Welcome back, Neurosis
So this weekend I went down to London with CT and sticky_picky to see Neurosis, who were badass as usual. I also had a very enjoyable night out with a few people: CT's sister, Shaun, Marie, and James.
Because of the little-to-no organisation that went into the weekend, we got a ride with MegaBus, which made traveling there and back a ball-aching 5 hours each way. On the way down a young lady sat next to me who seemed pretty cool and turned out to be going to the very same gig as we were, but I only realised this when I saw her and her friend in the venue that night. I'd managed to utter approximately 3 words the entire journey, and was beginning to develop a complex about my inability to start a conversation. However, the coach driver had turned the heat up to full blast whilst defiantly leaving the air-con switched off, which was fine at 9 o clock in the morning, but horrible by mid-day, and I'd thoroughly lost the will to live by the time we reached Victoria Station.
After CT had used an Internet terminal in the station to find out exactly which hotel he'd booked us into for the night (organised as ever!), we went to it and checked in. Then we spent at least an hour faffing around on the tube trying to catch up with CT's mates, which would have been funny had it not involved being crammed into trains like sardines, or hadn't severely delayed our consumption of beer, which we eventually got to in Camden when we met up with Caroline, Shaun, and Marie.
To someone who is from an industrial northern town, Camden is pretty whacky to me. Lots of stalls and markets cluttering up the streets, people wandering around blatantly peddling hash to anyone, and some crazy dudes by the station who wear signs saying "Jesus Lives" and spend all day shouting through megaphones at passers by. That, and of course the copycat sign-holders who march up and down brandishing "Hot Dogs, Fish & Chips this way -->" or "<-- Bureau de Change", not realising that turning around causes the arrow to point down a different street. Saying that, such a place is definitely very cool. One thing that I really enjoyed was the crazy Istanbul-style food market there. Stalls upon stalls of cuisine from every corner of the globe you can think of - Thai food, Chinese food, Indian food, Turkish food (featuring the mad speaker-of-tongues Turkish owner who was scaring all his customers away). We all fed ourselves there. I got a big steaming plate of Tandoori Chicken Curry, which was ace and had enormous pieces of tender chicken piled up high. Shaun, on the other hand, got Thai Green Curry that turned out to be made with Tofu instead of chicken, causing in him to feel understandably duped.
So then we pressed on to the pub and finally enjoyed a few pints of Bomber County Ale from glass tankards, which I haven't seen in years. We also made a joke or two about being in the right city to be drinking "Bomber County", which proves just how juvenile we are. Then after a few more beers in a few more pubs, we got to the venue decidedly merry and offended the emo kid staff member there when Shaun asked if the one of the bins he was putting out for the queue to place rubbish into was for him. Wit obviously not being something these Landaners like.
After scoffing at the outrageous £3.20 per pint beer prices inside the Forum, we bought more beer anyway and settled in to watch the mighty Neurosis play. And play they did, although they weren't on stage long enough, which was a shame. A few more classics from Through Silver in Blood or A Sun That Never Sets wouldn't have gone amiss. So then we caught another tube to a different part of London and ended up in some obscure nightclub with some of Caroline's friends, listening to acid house or something. Then after we escaped we wandered through some of the rougher parts of London and caught a couple of night buses until we were within walking distance of the hotel.
Everyone on London buses seems to just sit and stare forwards with an eerie zombie-like blank expression on their faces, which we found hilarious in our drunken stupor. At this point we'd already resorted to imposing our values of politeness and consideration for others onto the London populace, and were stepping up to do daring things like thanking the bus driver as we alighted at our destination, which I'm sure confused the hell out of him. We walked the last mile or so back to the hotel and people were sleeping rough all over the place, which was sad. This was at about 3am, and we were awake again at 9am.
Then coming back, the train from Leeds overshot Huddersfield and went straight on to Manchester Victoria, extending our journey time by about an hour and a half, but at least the conductor let us off paying the excess fare getting back.
So all in all, a great weekend. Great company, great music, great beer. And London is really beginning to fascinate me now. I think I should plan another visit sometime so I can actually hang out with some my friends who live there. Or maybe just live there myself and become a real rat-racer (not very likely then!).
Because of the little-to-no organisation that went into the weekend, we got a ride with MegaBus, which made traveling there and back a ball-aching 5 hours each way. On the way down a young lady sat next to me who seemed pretty cool and turned out to be going to the very same gig as we were, but I only realised this when I saw her and her friend in the venue that night. I'd managed to utter approximately 3 words the entire journey, and was beginning to develop a complex about my inability to start a conversation. However, the coach driver had turned the heat up to full blast whilst defiantly leaving the air-con switched off, which was fine at 9 o clock in the morning, but horrible by mid-day, and I'd thoroughly lost the will to live by the time we reached Victoria Station.
After CT had used an Internet terminal in the station to find out exactly which hotel he'd booked us into for the night (organised as ever!), we went to it and checked in. Then we spent at least an hour faffing around on the tube trying to catch up with CT's mates, which would have been funny had it not involved being crammed into trains like sardines, or hadn't severely delayed our consumption of beer, which we eventually got to in Camden when we met up with Caroline, Shaun, and Marie.
To someone who is from an industrial northern town, Camden is pretty whacky to me. Lots of stalls and markets cluttering up the streets, people wandering around blatantly peddling hash to anyone, and some crazy dudes by the station who wear signs saying "Jesus Lives" and spend all day shouting through megaphones at passers by. That, and of course the copycat sign-holders who march up and down brandishing "Hot Dogs, Fish & Chips this way -->" or "<-- Bureau de Change", not realising that turning around causes the arrow to point down a different street. Saying that, such a place is definitely very cool. One thing that I really enjoyed was the crazy Istanbul-style food market there. Stalls upon stalls of cuisine from every corner of the globe you can think of - Thai food, Chinese food, Indian food, Turkish food (featuring the mad speaker-of-tongues Turkish owner who was scaring all his customers away). We all fed ourselves there. I got a big steaming plate of Tandoori Chicken Curry, which was ace and had enormous pieces of tender chicken piled up high. Shaun, on the other hand, got Thai Green Curry that turned out to be made with Tofu instead of chicken, causing in him to feel understandably duped.
So then we pressed on to the pub and finally enjoyed a few pints of Bomber County Ale from glass tankards, which I haven't seen in years. We also made a joke or two about being in the right city to be drinking "Bomber County", which proves just how juvenile we are. Then after a few more beers in a few more pubs, we got to the venue decidedly merry and offended the emo kid staff member there when Shaun asked if the one of the bins he was putting out for the queue to place rubbish into was for him. Wit obviously not being something these Landaners like.
After scoffing at the outrageous £3.20 per pint beer prices inside the Forum, we bought more beer anyway and settled in to watch the mighty Neurosis play. And play they did, although they weren't on stage long enough, which was a shame. A few more classics from Through Silver in Blood or A Sun That Never Sets wouldn't have gone amiss. So then we caught another tube to a different part of London and ended up in some obscure nightclub with some of Caroline's friends, listening to acid house or something. Then after we escaped we wandered through some of the rougher parts of London and caught a couple of night buses until we were within walking distance of the hotel.
Everyone on London buses seems to just sit and stare forwards with an eerie zombie-like blank expression on their faces, which we found hilarious in our drunken stupor. At this point we'd already resorted to imposing our values of politeness and consideration for others onto the London populace, and were stepping up to do daring things like thanking the bus driver as we alighted at our destination, which I'm sure confused the hell out of him. We walked the last mile or so back to the hotel and people were sleeping rough all over the place, which was sad. This was at about 3am, and we were awake again at 9am.
Then coming back, the train from Leeds overshot Huddersfield and went straight on to Manchester Victoria, extending our journey time by about an hour and a half, but at least the conductor let us off paying the excess fare getting back.
So all in all, a great weekend. Great company, great music, great beer. And London is really beginning to fascinate me now. I think I should plan another visit sometime so I can actually hang out with some my friends who live there. Or maybe just live there myself and become a real rat-racer (not very likely then!).