I am in a tremendous amount of (self inflicted) pain today.
The Bronx & DZ Deathrays last night was one of the best gigs I've ever seen in my life. It was my fourth time seeing The Bronx but every single time I do they absolutely blow me the fuck away.
It took Matt (vocalist) all of about 2 minutes to get into the crowd and start tearing the HiFi to pieces.
Couple that with the metric fucktonne of beer we drank and the fact I, being the undisputed genius I am, forgot to turn off my alarm this morning even though I took today off work... It equates to a horror hangover and severe lack of sleep.
Absolutely 1000% worth every second though.
The Bronx & DZ Deathrays last night was one of the best gigs I've ever seen in my life. It was my fourth time seeing The Bronx but every single time I do they absolutely blow me the fuck away.
It took Matt (vocalist) all of about 2 minutes to get into the crowd and start tearing the HiFi to pieces.
Couple that with the metric fucktonne of beer we drank and the fact I, being the undisputed genius I am, forgot to turn off my alarm this morning even though I took today off work... It equates to a horror hangover and severe lack of sleep.
Absolutely 1000% worth every second though.
Last Friday I was lucky enough not only to see Coheed & Cambria play in Brisbane but to also be able to meet them at the VIP Meet & Greet before the show.
I took that opportunity to take the absolute worst photo of me of all time.
It would be funny I suppose for anyone who isn't me. I was worried most of the week leading up to that night about making a fool of myself and coming off as a blithering idiot fangirl. Well, I bypassed that stage entirely and went straight to the stage where I can barely utter a word and come off as some weirdo who can't even talk.
Circa Survive supported them and I have to admit, they didn't win me over as a fan. Musically they're quite sound but vocally, jesus fuck, the vocalist has the most painfully high pitched singing voice I've ever heard! I don't just mean painfully in a metaphoric sense either, there were periods where it literally made your ears ache.
Coheed though were as amazing as ever.
The energy Claudio has, the way the crowd sung along with older songs like A Favor House Atlantic or No World For Tomorrow and the way the newer tracks seamlessly blend in with their back catalogue. They're one of the most underrated live bands on the planet. In my own opinion they're right up with Enter Shikari and letlive. in the top echelon of live bands anywhere in the world.
I just wish they'd play Delirium Trigger live still. Or anything off SSTB really.
I took that opportunity to take the absolute worst photo of me of all time.
It would be funny I suppose for anyone who isn't me. I was worried most of the week leading up to that night about making a fool of myself and coming off as a blithering idiot fangirl. Well, I bypassed that stage entirely and went straight to the stage where I can barely utter a word and come off as some weirdo who can't even talk.
Circa Survive supported them and I have to admit, they didn't win me over as a fan. Musically they're quite sound but vocally, jesus fuck, the vocalist has the most painfully high pitched singing voice I've ever heard! I don't just mean painfully in a metaphoric sense either, there were periods where it literally made your ears ache.
Coheed though were as amazing as ever.
The energy Claudio has, the way the crowd sung along with older songs like A Favor House Atlantic or No World For Tomorrow and the way the newer tracks seamlessly blend in with their back catalogue. They're one of the most underrated live bands on the planet. In my own opinion they're right up with Enter Shikari and letlive. in the top echelon of live bands anywhere in the world.
I just wish they'd play Delirium Trigger live still. Or anything off SSTB really.
The last week and a bit has been really up and down, if I do say so myself...
Last weekend was fucking amazing, I got to see Face To Face and Pennywise live in the flesh. It's the second time I've seen Pennywise live but the first time I've seen them with Jim, the first time I saw them was Soundwave 2011 when Zoli had replaced Jim.
Both bands were absolutely amazing. Face To Face absolutely rock the old school punk ballad vibe and the couple of new songs they played off Three Chords And A Half Truth blended in seamlessly with their older stuff. Bright Lights Go Down was freaking awesome live.
Pennywise, well, wow. They are one of the best, most intense live punk bands on the planet and Jim's return amplified that exponentially. The crowd as well really seemed to pick up on that and were absolutely frenzied from start to finish. The whole venue was fucking heaving.
My week at work however was less enthralling. I don't know what it was but every day was just an absolute nightmare. It was nowhere near as busy as it was the couple of weeks before but every client was a whole lot more difficult and I left every day wanting to cause physical injury to myself or others.
During the week the fate of the football club I've supported since I was a little kid Portsmouth FC was decided by a court of law over in England. Thankfully the court sided with the Supporters Trust and forced the former owners to sell the club meaning the club survived rather than being wound up completely. It was one of the most intensely emotional moments of my life when I heard the good news. Overwhelming elation, joy, relief. It's still a long road to success for us but we now control our own destiny and can make sure the decisions made for the club are in it's best interests and not the interests of some faceless millionaire owner.
Then last night was the Brisbane Roar semi final against Western Sydney Wanderers in the A-League. Which basically means an excuse for all my mates and I to write ourselves off entirely and just act like reprobates. Being an away game meant going to watch it at the local pub which of course meant triple fisting rum and tequila shots and whatever else we could pour down our throats.
All of which left me with a beast of a hangover today, not that that's all bad mind, I managed to get the number of an absolutely STUNNING girl on my way back home this morning who was similarly hungover but also on her way to start working a 14 hour shift. Ouch. So we traded stories for a while. I can't even begin to describe how far above my weight I'm punching with her, I can only hope she doesn't realise for a while at least. Dead set, she looks like a younger Mila Kunis. I was gobsmacked to even talk to her let alone come away with her number.
So yeah, I'm pretty well stoked on life right now.
Last weekend was fucking amazing, I got to see Face To Face and Pennywise live in the flesh. It's the second time I've seen Pennywise live but the first time I've seen them with Jim, the first time I saw them was Soundwave 2011 when Zoli had replaced Jim.
Both bands were absolutely amazing. Face To Face absolutely rock the old school punk ballad vibe and the couple of new songs they played off Three Chords And A Half Truth blended in seamlessly with their older stuff. Bright Lights Go Down was freaking awesome live.
Pennywise, well, wow. They are one of the best, most intense live punk bands on the planet and Jim's return amplified that exponentially. The crowd as well really seemed to pick up on that and were absolutely frenzied from start to finish. The whole venue was fucking heaving.
My week at work however was less enthralling. I don't know what it was but every day was just an absolute nightmare. It was nowhere near as busy as it was the couple of weeks before but every client was a whole lot more difficult and I left every day wanting to cause physical injury to myself or others.
During the week the fate of the football club I've supported since I was a little kid Portsmouth FC was decided by a court of law over in England. Thankfully the court sided with the Supporters Trust and forced the former owners to sell the club meaning the club survived rather than being wound up completely. It was one of the most intensely emotional moments of my life when I heard the good news. Overwhelming elation, joy, relief. It's still a long road to success for us but we now control our own destiny and can make sure the decisions made for the club are in it's best interests and not the interests of some faceless millionaire owner.
Then last night was the Brisbane Roar semi final against Western Sydney Wanderers in the A-League. Which basically means an excuse for all my mates and I to write ourselves off entirely and just act like reprobates. Being an away game meant going to watch it at the local pub which of course meant triple fisting rum and tequila shots and whatever else we could pour down our throats.
All of which left me with a beast of a hangover today, not that that's all bad mind, I managed to get the number of an absolutely STUNNING girl on my way back home this morning who was similarly hungover but also on her way to start working a 14 hour shift. Ouch. So we traded stories for a while. I can't even begin to describe how far above my weight I'm punching with her, I can only hope she doesn't realise for a while at least. Dead set, she looks like a younger Mila Kunis. I was gobsmacked to even talk to her let alone come away with her number.
So yeah, I'm pretty well stoked on life right now.
It's crazy, a few short months ago I was trying to put together a list of my top 10 albums for the year (it's a thing I do for a friend who runs an online music magazine AltMusicHub as well as doing gig and album reviews and the like).
Anyway I was having an absolute nightmare of a time, I couldn't refine my list to any more than about 16-18 albums, I ended up needing to pull bloody names out of a hat! And I thought at the time that it'd probably mean a quiet patch and a significant drop off in quality new albums this year given how many bands dropped albums, especially between July-December.
Well. That was wrong.
Already this year there's been simply amazing new albums from Bad Religion, Wednesday 13, Funeral For A Friend, Bullet For My Valentine, Hatebreed, Coheed & Cambria, The Bronx and now Bring Me The Horizon too.
And it's still not even April!
I don't understand how anyone can NOT love music to some sort obsessive excess.
In upcoming gig news, in the next month I'm going to see Pennywise supported by Face To Face (whose new album released next week is also going to be amazing if the couple of songs already released are any indicator), Coheed supported by Circa Survive, The Bronx and Funeral For A Friend.
Anyway I was having an absolute nightmare of a time, I couldn't refine my list to any more than about 16-18 albums, I ended up needing to pull bloody names out of a hat! And I thought at the time that it'd probably mean a quiet patch and a significant drop off in quality new albums this year given how many bands dropped albums, especially between July-December.
Well. That was wrong.
Already this year there's been simply amazing new albums from Bad Religion, Wednesday 13, Funeral For A Friend, Bullet For My Valentine, Hatebreed, Coheed & Cambria, The Bronx and now Bring Me The Horizon too.
And it's still not even April!
I don't understand how anyone can NOT love music to some sort obsessive excess.
In upcoming gig news, in the next month I'm going to see Pennywise supported by Face To Face (whose new album released next week is also going to be amazing if the couple of songs already released are any indicator), Coheed supported by Circa Survive, The Bronx and Funeral For A Friend.
There's nothing worse than feeling alone.
Nearly two months ago now I moved to a city about an hour away from Brisbane, the city where I grew up as a teenager, went to school and all that. It wasnt entirely voluntary insomuch as the place I was living decided they weren't going to renew our lease, for no reason. (That's not me trying to make myself sound blameless either mind, on the notice we received saying they weren't going to renew it it specifically said "without cause".)
Anyway despite living up here and going to school up here years ago, high school was never a particularly happy time for me. I moved here with my family before my second year of high school grade 9 and never really made any progress with fitting in. I was always the outsider, it was just so different, I came from small country towns and this was a massive city on the beach, the surfer and slater types, I couldn't comprehend it... I was picked on and bullied and all that. That was where I first really got into punk ans metal. One of my few friends and his older brother were massive punk fans and the whole style and the message really resonated with me. I made enough friends through that scene that I could handle myself and found my feet and had people that had my back when other people started giving me shit.
Anyway that's all just a massive tangent but kinda leads into my point that, even the few friends I did have have all mostly moved down to Brisbane or elsewhere themselves. So now I'm stuck up here with all my friends an hour or more away. I'm still in Brisbane basically every weekend for gigs or football games or whatever else and that's always brilliant fun but, besides that, it's pretty much just me.
My days consist of waking up before sunrise, going to work, getting home after the sun sets and sitting at home on my own, watching TV or online or reading a book before I go to bed to wake up to do it all the next day.
It fucking sucks.
It's also having the unforeseeable, inexplicable consequence of making me miss having a girlfriend. Ice been single for ~2 years now and always loved it. Before that I was in a pretty emotionally abusive relationship for ~2 years again. Since then I've never had any urge to find someone or settle down. I've enjoyed every minute of being able to do what I want, who I want, when I want. Never having to worry about asking permission, fucking guilt trips, none of that shit. But over the last month or so I've found myself really missing that... That closeness I guess, the intimacy... Just having someone there for you...
Anyway, that's my depressing life in 5 minutes.
Nearly two months ago now I moved to a city about an hour away from Brisbane, the city where I grew up as a teenager, went to school and all that. It wasnt entirely voluntary insomuch as the place I was living decided they weren't going to renew our lease, for no reason. (That's not me trying to make myself sound blameless either mind, on the notice we received saying they weren't going to renew it it specifically said "without cause".)
Anyway despite living up here and going to school up here years ago, high school was never a particularly happy time for me. I moved here with my family before my second year of high school grade 9 and never really made any progress with fitting in. I was always the outsider, it was just so different, I came from small country towns and this was a massive city on the beach, the surfer and slater types, I couldn't comprehend it... I was picked on and bullied and all that. That was where I first really got into punk ans metal. One of my few friends and his older brother were massive punk fans and the whole style and the message really resonated with me. I made enough friends through that scene that I could handle myself and found my feet and had people that had my back when other people started giving me shit.
Anyway that's all just a massive tangent but kinda leads into my point that, even the few friends I did have have all mostly moved down to Brisbane or elsewhere themselves. So now I'm stuck up here with all my friends an hour or more away. I'm still in Brisbane basically every weekend for gigs or football games or whatever else and that's always brilliant fun but, besides that, it's pretty much just me.
My days consist of waking up before sunrise, going to work, getting home after the sun sets and sitting at home on my own, watching TV or online or reading a book before I go to bed to wake up to do it all the next day.
It fucking sucks.
It's also having the unforeseeable, inexplicable consequence of making me miss having a girlfriend. Ice been single for ~2 years now and always loved it. Before that I was in a pretty emotionally abusive relationship for ~2 years again. Since then I've never had any urge to find someone or settle down. I've enjoyed every minute of being able to do what I want, who I want, when I want. Never having to worry about asking permission, fucking guilt trips, none of that shit. But over the last month or so I've found myself really missing that... That closeness I guess, the intimacy... Just having someone there for you...
Anyway, that's my depressing life in 5 minutes.
Today can fuck right off to be quite frank.
Between work, mates trying to cut my grass and even the shithouse fucking weather currently, I just want this day to be over with.
Between work, mates trying to cut my grass and even the shithouse fucking weather currently, I just want this day to be over with.
Wow.
It's been quite a while since I posted anything or even logged in on here.
Life has been pretty insane the last month or so with work, moving house, football and most recently Soundwave. The latter being mostly what prompted me to log in and write this, I mostly just wanted to gush about fucking amazing it is.
So many amazing moments and sets over the day, and even the night before when I went to see Bullet For My Valentine's headline sideshow supported by Cancer Bats. At a <1000 capacity venue. Seeing a band like Bullet in that intimate venue is indescribable. Just amazing. They also had Chris Jericho come on stage to do the vocals for Dead To The World off their new album. I'm not a wrestling fan and have never really listened to his band but his stage presence while he was there was brilliant.
Cancer Bats seemed to have the lousy end of the sound set with the vocals distorting pretty badly but still absolutely destroyed it. Their cover of Sabotage and Hail Destroyer were fucking incredible.
Then yesterday, Saturday, was the big day. Soundwave. We kicked off the day starting with Dragonforce before seeing Anthrax, Tomahawk, Gallows, Billy Talent, Sum 41, Cypress Hill, Slayer, A Perfect Circle, Sick Of It All and fucking Metallica.
The whole day was absolutely mindblowing. I've been going to Soundwave for 4 or 5 years and never seen anything like yesterday. All the stages absolutely rammed, 40,000+ people, by early afternoon.
My own personal highlights from yesterday:
Dragonforce bringing back the keytar
Anthrax fucking ROCKING their cover of TNT by ACDC
Mike Patton's voice
Me apparently making it onto the big screen during Bullet (yeah that's a bit narcissistic that one)
Sick Of It All wall of death. Hands down the most brutal wall of death I've ever been a part of.
Every single fucking second of Metallica.
Now I just need to try and recover in time to do it all again next weekend in Adelaide, and catch all the bands I wanted to but didn't get to see yesterday.
It's been quite a while since I posted anything or even logged in on here.
Life has been pretty insane the last month or so with work, moving house, football and most recently Soundwave. The latter being mostly what prompted me to log in and write this, I mostly just wanted to gush about fucking amazing it is.
So many amazing moments and sets over the day, and even the night before when I went to see Bullet For My Valentine's headline sideshow supported by Cancer Bats. At a <1000 capacity venue. Seeing a band like Bullet in that intimate venue is indescribable. Just amazing. They also had Chris Jericho come on stage to do the vocals for Dead To The World off their new album. I'm not a wrestling fan and have never really listened to his band but his stage presence while he was there was brilliant.
Cancer Bats seemed to have the lousy end of the sound set with the vocals distorting pretty badly but still absolutely destroyed it. Their cover of Sabotage and Hail Destroyer were fucking incredible.
Then yesterday, Saturday, was the big day. Soundwave. We kicked off the day starting with Dragonforce before seeing Anthrax, Tomahawk, Gallows, Billy Talent, Sum 41, Cypress Hill, Slayer, A Perfect Circle, Sick Of It All and fucking Metallica.
The whole day was absolutely mindblowing. I've been going to Soundwave for 4 or 5 years and never seen anything like yesterday. All the stages absolutely rammed, 40,000+ people, by early afternoon.
My own personal highlights from yesterday:
Dragonforce bringing back the keytar
Anthrax fucking ROCKING their cover of TNT by ACDC
Mike Patton's voice
Me apparently making it onto the big screen during Bullet (yeah that's a bit narcissistic that one)
Sick Of It All wall of death. Hands down the most brutal wall of death I've ever been a part of.
Every single fucking second of Metallica.
Now I just need to try and recover in time to do it all again next weekend in Adelaide, and catch all the bands I wanted to but didn't get to see yesterday.
I swear Brisbane Roar fans are right up there with the most fickle fans in Australia, if not the world.
I have to admit though I’m deriving a certain level of satisfaction over the latest round of infighting and bickering from Brisbane fans.
It’s a bit funny watching them all implode online. It’s good to have the dissociation where I love my team and love supporting them, but really don’t give a toss whether the result is a win, draw or loss.
But, at the same time, it’s more than a little bit embarrassing as well because I know what is happening is borne of a love of winning being greater of the love of the team.
And in that case you’re not a real supporter and you need to go back to wherever the fuck it is you were before you crawled out of the woodwork before the last two years.
On a different topic I'm off with some mates to the T20 Cricket tonight to see the Brisbane Heat take on the Sydney Sixers.
I don't know who comes up with these awful names but they really are terrible human beings.
Should be a good night though. Beer, mates and (hopefully) scumney losing badly.
I have to admit though I’m deriving a certain level of satisfaction over the latest round of infighting and bickering from Brisbane fans.
It’s a bit funny watching them all implode online. It’s good to have the dissociation where I love my team and love supporting them, but really don’t give a toss whether the result is a win, draw or loss.
But, at the same time, it’s more than a little bit embarrassing as well because I know what is happening is borne of a love of winning being greater of the love of the team.
And in that case you’re not a real supporter and you need to go back to wherever the fuck it is you were before you crawled out of the woodwork before the last two years.
On a different topic I'm off with some mates to the T20 Cricket tonight to see the Brisbane Heat take on the Sydney Sixers.
I don't know who comes up with these awful names but they really are terrible human beings.
Should be a good night though. Beer, mates and (hopefully) scumney losing badly.
I don't much care for Falling in Reverse but truth be told I think The Westerner is probably the most relevant song to my own life that I've ever heard.
Not necessarily in a literal sense (though large swathes of it are very much synonymous) but the general feel and overriding message behind it definitely.
I love it when people write me off for fuck me over. I love being able to show them up, to prove them wrong and just plain piss them off.
Truth be told a great deal of what I do with my life it's not for me. Whether I'm happy or sad or angry or whatever, that's just me, I'm just one person. No, most of what I do is for the effect that it has on other people.
For people I like to help them or to make them happy or make their lives easier and for people I dislike to piss them off and to prove them wrong.
That is what truly motivates me.
Is that a good thing? I'm not going to presume I'm in any way smart enough to know the answer to that, I can see pros and cons both, but I like to think what I do with my life and how it affects other people is more important than how it affects myself.
Came home from work this afternoon to find a notice to leave from the real estate on the bench from the owners of the house.
“without grounds”
So now we have to get out of here and find a new place/s to live before mid-February.
I’m absolutely fucking gutted. This place this house was literally perfect. Perfect location and ridiculously cheap rent. It is utterly impossible for me to find a way to find a place as cheap as this especially in as good a location as this. And I’m struggling living from pay to pay, month to month as it is.
It just gets to the point where it’s just like… Why bother trying?
Every time things level out and you’re happy life just comes along and kicks your arse. Either literally or metaphorically. In my case, both in consecutive days.
I’m fucking done.
“without grounds”
So now we have to get out of here and find a new place/s to live before mid-February.
I’m absolutely fucking gutted. This place this house was literally perfect. Perfect location and ridiculously cheap rent. It is utterly impossible for me to find a way to find a place as cheap as this especially in as good a location as this. And I’m struggling living from pay to pay, month to month as it is.
It just gets to the point where it’s just like… Why bother trying?
Every time things level out and you’re happy life just comes along and kicks your arse. Either literally or metaphorically. In my case, both in consecutive days.
I’m fucking done.
