crazybobbles

Today I was going to turn japanese haha, not only did I go out for a meal at Yo Sushi! I also managed to check out a japanese technicolour pogo punk band called Polysics. I met up with Michelle at Waterloo station where she was getting her tickets, I was almost given a £20 fine for using the South West trains! My friends kept saying how you could use oyster with it but how were they wrong! They let me off and made me buy a single fare. Phew

Anyway, we went to Picadilly Circus to visit Yo Sushi! for some sushi action. Michelle was only going to try the veggie yakisoba as well as the inari nigir (tofu nigiri). I literally went all out again with salmon nigiri (softer and meltier than the BBQ weekend sushi experience) and also have some chicken yakisoba, chicken yakitori and prawn tempura. The food was yummy, though the prawn tempura was smaller than the other times I’ve had it, it was still awesome!

Michelle wasn’t too good with chopsticks so I gave her the easier ones hehe, but she said she’ll learn in future, not to mention drink more green tea because she liked it (other time she tried ginseng tea which was a bit more strong and hardcore haha). She enjoyed her inari nigiri and yakisoba which was good, the portions were perfect for her, its all about small bites innit.

We then headed off to Liverpool Street to meet Michelle’s friend from Virgin Megastores Rene.  We then found the Spitz where Polysics were playing and got stamped for guestlist stuff, unfortunately it was a bit stuffy so Michelle decided we should go out for a bit until the band starts, we went to a closeby Tescos and bought drinks before the event. We than sat around for a bit and had a talk, I was being slightly antisocial with my WAP hehe oops.

We then go into the venue to check out the band. There were on by the time we were inside the venue again. They were AMAZING, exactly how Michelle described them, the term pogo in their self categorised genre was the perfect way of describing them, everyone song was pogo headbangable! The gig was intense and exhilerating, they wore their glasses throughout the gig, during the gig the keyboardist did quite a lot of cool and cute things including shaking pom poms (cheerleader style), playing the recorder and doing loads of vocoders stuff.

I was easily able to smuggle my DSLR camera, they weren’t really checking so I could have brought a gun for all I know. Here’s a lovely selection of photos:

The band were really cute since they knew VERY VERY little Engrish (yup Engrish), they sort of get their R’s and L’s wrong so they kept saying “HERRO!” hehe. At one point the singer said “Do you know what Porysics stand for?” “Porysics stands for ROCK AND FUCKING ROWW!” whilst sticking his middle finger in front of the crowd, so yeah, that explains the photo below in case you think they were up themselves and started swearing at the crowd, he simply had no idea haha.

One of the songs was called “I My Me Mine” and featured the keyboardist playing a cute recorder riff, I really liked it hehe.

The bassist was a crazy lady too, she downed a beer in front of everyone and went nuts during a few songs hehe.

It was an amazing gig, I bought myself a wristband and am now listening to their studio stuff, Michelle said Polysics should support Muse and I totally agree with it purely because the band would actually love them, not to mention the fans.

Right, after the Art Exhibition came a gig at Stockwell, that’s right, twas Murder in Monochrome. Michelle was going to the gig anyway so it was nice to know I had company hehe, I asked for guestlists and got an immediate reply from Kris saying its ok. Michelle said to meet up at 9:30pm so yeah I had quite alot of hours spare to spend. I just had a long lounge at Soundcontrol making tunes and all, afterwards I had a nice sushi meal at Wasabi

Afterwards I went to Stockwell to meet up with Michelle and co, they were quite late, I had nothing to do so I quickly took random photos of the tube, one in particular was this shot

Arty? Haha, anyway, Michelle and the gang finally arrived and we went to the venue, it was a pub :O haha. Did sound like one to be honest haha. Michelle brought along Caff as well as her friend Shel and Bucjo (from the museboard). Pleasant girls, Shel in particular said how Michelle mentioned me a lot and said I was a cool guy *nods*, that I am Michelle, that I am haha. We missed a few tracks but still managed to catch them at it, was nice. The band after that (Yunioshi) was really good too so I took some photos of them too :D, typically we’d leave after the gig but I stayed a bit longer with the band and had a chat with Kris and Michelle, was a nice evening, got to know them a bit better and all. I left soon after due to last trains etc.

But yeah, some photos.. during the gig I thought my photos werent sharp enough so I started tweaking the shutter speed at like 1/250, was a silly idea, turns out I had alot of light going on and it was sharp. Damn funny eyes haha

Oh and a disco ball came out of nowhere, was random!

Here’s the photos for Yunioshi, they’re really cute hehe

Today was a crazy day for gigging. Was guestlisted for Pink Grease at the Buffalo bar, one of the main reasons for going was to take photos of one of the instruments they used, it looked disturbing. Not to mention they sound pretty cool to see them and all. So yeah, I initially wanted to head to the venue and all but I strangely left the house a bit too early for my likings and decided to just lounge around central London and being a bit of a tourist.

Lounging out in London is fun. I’ve only realised that most of my childhood was spent NOT doing anything fun in London. I’m definitely taking things for granted in London and all. Its only been more apparent after the IBM placement year. Better make the most of my time spent in London and go to places that a tourist would go haha. I paid a visit to Haymarket just to take photos of Her Majesty Theatre. I really want to go see Phantom of the Opera again. Alice said she was really keen in going too so it would definitely be awesome if something was arranged after uni and all for us and inn to go check them out. Inn wants to go somewhere thats not a musical first but frankly you can’t get anything better theatre wise with Phantom. So yeah, fingers crossed that they do some cool promotion and all so we get to go

Anyway, lets fastfoward a bit to the gig, right before the gig I managed to get myself a subway to eat. I had a chat with the guy serving me and asking whether he gets bored eating subway sandwiches, turns out he just brings his own food because he was a veggie and couldnt stand eating the ONE veggie sub that they have to offer hehe. I can understand why too (thats why meat is the way to go haha).

There were 4 bands up tonight, Brontosaurus Chorus, Gggrits (Yup, 3 g’s), Screaming Tea Party and Pink Grease. I’ve only seen Brontosaurus Chorus play once before, the rest are new to me. Was most surprised at how impressive these bands were when I heard them tonight.

Right lets get right into the photography haha.

Brontosaurus Chorus

Started pimping out the prime lens like last time, the problem was that the band was pretty big so I couldnt do a wide shot with everyone in it :(. Nonetheless I did take some cool shots of them

Gggrits

Bless them, they were awesome haha. The singer really knew how to work it with the camera. Quite alot of times she was posing and stuff in front of me whilst I took photos of her. I didnt even get to use my “make love to the camera baby” line :(. Some really good shots here. One thing I found funny was that they had a macbook out. I was thinking “hmm can macbooks run protools or logic already!?!?” only to discover that they were just using itunes to play the backing tracks hehe. The music was very dancey, I did my fair bit of dancing to compensate my lack of moving during gigs.

Screaming Tea Party

I asked Michelle what kind of band they were and she said “theres one italian drummer, and two japanese guys, they’re crazy” or something like that haha. Sounds like a crazy mash up. And yup, they were crazy. The guitarist wore a gasmask on stage and went nuts on effects (in particular the whammy and chorus/flanger). The music was really upbeat and exciting.

Pink Grease

The main act. Was here mainliy to take photos of the “machine”. Some crazy synth that one of the band member used. He uses two toothbrushes to play the thing by tapping some strings at the top of the mammoth. It was pretty exciting, they had a saxamophonist too just to really class things up. I always love it when bands have peculiar instruments at the gig, but yeah, the mammoth was definitely something haha.

The band was great, very charismatic. Though I felt very sorry for the singer, because there was some crazy chick in a blue dress who kept pulling his braces. He wasn’t happy about it. She was very VERY invasive. Totally crossed the line between a normal gigger and a loon. One part of the gig, the singer wrapped the mic cable around his neck for a laugh (rock and roll like :D) and she actually thought it would be clever for her to tug the damn cable. I think everyone during the gig wanted to give her a cunt punch haha. One part of the gig the singer just erupted and just pushed her off the stage (she was trying to get on stage and push the singer about) and I could hear him going “F**k off bitch!” really viciously. I guess singers have a limit to how much harassment you can get from crazy girls haha.

Apart from her, everything was cool. I had to use flash quite a bit for this gig but it definitely worked well with this venue. The guy who played “THE MACHINE” kept getting blinded by other photographers (and me) using their flash haha. During the encore he just wore some sunglasses to avoid getting blinded by us haha bless him.

So yeah, top notch gig, its good to visit some small bands you’ve never heard of, things are far more intimate and all.

Today I was invited by the Kris (the bassist of Murder in Monochrome) to go to their gig and take photos. It was at the metro club again but this time they were headlining. I managed to meetup with Michelle before the gig and have a quick bite beforehand. I just randomly went to Wasabi and got myself a Chicken Yakisoba and a prawn/salmon sushi to eat outside. Michelle was a bit late but it was cool (i’m always late anyway haha so it balances out). I urged Michelle to have a quick bite and she ended up getting a fried rice and tofu yakisoba. It looked pretty nice and she ate most of it this time hehe.

We had a quick look around Virgin Megastore since the bands werent starting for a long time. Michelle made me listen to Pink Grease at the listening poles whilst she was texting people. After a bit of badgering around we eventually headed off to the venue. It was fun because I could walk into the venue with my DSLR camera It seems like Metro Club allows professional photography so its all good.

Anyhow, the support bands were boring, we were pretty bored all the way through haha. The second band went all Godspeed You! Black Emperor on us and did some insanely boring instrumental tracks. Two twats at the venue constantly screamed throughout the gig. Michelle was really annoyed at them (so was I but i ONLY just noticed haha) and was ready to smash a glass ash tray into their thin and soft cranium.

Anyhow, there were two other photographers lounging about during the gig. They both had Nikon cameras. One of them kept changing their lens right in front of me, he puts his camera right on the table where I was sitting so I can have a look at it whilst he puts his other lens on. It was pretty sad haha. Apparently they were band photographers and gave out their business cards to the bands to see if they’re interested in purchasing their shots. I’m still in the process and providing free photographs since I’m only getting into this so yeah.

Anyway, Murder in Monochrome comes in and again, its ready to shoot. READY SET SHOOT! Haha

Heres a few photos which I took:

The performance was much better than the previous ones, there were some new songs and things got a bit rockier since Tom used his guitar more now. Definitely enjoyed the gig and all. The photos were amazing too. I really enjoyed using my 50mm f1.8 lens. It was nice and fast, before using it I gave the kit lens a quick go since I wanted to take some wide shots but I had to sacrifice quite alot of stuff in order to take a decent shot, I had to use flash on some occasions, raise the iso to 800 and risk blurry shots with very slow shutter speeds (around the 1/10-1/30 region). As soon as I attached my 50mm lens and took some close up shots, things dramatically changed, the photos were really light and I was able to capture alot more then the previous lens. I got a bit nervous and used some crazy settings (like 1/100 shutter speed when i can easily manage 1/50 and 1/60). But yeah. Really happy and proud of my new lens, top notch.

After the gig I had a quick word with Kris but didnt get round to talking to the other band members, ah well. They were pleased with my shots this time since I’ve really put more composition and style with the photos this time. Hopefully this continues with the other gigs I goto. Including some Michelle have already invited me to goto and all.

I actually had a really witty introduction to this band during the gig that I was going to use as my introduction to this blog entry. Turns out memory isn’t my strong characteristics. Anyway, add good old metal/rock and roll, blood, g strings, hitler, the pope, bono and a few monsters you see in those game workshop figurines. Blend them with the labtec blender you see in the will it blend ads, and what do you get? GWAR.

You might know GWARif you’ve seen Empire Records, where one of the characters, Mark, is watching GWAR perform on the television, later on he gets trapped inside with them. They are also known as the band that my brother listened to quite a lot back when he was still around (that and Manowar). Bloody crazy shock rock band.

Michelle managed to get guestlists for this show and invited me to come see them with her. I once again decided to bring my DSLR camera using my usual camera smuggling technique. We arrived at the venue and went to the box office to claim the guestlist tickets. Unfortunately, this didn’t go so well since the tour manager didn’t get Michelle’s name written down on the guestlist. There was quite a panic on determining whether we’re genuine guestlisters or not. One of the ladies managed to find the tour manager (who was actually part of the GWAR performance (think he was one/some of the monsters) ) to get a confirmation that we’re valid guestlisters. So yeah, we managed to get our guestlist in the end and go into the venue. It was pretty full already I must say. The seating area was quite packed so we couldn’t see the gig from a far distance, we ended up going near the front (on the side) to view the gig.

Look at the guy’s double metal sign “\mm/” how hardcore is that!

Loads of body fluids

GWAR is amazing, I advice you to check them out the next time they play. They are a bunch of crazy metal monsters rocking out in a small venue spraying all forms of body fluids (you name it, they sprayed it) at the crowd. Of course it was coloured water, but nonetheless, from where they escaped, it did make you feel a bit disgusted at it haha. The crowd really enjoyed the constant sprays of fake bodily fluids.

The music was over the top. They weren’t your typical metal band. They were far more tasteful. If you’re going to do metal, Do it right, wear crazy outfits, spray gallons of blood and of course, wear unflattering gstrings throughout the gig.

We did catch the tour manager (I think) who was constantly at the side of the stage getting changed into the next character to appear in the interludes. The show was filled with them. Between every one they would bring a celebrity of some sort to the stage and you get to hear alot about them. Each satirical interlude was dubbed with rather funny voices as well. There was a hybrid monster consisting of Bono and Hitler, a GWAR fan, the pope, some irish policeman (who gets raped with a stick), some crazy monster, some heroine addict, Osama Bin laden and a few other characters. They would do a 1 minute speech and soon after that, they are interupted by the singer going “WHAT A SECOND! WHY ARE YOU IN HELL!” All characters end up losing a limb or being totally annihilated on stage by the band. Some crazy melodrama one might say.

The show was simply amazing, never have I seen so much water being sprayed at the fans. The security guards werent too happy having to wear parker coats to hide from the water sprays, not to mention photographers being scared shitless that their cameras might get damaged from all the blood and …stuff.

I unfortunately got sprayed a few times and at one time, witness my iriver and camera to be splattered with blood. Thank god the lens didn’t get any. The security guards didnt really notice or care about my camera and all. Near the end I was kneeling on a stool taking photos, was pretty fun (was also taking photos by putting the camera on my head and snapping)

After the gig, everyone came out drenched silly. Some of the fans intentionally wore white jeans and t shirts JUST to really highlight how much they were soaked in blood. It was a bloody exciting gig (no pun intended). After the gig I went back home with blood all over my face, hands at the top of my top. Was quite funny seeing people’s reactions to someone filled with blood, but yeah haha.