Bellowhead (London)

What a great weekend!

Had a fairly inauspicious start on the Friday evening when I decided to have beans on toast before heading for the bus. Was happily getting the beans into the microwave when there was an almighty bang behind me. When I picked myself back off the floor I discovered that front of the toaster had blown off and there was now bits of toaster and toast all over the floor. Another kitchen appliance bites the dust! Anyhow, cleared up most of the mess (although am still finding little bits on the floor now), ate the beans (after giving the microwave a stern look and reminding it of the one exploding item a day limit!), got myself packed and set off to catch the bus. Then had to get back into the burrow when I remembered half way down the road that I hadn't picked up my concert tickets!

Not the best megabus journey I've ever had. For starters the bus was an hour late and it was one of those buses without the footrests on the chair in front. Because I'm a little shorted than the norm, it meant I was continuously sliding off my seat and having to push myself back up which gave me a bit of a sore back and meant I was swearing to myself for most of my trip (which might have worried the person in the next seat somewhat). They also couldn't turn the heater off so, not only was it swelteringly hot (and this bus didn't let us out to stretch our legs anywhere so we wer stuck with it for over 9 hours!) but I had to sit with my legs twisted to the side to avoid burning my leg on the heater! Just to add to this, as we were setting off, the lad in front of me decided to put his seat back (and whoever decided that this facillity was a good idea on public transport wants shot. Space is limited enough without someone in front of you reducing it further!) and, if there was a safety device to stop it going back to far then it had obviously failed since the only thing that stopped me attending the Bellowhead gigs in my guise as Pandagirl was the fact that I managed to get my arm in front of my face before it hit me! (As it was, I now have a fairly badly bruised knee) And then the lad glanced back once and was going to leave his chair in that position! After a few words from me (and from the lad sat next to me who seemed a little startled by the whole thing as well) he put it back but tried to do it again half way through the trip. There should be a cull, there really should.
Needless to say, by the time I arrived in London I was stiff, irritated and exhausted. I decided to walk to Shepherd's Bush to orientate myself and stretch my legs and, having found where the Youth Hostel was for later, I bought myself a ticket for the 9am showing of Harry Potter meaning to have a nap in the warm while it was on. As it turns out, the film was actually quite good (couldn't stand the book. Overpadded and badly written wasn't it, but I suppose it got kids reading it and that's never a bad thing.) and I only slept a little bit. No matter, a couple of hours in a comfy chair at a nice temperature with no-one beside me worked wonders and when Firebird from the Spibod froum called to let me know she was at the Southbank Centre I decided to to risk the tube and meet her there. To my suprise, I had no problems on the tube (although the people using it were bloody rude and inconsiderate. Prefer the Metro.) and got to the Southbank Centre in no time at all. Course it was then that my phone ran out of money and I had to go searching for Firebird on the offchance. As it turned out, I found her fairly easily and we had a nice relaxing drink before we headed off to let Firebird and Bettyslippers try their hand at busking. It was their first time and I though they sounded pretty good. Having met up with Siansparkles we then headed back to Shepherds' Bush to book into the hostel and meet up with Sarahfairy.
After tea at the Stinging Nettle, we finally headed to the Shepherd's Bush Empire. It's a lovely venue which I had'nt been to before. There was a bit of queue to get in but Sarahfairy managed to get in early due to having an O2 phone and saved us some space.
The first support act was LucyFarrell and Jonny Kearney who were very sweet and listenable to and it was a shame that they had to sing over thepeople talking at the back of the room. The next support act was Matthew and the Atlas who were awful. I could have done what the accordionist was doing and I don't even play the accordion, their 2 brass players were completely wasted (although one of them did have a fairly stupendous moustache) and the lead singer seemed to think he was better than he actually was. Me and Bettyslippers amuse ourselves by trying to predict how many times they'd go 'Oooooooo'.
Finally it was Bellowhead and they were awesome. It should not be possible to cram that much energy on to one stage. A couple of firsts for me: Benji was playing and it's the first time I've seen him play with the band (if my experience was anything to go by, I'd have said James Fagan was the band member!) and he was very good, and it's also the first time I've been at the brass side of the stage and they were a huge amount of fun. Still unsure as to why Justin Thurgur was wearing a cassock but it obviously works for him so long may it continue. I'm starting to suspect that Andy Mellon actually runs on batteries cause he was bouncy as a bouncy thing and Brendan Kelly was all over the stage while Ed Neuheuser seemed to be havig a great time on the helicon. John Spiers was doing some amazing jumps in his really rather nice velvet suit and orange trainers and, at one point, Benji managed to get one foot on the rail right in front of us with the other still on the stage (although I'm even more impressed taht he managed to get back upright again otherwise!) Couldn't see as much of the fiddle section as I'm used to because a certain Mr Boden was in the way and you can't really ask him to move, especially when he was on such fine manic form, but they also seemed to be bouncing around like maniacs and they got us all dancing along with the Sloe Gin set and it's really nice to see Rachel McShane coming to the front of the stage more. Highlights? So many, Andy having to be pulled off the stage when he started playing up to the audience in Cholera Camp, Brendan barging Squeezy John out of the way to get to the microphone for Little Sally Racket, Squeezy threatening to poke Jon Boden in the side when he was holding a long note, Pete Flood trying to announce the last dance having finally made it to a microphone, Paul Sartin cheerfully calling South London a place of poverty and destitution, the list just goes on.
It was also really nice to be able to go back to the hostel and just enthuse about the whole thing with the others. Just a really great evening, even if we did get a fire alarm at 1am in the morning and had to be let back in by one of the hostel staff who appeared to be holding a newly cooked wrap and said that he wasn't around when the alarm went off when none of us had even asked. Little too specific a denial there methinks.