“Andy, I don’t like them”, “but Rory, they have a trampoline… TRAMAPOLINE!”

Posted: May 1st, 2007 | Author: Bone | Filed under: , , Uncategorised |

Awesome weekend for me around the midlands, met some great people, got pretty drunk, got pretty dirty (and not the good kind), saw some great bands, took some wrong turns in Birmingham (the dreaded Birmingham triangle!) and had a thoroughly enjoyable few days.

Saturday was cool, it took me about 4 attempts to leave Langdale (forgot dress shoes I never wore, had my mums debit card in my wallet, forgot Rory’s address, and worst of all, I’d been driving for 5 minutes when I realised that I didn’t have the tickets for GIAN!), but once I got going things were pretty plain sailing, no traffic and my good friend TomTom (the GPS, not the person) got me to Rory’s flat in Nottingham no trouble, even if I did take one wrong turn, which took me onto a road which led to me exclaiming (mentally) “ahhh, this is where I was trapped by trams” which occurred on a previous trip to Nottingham, but I’m sure you don’t want to hear that story…

I collected Rory and then we headed off to Grantham for a house party. I didn’t know anyone there, but they were all very friendly and I didn’t really feel left out, which was awesome. Ben (the host) also did a great barbecue, including some giant burgers which actually had cheese inside the meat patty. Me and Rory got to do a vast amount of catching-up and reminiscing, and managed to drink a quite incredible amount (after our supply of vodka ran out people kept bringing me beers, I have no idea where from, they just turned up in front of me!). Somehow I didn’t notice what time it was until 5:30am and decided it was probably a good time to go to sleep. A girl (I say girl, she was a couple of years older than me) found me a place to sleep, in a fabulous bedroom filled with African carvings (the host’s parents are in the import business, apparently), and I passed out fully dressed, although I did have the forethought to take off my shoes and jacket.

By the way, I still look great in the jacket.

I woke up at about 11:30, the doors opened at Give It a Name at 12:00. Bugger. So I rang Rory (who was in the room next door), and in true movie star mode I didn’t even say hi, just “we gotta go”. So I headed down to the kitchen and said hi to everyone else who was already up, and was followed downstiars by a topless Rory, who proclaimed “has anyone seen my t-shirt and glasses?” He searched everywhere, rooms we’d never been in, even the fridge! Eventually, he found it folded up next to the bed he slept in. So he was so drunk that he had no clue where his tee was, but so Rory that he folded it!

So we headed off to Birmingham (after a quick call to Neil to find out where the National Indoor Arena was), got a little bit lost on the way in, parked up (£8 freaking pounds to park, and you could only use change!), went to a pub for lunch (another giant burger) then headed into the darkness for the gig.

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I wasn’t as impressed with Give It A Name this year as I was in 2006, although it was better than 2005, but 2005 was pretty much the worst organised event I’ve ever been to so that’s hardly something to be proud of. The crowd was smaller than last year, the bands weren’t as famous, there were no seats (so we had to sit on a floor that was pretty nasty and sticky by the end of the day, and I got chewing gum on the swoosh on my shoes, oh noes!), and they never put any lights on between sets, which was pretty bizarre.

On the whole, I was impressed by most of the bands. Here’s a quick review, probably not in running order:

Kevin Devine: We caught the end of his set when we got in, he was pretty good, although I preferred his covers to his original stuff. And having Brand New as his band was was pretty cool.

Senses Fail: I so wanted to like these guys, I really like a lot of their songs, but unfortunately, they suck live. I’m sorry, the people that don’t sing, they’re pretty good (well, one of them was in Midtown, so of course he was good), but the singer, good lord he was terrible, and the ‘banter’ between songs was even worse, he just kept calling us fuckers and telling how big his cock was. Apparently at the gig in London he said that he loved Princess Di and would still “do” her now….. aaaawkwaaaaard

Zebrahead: So much fun, just like all of the pop-punk bands from the turn of the millenium.

Motion City Soundtrack: Love’m, so endearing, and whilst their sound quality wasn’t quite up to scratch I still really enjoyed them.

Enter Shikari: Its weird, I’m not really a huge fan of their music, but they were so good to watch. They’re just this kind of chaotic explosion of light, noise, dancing and short shorts. I don’t think they’re quite as good as their hype makes them out to be, but I was pretty impressed. Oh yeah, they had a trampoline on stage, to aid the dancing process, presumably. And hey, they’re from Leicester, so I’ve gotta support them!

New Found Glory: Rory spent the past three years telling me how annoying he found this band, and after having seen them he admitted that actually, they weren’t too bad. Jordan’s voice seems to have improved a bit (=got less nasal), and of course their sound is astoundingly tight.

Cute Is what we aim for: Not impressed, I barely remember anything from their set.

All American Rejects: When they play, they’re good, but in between songs I just found them annoying. The singer swore far more than was necessary, and generally acted like a rockstar that believed his own hype.

Brand New: They played two sets. The first was fairly early on the bill, presumably covering for Saosin since they weren’t playing after their singer was hospitalised. The first set was pretty disappointing, it was just four songs from Deja Entendu, played in a very different way to on the CD, I didn’t really like it, and his new voice just didn’t fit with the old stuff. So I was pretty worried that when they came back they’d be a big let down. I was wrong. The second set was all from the new album, which really helped to keep the mood, and they utterly blew me away. I’ve read people saying that they thought the lead singer had turned from weird genius to just weird, but I was incredibly impressed, he actually sounded like he meant every word he said, like he was about to break down on stage, it was pretty powerful stuff. And the end of the set was just amazing, there was about 12 people on stage, 4 on guitar, 1 on bass, and the rest just braying the hell out of both the drum kits (yeah, BOTH drum kits). They smashed up a lot of stuff, but it seemed to be more about passion than just doing typical rockstar stuff.

Then we left, drove around Birmingham for a bit trying to find somewhere to eat, ended up paying £6 for two fantastic pizzas. Went back to Rorys, slept, came home.

Awesome weekend.

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