(no subject)
We weren't in the queue for long before the doors opened. It was up to me, Sarah and Bob to get the required barrier spaces in front of Simon since we were on the guestlist and the people on the guestlist had their own special door and got through the doors the quickest. The doors opened and me and Sarah followed Bob up the steps to find.... that the guestlist door was locked. Bugger. We tried the door on the right but they wouldn't let us through. I blocked it whilst we were arguing with the security man, in the hope that it would give the others a better chance on the other door. Whilst we waited for them to open our door we waved to Joff and Helen on the merch stall. We finally got let in and Bob gave the woman his name. She spent ages trying to find it on the list. He jokingly said "don't tell me its not on there!" It wasn't. After hearing from Joff that the band aren't in the building so they can't get Bob in yet, I start to worry that me and Sarah won't get in either (although I do find myself looking forward to our contigency plan of drinking Amsterdam's supply of cherry beer.) Anyway, Bob steps aside and lets me try. Result!!!! I'm on!!!! (thank you Nick) me and Sarah finally get into the Paradiso, complete with aftershow passes slapped onto our legs.
Luckily the rest of our group are on the barrier on Simon's side and we're all happy. The venue is quite empty, so empty in fact that we can easily leave our spots on the barrier several times and get back to them. I went to the merch stall to have a natter with Helen and Joff then went to the loo. On my way back up the stairs from the loo I saw Jackie 1990s come out of a door, I just smiled and carried on. However, he also spotted me and started to run up the stairs after me to say hello! Bless him! After much to-ing and fro-ing from the barrier, we were all together for 1990s.
They came onstage and luckily they didn't have any technical problems tonight. We jumped, danced and sang along to them, making the bassist smile. This band are easily pleased! :P Just before their penultimate song, Jackie decided to dedicate it to his pixie, before asking where the pixie was. Sarah decided to cheer so she became the pixie :P However, he was a song too early so he had to dedicate the song again.
Next up was Apples In Stereo. Woo bloody hoo. Watched about 1 1/2 songs before decided to entertain myself. Counted the holes in the barrier. Was still bored. Played rock, paper, scissors with Mully. Got bored of that too. I decided to sit down and was joined by Mully. We spotted a newspaper on the floor and flicked through that. Mully read the headlines and I just looked at the pictures because it was all in Dutch. Wanted to do the sudoko but no one had a pen. We carried on flicking through the newspaper til I spotted a Kaiser review of the previous night's show. It got ripped out of the newspaper so it could be translated for us all later. The women who bought the newspaper appeared to notice that we'd borrowed it and nicked a page out of it. Nevermind. Finally Apples In Stereo were over so I could stand up again. The standing up was helped by Pigeon Detectives being played over the PA system. Whilst waiting for Chiefs to come onstage we saw Willy and Dan pointing in our direction, we did get a bit worried as to why they were pointing at us. (it turns out they weren't but thats a different story)
Chiefs came onstage and did the same set as the night before. As we got a showing of Ricky's moobs the previous night, we changed 'Ruby' to 'Mooby' complete with groping actions. Other new things were the addition of Nick's air drumming and the pouting during Highroyds to mine and Mully's dance repertoire. Me and Bob were getting roasted by the big lights at the side of the stage that light up the crowd. Just what I needed on a sunburnt face... red hot lights. Thanks Rich! Me and Bob were moaning about the lights when I turned round to see Simon pointing Bob out to Nick...
At the start of Modern Way, Peanut came to the front of the stage to do his Captain Clap bit, however the band decided to drag this bit out by singing Dutch songs and Nick did the usual getting the crowd to sing Chelsea Dagger. Peanut was looking like he was wishing them to hurry up so he could run back and hide behind his keyboard.
During TMT, Ricky had a ladder at the side of the stage that he climbed up and ran around the balcony to this bit at the back that stuck out a bit, where he paused before running round the rest of the balcony and finding some secret stairs down onto the stage.
Jumped up and down to Retirement which probably wasn't the best idea after only 3 hours sleep and a lot of jumping in the gig. Still managed to jump til the end, although I didn't have enough energy left to applaud as they left the stage for the encore.
We got a premier of the new extended version of Angry Mob which confused us at first, but we got the hang of it in the end and were able to swap between doing the dance and jumping. I love the extended version. :D Then it was time for OMG. The bouncers were the most rubbish bouncers ever. Usually when a crowdsurfer is spotted they all rush to get them down safely. Instead they just stood there and watched them tumble over the barrier and sort of made a lame attempt at pretending to care. As much as I loved the gig and didn't want it to end, I also couldn't wait til it was over as I was knackered.
Managed to get a Simon plectrum off Illias. I was lucky as all his other plectrums had been thrown to the crowd, apart from the one he'd dropped during the gig. I could see it on the floor and the hardest part was getting someone's attention to pass me the plectrum. But I got it in the end :D This wait had given me enough energy to chase the beer men round the venue to try and get a beer before we went and sat on the steps near the merch stall.