Metallica, Dublin 2008

It was on our travels in America that we heard that Metallica would be playing in Dublin this summer. I was so excited but really didn't think of booking tickets as I'd just found out that I was pregnant, and had no idea if I would be feeling well enough to go to the gig or not. But that didn't put Dan off. He secretly bought two Metallica tickets for us, while we were somewhere in a desert, somewhere in America (the wonders of the internet, eh?)

So this week saw us trekking down to Dublin for the gig of the year. I spent about 5 days building up to it. Some days I feel fine, but other days I feel so rough that I can barely get out of bed, and I didn't want to be like that at the gig! So I spent a few days getting early nights (I slept for 20 hours on Monday!), eating lots of alfalfa and broccoli sprouts, and generally taking care of myself. And it worked!

Our mate D was also going to the gig so we all drove down in the car together. What should have been an hour & a half drive turned out to be a four hour drive, due to the concert congesting the roads, and lane closures. It took us 3 hours to drive 17 miles at one point. Which meant we missed the supporting bands, and arrived just in time for the last song by Tenacious D. I was a bit gutted at missing them as I thought Jack Black would be very entertaining on stage, but at least we were in time for Metallica.

There must have been at least 20,000 people at the gig. That's a LOT of people, in a big muddy field, mostly filled to capacity with alcohol. Dan was very protective of me in my condition and kept me near the back where I had lots of room to myself. Every time anyone came near me he put a protective arm across my bump, which I found very sweet. Perhaps I should have bubble wrapped myself. D went off to the front of the crowd and got lost in the mosh pit. He met us at the end of the gig (minus his treasured hat which he was proud to say died and was lost forever in the Metallica mosh pit, LOL) looking a bit the worse for wear.

And what about Metallica? Well, I have to say that they were absolutely fantastic live. Seriously amazing. I think I enjoyed the intimacy of the Apocalyptica gig more, but for such a huge audience Metallica certainly rocked the place. They played one of the songs, Cyanide, from their new album 'Death Magnetik', plus a set including tons of my favourites including Enter Sandman, Whiskey In The Jar, One, Ride The Lightning, The Memory Remains, Master of Puppets, and ending with Seek And Destroy. I found the whole thing totally shattering, but was just getting past the pain barrier of standing for so long during pregnancy when the show came to an end. They had a display of fireworks during Enter Sandman, and during the song 'One' an amazing pyrotechnic display of mushroom bombs! Which was very impressive.

All in all it was a great gig, and I'm glad that I was able to stand long enough to enjoy it.

Apocalyptica, Live in Dublin - best live band in the world!?

It's Monday morning and instead of getting on with the mountains of housework, or wrapping up of Christmas presents, I'm sitting at my computer listening to Apocalyptica, and writing a blog post about the most amazing weekend we had.

Dan and I travelled down to Dublin on Friday, for Saturday nights Apocalyptica gig. Unfortunately I'd developed a violent cold and was sneezing all the way down on the bus, with two lovely big purple eyes. Apocalyptica are one of my favourite bands (I have many though). They are a cello band from Finland, and consist of 4 cellists, and now a drummer (although he is a relatively new addition). They became famous for their heavy metal covers, particularly their cello versions of Metallica songs. But now days they are as well known for their own music, with the new album 'Worlds Collide' having guest singers from various bands including Slipknot, Lacuna Coil and Rammstein. We knew that this show would be good, different and unique, but we were both totally blown away with the whole evening.

The supporting act were Lacrimus Profundere. The singer from Lacrimus came out at the very end of the evening when there were just a few stragglers from the audience left. We met him and had a brief chat about his band. I think he was looking for groupies (he didn't have any trouble finding them) but I wasn't gonna throw myself at any guy just cos he's the singer on a not yet very famous band, so he soon got bored talking to me. Haha.

The Dublin show was the last gig of Apocalyptica's 2007 European tour and right from the second they appeared on stage we could tell it would be a good night. They looked exhilarated and excited about their last gig of the year and the audience picked up on this straight away. The vibe in the audience was just hiving. The band had a look of almost disbelief as they performed and experienced for the first time the appreciation of an Irish crowd (I've always found Irish audiences, north or south, to be amazing enthusiastic audiences compared to the brits). They promised they'd be back to Ireland.

They played an almost 2 hour set, and their performances totally blew my mind! I've never experienced such a high from live music before. I think they are the best live band I've ever seen, they even blew my cold away! Their performance was energetic, passionate, lively, and totally out of this world. The drummer was obviously from another planet - the amount of energy and movement he put into drum playing was phenomenal. There are four professional cellists who manage to show that heavy metal music is just as valid an art form as any other type of music. There were no singers in the show, purely instrumental, and it lacked nothing.

The band were called back with 3 standing ovations. The Dublin crowd refused to let them leave and chanted "we want more". The first time they came back and performed another 3 songs. Then left and the crowd still wanted more. So they came back and played another 2 songs, with a look of disbelief on their faces. But that wasn't enough and we called them back for one more song and made them play until they all looked like they would faint from exhaustion! The crowd clapped and cheered for the longest I've ever seen anyone clap a band, and Apocalyptica left the stage looking totally exhilarated and mind blown themselves!

When they come back to Ireland I am going to drag everyone I know to their gig so that they can experience this band live for themselves. As amazing as their albums are, they do no justice to the buzz of the live gig.

Goth nights and wet hair

I'm back from a fabulous weekend away in England. The purpose of the trip was to see one of my favourite bands in concert. H.I.M - a gothic love metal band from Finland. Unfortunately they didn't include any part of Ireland on their tour, so I arranged to visit an old school friend in England and we went to the show together. (HIM are the band that I danced to in the gothic bellydance show).


The concert was held in the Guildhall, Portsmouth, which was a grand old building that looked like a cathedral. Caroline picked me up from the airport and we drove straight to Portsmouth. Had some dinner then headed to the show, only to discover the biggest queue I'd ever seen to get into the building.


Killing Hannah were the support act (although I didn't know who they were at the time and didn't see much of them). H.I.M were pretty much as I expected - awesome. I got pretty close to the front. Close enough to see Ville Valo as he sang. He has just the most amazing voice. I took a few pictures and videos on my camera phone but its hard to get a good pic in that sort of dark environment.










There are a few pics of the show, and of myself and Caroline in the concert and outside of the Guildhall.





We drove back to Kent late that night and crashed into bed totally exhausted. That was on the Friday. Then on Saturday I had arranged to meet a dear friend of ours, Neil, in London. He travelled down from Birmingham, and I got the train up from Maidstone. It was only an hours travel for me, much longer for him I think.


The weather in London was miserable. However, I'm from Northern Ireland so the weather just doesn't really bother me, I'm used to it. It rained all day and we got thoroughly soaked. We went to several musuems (including the Tate modern, as Neil wanted to show me the huge crack in the floor!), looked at lots of artwork and photography (I discovered some of the paintings I'd written essays about on my Open University course a few years back), walked for miles around various places (Picadilly, Leicester Square, Carnaby Street etc). We saw the biggest environmental protest march go past, and queued to get into Hamleys toy store. Oxford Street was absolutely packed with Christmas shoppers. It reminded me of New York. I've never seen so many people crammed into shops like that. The queue into Hamleys was phenomenal and caused a human traffic jam. Inside the shop was just as packed. People just go mad at Christmas! I'm now trying to do all my Christmas shopping online.



















At the end of the day Neil took me back to Victoria station to catch my train (because I was totally lost in London, lol). That evening my good friend Tabi (from grammar school days) came round to Carolines and we all pigged out on Chinese food, told funny stories (I wont embarass Tabi by telling her embarassing waxing story on here, lmao) and talked about bras a lot. LOL. Typical girlie evening. It was great to see Tabi and Caroline again, although it was such a flying visit. But I had a wonderful weekend.

This weekend Dan and I are off to Dublin for 2 nights to see Apocalyptica. I tell you what, nothing happens for years and then it all happens at once.