because we're on the same course and we both have a passion for comedy in general. Bit of a shameless plug here, but if anybody is interested in joining, it's £4 for the whole year. Contact comedyguy@hotmail.co.uk for more details.

 

And that's it. Wow, I didn't leave quite so long between updates this time!

Well it's been rather a long time since I updated, hasn't it? What have I been up to? Well, I turned 22, which I guess is an achievement. Yeah, another year older. Woo.

 

Seriously though, I've been hanging out with the cool kids at the Empire quite a bit. (Cool kids, yeah right.) Checking out some live bands, one in particular, a little known band from the US of A called VHS or Beta. Who are they? I hear you cry. Well if you've read Mark's blog, you probably already know by now. Lets just say I thoroughly enjoyed them, so much in fact, that I bought their album AT THE GIG ITSELF (something i've never done before.) It's a great album, in fact not a single song is bad, and it can be played right the way through without skipping any tracks. That's not something that happens very often when I buy a CD. So yeah, excellent band. Shame they're only gonna tour the UK every quarter of a decade or so. Oh and contrary to Mark's blog, he STOLE my poster. Yes it was mine, I left it at the nursery by mistake and he thieved it. The git.

 

Saw Louis XIV again recently, this time supporting The Rakes at Club NME on Tour at the Empire. The week before I checked out El Presidente (Who were lots of fun) with Mark, Chris Betts (Yeah, of ye olde FXW folklore!), Rich, Dave, Ali and some other of his mates. A great night was had by all in fact, and we should all get together and go out again sometime. Louis XIV are a wicked band and everyone should go buy their album when its released. Fact.

 

I bought the new Prodigy Double A-Side t'other day, it's excellent. In fact it's more than excellent. Its totally fucking awesome. The Pendulum Remix of Voodoo People is quite possibly the best remix of a Prodigy track i've ever heard. And Audio Bullys give their own take of Out of Space with the lyrics "I'm gonna put on my polo shirt, and chase the haters out of Earth" which is almost lyrical genius. But then the song goes all C64 SID chip on our arses, and it's giddyingly brilliant. I'm sure I heard a swear slipped in there though, so Rich has probably eaten his copy now or something (I'm joking mate :P)

 

I seem to have become strangely addicted to Cash Converters (and the slightly less decent Cash Generator). I go in with good intentions, namely just to browse, but always end up buying something. Or lots of things. It's not just their fault though, I also blame Chips. Lets have a look at what crap i've bought from these 3 fine establishments in the past few weeks, shall we?

 

Fever Pitch (DVD)

Eiffel 65 - Europop (CD Album - It's actually not too bad. There's some painfully awful songs on it, but it was nice to hear I'm Blue and Move Your Body again.)

Spiderman (PC Game)

The Partners (PC Game)

True Crime: Streets of LA (PC Game)

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (DVD - Ok this was a bargain, £4!)

Sex Lives of the Potato Men (DVD)

Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun + Firestorm Add-on disc (Except, when I got it home, didn't have the add-on disc OR the NOD missions disc, so in fact isn't even half a game. Bastards. No wonder it was only £2.50)

Kevin & Perry Go Large (DVD)

ESWAT City Under Siege (Mega Drive Game - Another bargain at 2 quid! Classic game from when I was a kid, thought i'd spend a few hours reliving happy memories. Haven't had the chance to play on it yet)

They Think it's all Over: Full Throttle (VHS - "Never to be seen on Television!" the packaging proudly exclaims. This I believe to be a lie. A quid though, so won't whinge)

They Think it's all Over: No Holds Barred (VHS - Again, i've got the promise "Never to be seen on Television!" Hmmmm, i'm not too convinced like. A quid though again)

Funeral For A Friend - Juneau (CD Single - The only FFAF single I don't have. So for a measly £2.50, I had to have it.)

Hyper Rails Rollercoaster Simulator (PC Game - A pound. yes, a whole PC game for a quid. I know why though, it's far too complicated to build anything and there's no instructions. Bah.)

The Office - Complete Season 2 (DVD - Free when bought with the Friends boxsets mentioned below. 'Nuff said.)

Friends - Season 1 & Friends - Season 2 boxsets (Old Style!) I got these from Chips for £12 each and got any cheaper dvd free. That's 48 classic episodes of Friends, and the whole series of one of the greatest British sitcoms of all time, for under £25. I think you'll find that one hell of a bargain.

 

So yeah, maybe its time to stop buying other people's crap for a little while. None of the stuff listed above was new. It all works though, or works to an extent, so yay. And hell, I can sell the friends boxsets afterwards on Ebay for at least my money back.

 

In other unrelated news, I got at least a few things on my birthday wishlist. Laura got me Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Sin City, and I bought That 70's Show Season 2 with my own money. I <3 Laura.

 

Oh, almost forgot, she also bought me Funeral For A Friend - Four Ways to Scream Your Name EP. That might not sound like a lot, but it's worth about £40 due to it being an original pressing of their second EP, with only a thousand copies ever made. It completes my FFAF discography (yay!) and the CD itself is awesome, clear plastic see through with the actual music contained on a mini-cd in the centre. Very nice looking. I daren't play it though :(

 

Gav's FFAF Discography

 

FFAF - Between Order and Model (The first EP they ever produced. Contains rough versions of Juneau [then called Juno] and Red is the New Black. Not an original pressing, a more common third pressing. Still only 3000 copies made though, until they re-released it last year and mass produced it. My version still has the original band members on it though, so still quite collectable.)

 

FFAF - Four Ways to Scream Your Name (Their second EP and far far far more collectable. Infectious records made 1000 copies only and then discontinued it, so it's very rare indeed. Features the always brilliant Escape Artists Never Die and This Year's Most open Heartbreak.)

 

FFAF - Seven Ways to Scream Your Name (As FFAF started to take America by storm, it was decided that US fans would need to have something to buy. Because it was too late to release BOAM and Four Ways, a small label called Ferret records took the songs from both EP's and created a mini-album, naming it Seven Ways to Scream Your Name, as funnily enough, it contains 7 songs. One of which is one of my favourite FFAF songs of all time, 10:45 Amsterdam Conversations. It sounds rough as hell as the songs are all taken directly from the Ep's with no remastering. I bought this mini-album on US Import from HMV and actually got the disc itself fully signed by the whole band. HMV and Virgin have now both stopped selling US Imports so this CD may in time also become difficult to get hold of.)

 

FFAF -  Casually Dressed and Deep in Conversation (FFAF's first full length album, which they performed whilst touring live in the summer of 2004. A fantastic album, with mastered versions of Juneau and Red is the New Black. Also my other favourite FFAF song of all time, Moments Forever Faded, which as you can tell, is where my email address comes from :P)

 

FFAF - Hours (FFAF's follow-up to CDADIC, released earlier this year. Another great album, though somewhat different in sound to any of their previous work. Focuses more on experimenting with their sound, but they don't fail. Far from it in fact. Some of the songs on this album are brilliant and even better when played live. I saw them again at Newcastle Uni with Mark back in July.)

 

I also have all three of their singles released from CDADIC (Juneau, Escape Artists Never Die and She Drove me to Daytime Television/Bullet Theory.) I don't count the singles released from Hours, although I should, I just didn't bother to buy them (Possibly because subconsciously I believe their older stuff to be better than the new material? I don't know.) I will however, be buying the third single, History on the 14th of November, because it's a good song and it will be interesting to see what the B-Side is like.

 

Bloody hell if you've read this far down then you really must be bored. I'm not even sure why i'm going on so much, probably boredom. Laura has gone out to Lava & Ignite with her mates and so i'm just sat here, blogging. Well, going on about my FFAF collection. Whatever.

 

Current Music - The Prodigy - Voodoo People (Pendulum Remix)

Been reading Mark's blog for a while, so thought i'd start my own off. It'll be updated quite flippantly (ie. hardly ever.)

 

So....where to start? Well probably last saturday at Play. Haven't been to Play at the Empire for, oooh, 3 years or thereabouts, so was quite interesting really. Mark met me outside the Blue Bar first, where we went upstairs to the "Unofficial Play Warmup". Unofficial indeed as the place was pretty empty and to be honest, sucked. The DJ didnt have Cut Copy either, tsk. So much for the promise of "Indie Rock & Roll, New Guitar Noise, and Electric New Wave" as advertised in the tagline for the night!

 

Mark kept hugging seemingly random girls. He knows everyone it seems, the bugger!

 

Play was pretty damn cool to be honest, there was a live band on, who we later found out were only support to the main act, Louis XIV, who played at around 11:30 (Surprisingly late to have a live act on, I have to say.) Louis XIV were very much a generic indie band, but the crowd seemed into it and it was quite danceable. I found a Louis XIV badge later on, which I thought was pretty cool. Then Mark found £15 on the floor, which sort of blew my find clear out of the water. Oh well.

 

We made our way upstairs to the Alternative room, and the stairways stank of piss. Urgh. Even Blaises didnt smell this bad! However in the very small alternative room on the top floor they had a C64 emulator hooked up to two TV's, which was a lovely touch. After playing on these for a little bit, but getting ruthlessly destroyed by the 8-bit sprites over and over, we decided to go wander. Returning to the top room about an hour later though, I had a great time moshing furiously to Refused - New Noise, a song that I used to go mental to at the Arena back in the day. Great fun. This was followed up by Funeral For a Friend - Streetcar. FFAF nut that I am, this was also promptly rocked out to, and within about 30 minutes I was absolutely dripping with sweat. If there's one big thing the Empire lacks, it's air conditioning, and as a result I found it near impossible to cool down. After drinking about 4 cups of iced water, I was ready to return to the dancefloor, albeit downstairs. The DJ played some cool songs though, Futureheads, Maximo Park, The Killers, etc..and then played Prodigy - Breathe, mixed with Mylo - Drop The Pressure. While all the Indieheads looked confused and upset by this, me and Mark gleefully danced. All in all it was a damn good night, but the next few days I paid for my spur of the moment moshing by having a sore neck for 3 days straight :(

 

I'm working at Woolworths now, and they're giving me all the hours under the sun, which is good. Have totally ran out of money though, but when I get my final wages through from Virgin, coupled with all the overtime I've done already at Woolies, should make up for it. Hopefully.

 

Music listened to whilst writing this entry: Hard-Fi - Stars of CCTV (The Album, not just the one song.)