Green Day, Wembley Stadium

Well, it took a whole 24 hours to sink in. At times I could hardly believe that since buying my tickets in November, the time was finally here, and this wonderful band were standing in front of me, doing their thing which they do so amazingly well. The Idiot Club members were posting their arrival times to the site and checking in with each other, saying how close to the front they were and happily chatting about having their tickets to the golden circle. Knowing that I can't stand for that long, we arrived in the queue at about 2pm (for a 4.30 door opening) and were easily able to choose front row seats instead.

Support was provided from Frank Turner, who was clearly having an amazing time on stage, giving it the full 'Hello, Wembley!!!' treatment and rocking out with his band.
Main support was Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, who I was only familiar with for two of her songs, 'I Love Rock n Roll' and the fabulous 'Bad Reputation'. I thought she was absolutely brilliant, clearly the band had been doing this for a long time, they were incredibly tight, and as the stadium filled out, she got the audience prepped for the main act. I'm not sure GD could have picked a better support.

Rolling on to a couple of minutes to 8, out came the drunken bunny and the whole of the stadium got on their feet and joined in with YMCA. At bang on 8, the bunny wandered off, the intro to 21st Century Breakdown started, and Tre Cool came storming down the runway to huge cheers before launching his drumsticks back towards his kit. Billie Joe Armstrong didn't need to tell everyone to get up, we already were, although he did anyway. And so started a fantastic, storming, almost 3 hour long set, played at super speed and covering a huge amount of songs from the very early to the most recent. Fans were brought up on stage to join in with songs, super soakers and to stage dive. And you couldn't help but feel that for the band, this might just be a little bit special too... Billie Joe describing it as the 'Biggest show of our F***ing lives'.

Favourite parts for me was the whole audience singing along to Hey Jude, and even better, a whole verse of Boulevard of Broken Dreams - this being my first time at Wembley Stadium, this just made the whole evening amazing, the sound of that many voices, all beautifully clear and reverberating around the stadium. Billie Joe got to his knees, head to the floor and arms behind his back, Tre came out from behind the drums to listen and Mike held his fist to his heart. It sounded amazing from my seats, I can't even imagine how it was from the stage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rh0fQxZVK8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P9cAD3QO54

Tre Cool swapped places with Billie Joe to sing Dominated Love Slave, and both Tre and Mike had fun with Shout, kicking their legs up in the air and having a whale of a time - this is a band who knows how to make their shows fun, there are plenty of pyrotechnics - I could feel the heat from halfway back in the stadium, and couldn't help but squeal like a big wussy girl every time one of the big bangs happened, even when I remembered there was one coming. There was also plenty of funky camera stuff on the big screens. They are masters at totally engaging with the audience, although I always have the feeling that a huge amount of planning is there in the background as the various changeovers are so smooth. There wasn't a huge amount of change to the setlist from the October show last year, but that was to be expected really, these guys always seem to be on the road doing what they love. Their voices are as perfect live as they are on the studio recording.

Being fairly new to the whole Green Day experience, I'd had time to go back to the older songs and get familiar with them, and I enjoyed the gig a lot more for this. I loved that whole families seemed to have turned out for the event, the kids and their parents enjoying it in equal amounts, and you can't help but feel that Green Day actually give a stuff about their fans - the tickets aren't ridiculously expensive as for many shows these days, there are many benefits for the true fans - golden circle for those arriving early, plus early entry giveaways for fan club members, t-shirts fired into the crowd through the gig...these guys make an effort to engage with people as much as possible and the audience get to sing along and join in at many points in the gig. This time, '21 Guns' got an amazing reception, and as part of the encore, we also got to hear the new song 'When It's Time', which was spine tingling.

It's impossible to describe how amazing it was, but here are some of my favourite videos of the show from youtube:
American Idiot (look out for the wall of death!)
Second Encore - Billie Joe signing off / When it's Time / Wake Me Up When September Ends / Good Riddance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGgqsbKA1pA

As my friends who were in the mosh pit commented - Green Day set the bar so high for all other gigs, especially with the Wembley show. I just hope there's a DVD of the show in the pipeline. It's going to take a lot to beat these guys, they sure know how to Rock and Roll.

See the setlist on NME here.

Wicked

On Friday night I went to see Wicked for the second time at Apollo Victoria. I first saw it last October. This was one of the few shows I've been to see knowing almost nothing about it beforehand.

The set and costumes are big and beautiful, and I was surprised how many of the songs I remembered well from the first time, and happy to find that the hair on the back of my neck still stood up when the two main characters sang. They've had a pretty major cast change since last time, and the highlight again for me was the end of Act 1, when Elpheba sings Defying Gravity.

A nice surprise was Lee Mead in the role of Fiyero, he was spot on in the role and I'd definitely go and see another show of his.

If you like musicals and you haven't seen this one, go see it, it's one of the best I've ever seen.

Brum and Bang

Yesterday I went over to Canary Wharf after work to meet a friend and found that they had the motor expo on. As if Canary Wharf isn't shiny enough, there was even more shine as everyone tried to sell their super polished motors. The minis were very cute, white soft-top was adorable, but really I don't like the wibbly window on the back (I don't drive anyways, so it's not like it would actually matter to me). The purple Bentley was big and meaty...The James Bond car (no, I have no idea what type of car it is, I'm not even going to pretend I do) was my fave I think. Here's a picture:



Today, I spent the morning playing the drums on Green Day Rock Band. This was going to be quite interesting for me as I've got the kit for Band Hero, which is more closely aligned to Guitar Hero, so the first cymbal on the BH drum kit is the same as the second drum in the RB kit and this takes a little getting used to.

It looks like there's tons of stuff on the disc, including a whole heap of drumming tutorials which is great for a beginner. I played on easy, which I found had trickier combos than Band Hero does - you get thrown straight in playing more than one pad at a time - but thankfully it doesn't fail you if you play a few notes in a row badly, you at least get a chance to recover. I particularly enjoyed playing Warning and Minority at beginner level, as they weren't too tricky and made me feel like I was getting some aggression out!

If you're a big Green Day fan, it's perfect and great fun. I find it easy to pick up for 30 minutes and then leave for a while.

Here's the site, check it out:
http://www.greendayrockband.com/

Little girl...

So, I'm pretty on track stitching wise at the moment. I wanted to complete 4 kits this year... I'm halfway through the year almost and I've finished the Iris and also now I've finished the Banksy picture of the little girl with the balloon.

This one I'm definitely keeping, I love how it looks, and it's stitched up really well. The black took almost no time, but there were a lot of little stitches in many other colours which meant it took longer than I had anticipated once I started.

The fact that it's finished before the end of June gives me a little breathing space, which I'm quite happy about, although I find if I stick in the routine of doing a little every day, whether on my main project or a little side project, this helps keep me going and keeps me relaxed.

So, here's my little girl, I think I'll call her Gloria.

Drumtastic

This week was my birthday, and after nagging quite a lot for quite a long time, I was given the Band Hero kit (we totally have room for a set of drums... honest!)

After a bit of a slow start, I've spent a few days playing now and finally got into it... the drums are just great fun. I'd played a little guitar hero, but found that it gave me sore hands to play for too long as I'd be gripping the guitar too hard. The drum kit is much easier for me... although I am only playing on easy so far...I think anything more than that is gonna need a lot of practice.

Favourite song for when I'm feeling a bit grumpy has to be Joan Jett singing Bad Reputation, once you get the hang of it, it's a good speed and a lot of fun.

Of course, now the equipment is also compatible with the Rock Band games, I am mainly waiting for Green Day Rock Band, which is due out in a couple of weeks time. I'm thinking a little practice every night in the run up to then will be great. I'm sure it also counts as exercise... surely your arms and feet are getting a workout while you play drums, even if they are only a teeny gaming version!

Finished stitchy!

So I'm pretty happy. I've finished the cross stitch that I was doing. It's an Iris design that I bought around 5 years ago and only got round to starting at the start of this year. I'm impressed that it stitched up pretty quickly, it's probably the largest design I've done so far.

Here's a photo:



So that's the penguins done, the Iris done. Next up, Banksy's little girl with the balloon... (the Banksy design is one of the few that I'll actually keep).

By the Seaside

This time last week, I reached the end of a very lovely holiday up on the North Yorkshire coast.

The base for the week was in Filey, which I didn't really remember much about - most of the times we went to the seaside when I was younger, we usually went to Scarborough.

Filey was a pleasant surprise. Although it's fairly small, it was clean, it had a lovely and huge sandy beach when the tide was out. There were enough shops and coffee shops and things to do. It was really quiet, especially at this time of the year. The weather for the week was mostly sunny, but fairly cold still. That didn't matter though, we got wrapped up and managed plenty of walks with my sister's dog. The arcades were fantastically old fashioned. 2p slots were plentiful, we won a fantastic Wall-E toy (amongst other things) without having spent more than a couple of quid.

The only real downside that we found was that for a lovely view of a beach in a self catering apartment, you have to give up any kind of internet connection or phone reception. Up in town, it worked fine, but to be honest I'd rather have the beach and the sound of the sea and the sunrise. We just had to do a little more planning between the 6 of us.

Later in the week, we made a special journey to Whitby for fish and chips. The best in the country, I swear, and believe me, I have sampled many. Here's a photo.



We stayed in St Kitts Holiday Flats 2 and 3, 2 The Beach, Filey.
We ate in Whitby at the Magpie Cafe, and for posh nosh at the Downcliffe House Hotel, The Beach, Filey.