OK, this is an open, full and unconditional apology to everyone Kerrang, Relentless and all the bands involved in the final stop of the K tour last night (30^th Jan) in Brixton. About 2 hours after the doors opened I found myself standing in the middle of the academy surrounded by throwing a hissy fit over what was at that point a delay in proceedings but which everyone knew would be the cancellation of the show. When the news was finally broken to us I was ashamed to be part of an audience screaming, booing and hurling whatever projectiles came to hand at the organisers and bands who came out to apologise.

 Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the gurgling, foaming bile of misplaced hatred as much as the next guy but this was a technical issue (and I understand with health and safety issues) completely out of the hands of anyone up there. You could tell from every morose face up there that they all hated the idea of cancelling the show, and I hated it to, but it’s not they’re fault. 

So to all of you on that stage, and to all of you behind it I want to say sorry on behalf of all the fans that instantly turned in to babies who’d just had they’re candy stolen, and who won’t apologise to you in person.

Spike.

www.blaids.co.uk

 

P.S. Additional thanks to Jimmy and Steve for stepping up with the acapella. Much love to you.

 

That was the E-mail I sent out to all I main players I could get a hold of, so now that I’m done with that and no-one will read the rest of this, let’s go into some more detail shall we.

The night started of much as any other gig, queue’s round the block, cols head and hands, the faint smell of a joint you can’t quite place and a never ending stream of 13 year old girls in luminous tutu’s swigging from shared vodka bottles. Now, I understand well the inpatients this can create freezing your Mohawk off while knowing full well that not 200 yards away those who had the forethought to arrive days earlier are inside warm and cosy, frequenting the bar and enjoying the piped metal pouring forth from every amp in the building instead of the latest teeny pop punk toss squeaking out of some cunts phone. So I can understand that tensions can run high.

Shortly before reaching the final stretch of the queue a member of the academy staff (whose job I did not envy one iota at that moment) called for our attention to give us a heads up that there was a power supply problem and that there was a chance that the gig might not go ahead. So lets get this straight from the start, the venue and staff in question had no obligation to do this, they came outside into a throng of cold, boozed up, irritable metalers to give us a heads up. A courtesy that, as far as i could tell from the reactions of those surrounding me, most took with all the calm restraint one might expect if the guy had come round and spat in every single face.

This led to my first great quote of the night, a small, surprisingly sober, girl behind me asked “but why don’t they have some kind of hospital generators?” well, lets see if we can’t answer this shall we, starting with the most obvious answer. The Brixton Academy is not a fucking hospital. It’s no more than a glorified pub. Secondly and in a slightly more serious slant, they do have some access to emergency power, it’s lighting the rooms inside so that 4000 people don’t trample each other to death in the dark.

Anyway. So we’ve got inside, where in the dimly lit entrance they searched bags and confiscated a handful of glow sticks that my girlfriend had in her bag (somehow no-one else saw the irony in this so I dropped it). an hour or so later and everyone crowded into the auditorium waiting for any ‘news’ an amusing concept as everyone in there clearly knows that nothing is going to happen tonight.

The letter has already mentioned the idiot riot mentality that took hold next so I’ll skip that now and tie this spiel up. One thing that made me giggle and I feel should be shared at this juncture was the effect of the balls. As the crowd grew in anger and little could be heard over the chants of “This is shit! This is shit!” and “Refund, Refund” the thing that got the biggest and most sustained cheers was when somebody somewhere threw two giant inflatable ‘Relentless’ branded balls into the crowd. I think that sums the whole night up more than any of the tripe I could spill across this page, so I won’t bother.

Blaids part 3

Am I, Or Could I Be Insane.

 

If there is anything that my limited reading of Orwell has taught me (apart from the fact that Big Brother has a bitch’n moustache) it’s that insanity can be defined as nothing more than possessing contrary beliefs to that of the masses. This may be rather over simplifying the subject somewhat but,  being that I am indeed quite simple, that is what I will tend to do with any subject thrown at me by the mindless marauding monosyllabic miscreants that we (or more to the point I) have come to know as ‘The General Public.’

I’m looking at that no and I can’t help but feel that I’ve been somewhat over generous in capitalising their collective title, but what can I do? I am but a slave to grammar.

All this, for what of a better or more accurate term, nonsense came crashing to my mind last night as I travelled home from the pub, slightly inebriated but not nearly inebriated enough. As often happens when I am in this state and or situation a certain thought flushes through my alcohol addled brain and that thought is....I really don’t like pubs with people and music.  I like pubs. I quite like people, however much they tend to disappoint me, and I’m more than a little fond of music. But the three together? No. Now, I normally pride myself on being the most well balanced of individuals, trying to see things from every available view point and often seeing some form of compromise. But on this I am lost. And so it is not the fact of my own dislike that troubles me, so much as it is that I cannot for the life of me, no matter how I churn the grey matter whilst thinking on this matter, understand who anyone can like it. To sum up the last worryingly procrastinating paragraph, I just don’t get it.

And so, coming full circle back to the origins of this diatribe, is my loathing of all that the major populous of our fair nation hold to be the pinnacle of Saturday night entertainment (loud music, dancing, dark lighting, expensive foul tasting larger, and mind bogglingly overpopulated dance floors) proof positive of my own insanity? If, as is the criminal definition, insanity is the inability to tell right from wrong, and the majority see all I have scrawled above to be right and I see it to be very, very wrong, does that make me incapable of ‘rational’ thought and therefore insane? Or does it simply mean that I need to lovingly embrace some form of social life instead spending my time glued to a pc monitor spewing forth the bile of my lonely, unloved mind onto a blog that no-one will ever, ever read?

All feedback will of course be greatly appreciated, unless I disagree with any part of it in which case I will of course write it off as illiterate drivel.

(Having briefly read back through this {I try not to look too closely} I have found that I spelt both the words ‘Grammar’ and Illiterate’ wrong. Oh sweet irony.)

Blaids part 2

Say what you like about Kim Jong-il but....

 

Ok, basically what I’m trying to say here is, it’s time to lay off Hitler. Everyone’s favourite Jew beater has been dead sometime now, and it’s not like there aren’t other monstrous dictators to vent our respective spleens at. Like Robert Mugabe, the natural progression of letting farmers keep shotguns. Kim Jong-il, half puppet half cockroach. Or George W. Bush......Twat. Although to be fair on that point I don’t think Bush has done anything too painfully stupid in the last few months (unless you count waking un early one morning in April to take a shit on cheany’s desk. But if you knew the two of them personally you’d understand it was all in jest, it’s just one of the many little games they play with each other, something akin to a mating ritual. There were no hard feelings.)

Dear god! The President of the United States taking a shit on the vice president’s desk?! What horrible, borderline psychotic tangent have I run into this time?

I can’t even remember what I was getting at, maybe pointing out that it’s a good thing that America pays no attention to the sick and disturbed personal and social life of their soon to be ex-president.

But no. That wasn’t it. Korea makes some great films. That was the point. (Or it is now.)

A couple of nights ago I sat down to watch ‘D-Wars’ (or ‘Dragon Wars’ as it’s been re-named for the west audience. Because we’re stupid.) And though I was a little full of beer, I managed to follow most of it. I’m fairly sure there were 2 ancient dragons, one evil and one good, who each needed to take the soul of some girl with a tattoo so they could ascend to heaven. But I’m not sure why as it seemed that they came from heaven, and as the chick would die either way I’m not sure what the point of following her story was. But who cares giant dragons and a plethora of big ass dinosaurs (oh yeah, they turned up with some dude who can explode fire balls with a wave of his hand) were setting about beating the living shit out of L.A. So to me, that’s a good film. But it did lead me to realise I don’t think I’ve ever truly ‘understood’ a Korean film. I’ve enjoyed them. And after two or three viewings I’ve got the gist of what was going on. If you want to know what I mean, watch ‘Casshern’, utter, beautiful, insanity. And with that in mind I’m gonna go watch ‘Volcano High’ slightly less of a mind fuck, but still pretty senseless.

 

You can’t get the image of bush dropping trou’, and squeezing one out can you?

Blaids part 1.

 

The ‘Other’ Young Indiana Jones

This will contain spoilers, because I’m too lazy to write them out. That’s your only warning.

Ok. How many of you can honestly say that you remember, in a reasonable amount of detail, the storyline to any episode of ‘Young Indiana Jones’? Anyone? No, me neither. Now I’m not knocking the show,  in fact all I remember from it was be entertained, and giggling when young Indy reached for the fedora a few too many times every show, I’m just saying that it is not considered as part of the trilogy, and rightly so. And in the nicest way possible, I hope the same of ‘Indiana Jones: COTCS’ (I can’t be arsed to write out that whole title.)

The main problem I have with COTCS is, it’s stupid. And I mean, mind bogglingly, eye popingly, “how the fuck did they ok this script”, “they must be taking the piss” stupid. I don’t care how many ways they avoid the word it’s self, a fucking alien ship just burst out of an ancient temple. It was aliens! And more than that “inter dimensional beings” the lanky bastards weren’t even from this dimension!

But this was the big finish, and the franchise was in the tricky position of having to top ‘the power of the one true god’ so I’ll give them a little wiggle room on that one.

One of my main gripes with the flick is the CGI. Ropey doesn’t even begin to describe it. Much of it was poor in quality and more was completely pointless. Who knows what kind of health and safety; pyrophobic nightmare led them to thinking that CGI fire on flaming torches was a good idea but at the end of the day it just makes Indy look like he needs to be keep under a watchful eye lest he stumble and hurt his poor old self. And with Spielberg and Lucus at the helm, there is no excuse for poor fx.

But you know what, fuck all that. And the many (and believe me there are many) things wrong with this film because it more than succeeds at the big one.  This film is entertaining. Ok it may be entertaining in an Acorn antiques, ankle biters, snakes on a train type way. But who cares. If you go to see this film you will leave the cine-plex happy. Unless of course you’ve been waiting 19 years,  shaking into a cold sweat, gnawing down onto your leather whip in anticipation, you’re gonna be a little pissed. And for this reason COTCS is the new ‘Young Indiana Jones’. It doesn’t deserve to sit with the 80’s classics, but should never be written off.  Have a few drinks kick back and enjoy. How can you not love a hoard of monkeys AND a hoard of ants kicking butt as part of the same car chase.

Inspired stupidity or accidental genius?  Who cares.

So. here it is. i've finally fallen over to some kind of inter-web based darkside, the Blog. but hell, i want to write. i love to write, so this is a nice simple way to write alot, with the pretext that many people from all around the world can read my wares but with the knowledge that no bugger will ever read it. god bless the internet, so much content so little time.

not gonna write anything today though. but i will. you bet your ass i will.