Alkaline Trio 26.11.2005
Yeah, so yesterday I went to see alkaline trio at the Birmingham academy, overall i must say it went a lot better than the my chemical romance one, for one it started earlier, also the bands came out on time and I didn't have to leave early to catch the last train home.
I arrived in Birmingham about an hour before the doors opened and it was absolutely freezing so I went and bought some coffee to warm me up a little then I made my way to the venue which is just opposite Toys'R'Us. It had been a while since I’ve been there (2003 for Reel Big Fish) and they had changed things a bit, the queue now goes in the other direction, down under the bridge and they opened the bar academy about 100 yards along from the main entrance. So anyway, I thought, especially in weather this bitterly cold the queue won't be *that* long an hour before it opens, right? Wrong, there was a queue going some 2-300 metres down the road, when I joined it it was about halfway under the bridge. But anyway, as we waited to be let in, it became apparent we weren’t the worst off by any means. The queue effectively doubled in length, there were people going right down the street and round the corner. I didn't even realise the venue could hold that many people, then again i guess it was completely sold out.
To keep us entertained while we waited, along came a preacher lady screaming at us to convert to Jesus before it was too late and to save our souls and other nonsense like that. She had guts, I’ll say that much for her, there were a *lot* of people in that queue and quite a lot of them took to shouting back at her, stuff like "god doesn’t exist now f*ck off!" All in all it was a rather amusing episode. No sign of that random beggar that was there last time but there were also the people selling the bootleg tour t-shirts going up and down canvassing people. I guess it was a distraction from how cold we all were XD.
So anyway as I got about halfway to the main door I noticed this bright orange sign with this promotion on it, now I must admit this was genius, it said if you were over 18 you could go into the bar academy, buy a drink, get your ticket stamped and then you could go straight in, bypassing the rest of the queue. Great I thought, bypass all the teenyboppers and get a beer into the bargain, so that’s what I did, its nice to see them thinking about the older fans for once. Some of the younger fans were obviously a little bit jealous as I saw them pull down two of these orange posters and throw them away so nobody else could read them.
So anyway, this saved me quite a bit of time and I wandered into the venue, it took me a while to remember where everything was and then I headed over to the merchandise stall, I was a bit annoyed that it was one of those venues where their staff sell the merchandise not the bands own people. I was hoping to meet Mike Park but no such luck :\ Well anyway, I bought a Mike Park t-shirt, both CD's and some badges, stuffed all this in my pockets and headed over to find a spot.
I had only been standing there for about five minutes when the first support band came on, I’d imagine quite a lot of people were still waiting outside while they were playing. They were a band from the Czech Republic called Sunshine, I thought they were quite good but a lot of people didn't some people were throwing things which I thought was well out of order. They came on at 6:30pm and played for nearly an hour.
Next up was Mike Park, everyone loved that guy, we were all cheering even while he was just setting up his stuff, he was wearing that hat from the For The Love Of Music booklet. He set up his little screen and there was a DVD projected onto it, other than that it was just him and his guitar. For the first couple of songs the DVD played and it was a presentation of sorts about what music he listened to growing up, who his heroes are and then about racism and prejudice, while it was on, he was looking at the screen and not at the crowd in an attempt to direct everyone’s attention to the screen. After that finished he turned around and started talking to the crowd between songs, telling endearing little stories and things, I think he won a lot of people over, he was getting pretty big cheers for everything he did. I was reading on his blog how he has been sick the last few days but it wasn’t evident that night. For some reason his set was even shorter than sunshine's, he was on for about 30-40 minutes.
Finally at 8:15pm Alkaline Trio took to the stage to thunderous chants of Trio, Trio. Matt (Skiba, the singer) was also wearing a hat, I’m noticing a recurring theme here :-o It was obvious this was who people were here to see, by this time the place was totally full. It should be noted that unlike the MCR show, there had been room to breathe and no crushing during the support bands, all that quickly changed however as the trio started playing. I wasn’t too close to the front so the pressure wasn't too bad but I can imagine it must have been hellish up the front. Quite a few people got carried off from exhaustion but I think one must have been more serious than the others as they stopped mid song and Matt asked if she was okay and dedicated the rest of the song to her (This Could Be Love). They played for just over an hour and it was all done by 9:20pm. I got this set list from some forum but it's obviously not complete because it doesn’t have This Could Be Love.
Back to Hell
We've had enough
Maybe I'll catch Fire
Poison
Clavicle
Burn
She Took Him To The Lake
I Was A Prayer
I Lied My face Off
Dethbed
Fatally Yours
Mercy Me
Private Eye
Settle For Satin
Sadie
Warbrain
Time To waste
Radio
I suppose its about what you'd expect, most of Crimson with a few surprises in there, I wish they had played Hell Yes or Goodbye Forever but that’s about my only gripe with it.
With it finishing so early, I was able to catch a train back with plenty of time to spare and despite being even colder than it was earlier it stayed dry for the walk home. I was walking home and the route takes me past this fairly small park, it was almost pitch dark as there are no lights in this park and i distinctly heard a little girls voice, i couldn't make out what she was saying though. Occured to me as kinda odd thing to hear coming from a park in almost total darkness at 11pm at night. Hmmm..
Then I got back to find my computer had run out of HD space totally, fun times.
I arrived in Birmingham about an hour before the doors opened and it was absolutely freezing so I went and bought some coffee to warm me up a little then I made my way to the venue which is just opposite Toys'R'Us. It had been a while since I’ve been there (2003 for Reel Big Fish) and they had changed things a bit, the queue now goes in the other direction, down under the bridge and they opened the bar academy about 100 yards along from the main entrance. So anyway, I thought, especially in weather this bitterly cold the queue won't be *that* long an hour before it opens, right? Wrong, there was a queue going some 2-300 metres down the road, when I joined it it was about halfway under the bridge. But anyway, as we waited to be let in, it became apparent we weren’t the worst off by any means. The queue effectively doubled in length, there were people going right down the street and round the corner. I didn't even realise the venue could hold that many people, then again i guess it was completely sold out.
To keep us entertained while we waited, along came a preacher lady screaming at us to convert to Jesus before it was too late and to save our souls and other nonsense like that. She had guts, I’ll say that much for her, there were a *lot* of people in that queue and quite a lot of them took to shouting back at her, stuff like "god doesn’t exist now f*ck off!" All in all it was a rather amusing episode. No sign of that random beggar that was there last time but there were also the people selling the bootleg tour t-shirts going up and down canvassing people. I guess it was a distraction from how cold we all were XD.
So anyway as I got about halfway to the main door I noticed this bright orange sign with this promotion on it, now I must admit this was genius, it said if you were over 18 you could go into the bar academy, buy a drink, get your ticket stamped and then you could go straight in, bypassing the rest of the queue. Great I thought, bypass all the teenyboppers and get a beer into the bargain, so that’s what I did, its nice to see them thinking about the older fans for once. Some of the younger fans were obviously a little bit jealous as I saw them pull down two of these orange posters and throw them away so nobody else could read them.
So anyway, this saved me quite a bit of time and I wandered into the venue, it took me a while to remember where everything was and then I headed over to the merchandise stall, I was a bit annoyed that it was one of those venues where their staff sell the merchandise not the bands own people. I was hoping to meet Mike Park but no such luck :\ Well anyway, I bought a Mike Park t-shirt, both CD's and some badges, stuffed all this in my pockets and headed over to find a spot.
I had only been standing there for about five minutes when the first support band came on, I’d imagine quite a lot of people were still waiting outside while they were playing. They were a band from the Czech Republic called Sunshine, I thought they were quite good but a lot of people didn't some people were throwing things which I thought was well out of order. They came on at 6:30pm and played for nearly an hour.
Next up was Mike Park, everyone loved that guy, we were all cheering even while he was just setting up his stuff, he was wearing that hat from the For The Love Of Music booklet. He set up his little screen and there was a DVD projected onto it, other than that it was just him and his guitar. For the first couple of songs the DVD played and it was a presentation of sorts about what music he listened to growing up, who his heroes are and then about racism and prejudice, while it was on, he was looking at the screen and not at the crowd in an attempt to direct everyone’s attention to the screen. After that finished he turned around and started talking to the crowd between songs, telling endearing little stories and things, I think he won a lot of people over, he was getting pretty big cheers for everything he did. I was reading on his blog how he has been sick the last few days but it wasn’t evident that night. For some reason his set was even shorter than sunshine's, he was on for about 30-40 minutes.
Finally at 8:15pm Alkaline Trio took to the stage to thunderous chants of Trio, Trio. Matt (Skiba, the singer) was also wearing a hat, I’m noticing a recurring theme here :-o It was obvious this was who people were here to see, by this time the place was totally full. It should be noted that unlike the MCR show, there had been room to breathe and no crushing during the support bands, all that quickly changed however as the trio started playing. I wasn’t too close to the front so the pressure wasn't too bad but I can imagine it must have been hellish up the front. Quite a few people got carried off from exhaustion but I think one must have been more serious than the others as they stopped mid song and Matt asked if she was okay and dedicated the rest of the song to her (This Could Be Love). They played for just over an hour and it was all done by 9:20pm. I got this set list from some forum but it's obviously not complete because it doesn’t have This Could Be Love.
Back to Hell
We've had enough
Maybe I'll catch Fire
Poison
Clavicle
Burn
She Took Him To The Lake
I Was A Prayer
I Lied My face Off
Dethbed
Fatally Yours
Mercy Me
Private Eye
Settle For Satin
Sadie
Warbrain
Time To waste
Radio
I suppose its about what you'd expect, most of Crimson with a few surprises in there, I wish they had played Hell Yes or Goodbye Forever but that’s about my only gripe with it.
With it finishing so early, I was able to catch a train back with plenty of time to spare and despite being even colder than it was earlier it stayed dry for the walk home. I was walking home and the route takes me past this fairly small park, it was almost pitch dark as there are no lights in this park and i distinctly heard a little girls voice, i couldn't make out what she was saying though. Occured to me as kinda odd thing to hear coming from a park in almost total darkness at 11pm at night. Hmmm..
Then I got back to find my computer had run out of HD space totally, fun times.