Friday 31 May, Essex Uni...
I left the house at 6am and after a train ride, 2 coach rides a taxi ride and a lot of walking i eventually arrived at the venue!
I met Sam (BrendansSunshine) at Victoria station and we arrived at the venue after dropping our stuff off at the hotel we got to the venue at 2.30pm-ish and wondered round for ages looking for Jane who we couldnt find so we spoke to Pete for a bit and had a wonder round the venue until eventually we found Jane, bbb and Kathryn
We found out the soundcheck wouldnt be until 5.30pm so we went for a walk around by the lake and round the uni we met Tess and her friends and then spotted Brendan again surrounded by people signing autographs so we went n spoke to him for a bit..
We thought it was about time for soundcheck so we went into soundcheck and waited...and waited..soundcheck eventually started at about 6.30pm and lasted until 7.30pm, the guys played some new stuff like 'Anyway' and 'American in Amsterdam' which i love then we got kicked out to wait for the doors to open, when we went outside the queue was really long so we tried to blend in at the front, me and Sam managed to stay there but the security bloke made tess & her ppl (sorry, i dunno ur names!) go to the back!
we were let into the gig @ 10 past 8 and we didnt think we were going to make it to the front but luckily when we got in everyone had gathered round the bar and there was no-one at all by the barrier so i managed to get my fave spot @ the barrier just to the right of Brendan.
The venue was really small but it seemed quite full and we didnt get too crushed either coz ppl were all kinda spaced out, which was good.
At about 8.30pm Halo started, one of the Halo guys had the same top as Joe Inferno (wOoOhOoOO) but i think that was the best thing about them..i didnt like them at all really so i dont have much to say about them. They finished at 9 and Wheatus came on at just gone 9.30..
They have the old backdrop on this tour (the blue and white checked one) and the stage looked kinda bare in between mike and bbb without phil bouncing round everywhere but it was definatley brightened up by the funky silver material thingy on Shannons keyboards!
The intro started and the guys came onstage, i think the played until about 11pm, they played all the usual stuff, hump'em n dump'em, truffles, a little respect (which has now been renamed 'Fuck Bucket' according to brendan!)after ALR some girls threw some pants on the stage with 'Pants' witten on them and bbb put them on over his trousers , songs like Freak On and Lemonade sound really good with the added keys aswell as the new new stuff Aanyway and American in Aamsterdam they played Whole Amoeba and Fairweather Friend. During some of the non album songs bbb pointed to me and went *u know all the words!!* (again!) and then he said something else that i didnt understand a word of so if anyone can tell me what he said that'd rock!
They didnt do an *encore* Brendan said something like *this is the bit where most bands would go off and then come back, but were not gonna do that coz we havent rehearsed* Shannon had a bit of trouble with his computery thing but eventually Teenage Dirtbag started, they did the usual thing with people getting onstage and i was hoping to get up but then the security people said no more were allowed but then Brendan went *Wait. Theres 1 person i want up here!* and he pointed at me (WoOooHoOoOoOo) Rob pulled me over the barrier and i stayed onstage for TD and The song i wrote.. at the end BBB put his guitar around me and i just stood there like *WOO look at me! im holding brendans guitar!* then a bloke came on took it off me
We posed for the photo at the end and then it was time to go outside and find the bus.
We got to the bus and spoke to Liz who then went to get Kathryn & bbb,we got hugs and Kathryn showed us 'part of phil' which had come on tour with them-a toiletries bag that Vanesa had lent to Kathryn!
This guy came over to bbb and went *i dont actually like you but can u sign this for erm....gabby?* then got all excited and stood talking to bbb for ages..i reckon his name was garry and hes gonna try and turn the 'b' into an 'r'! Brendan and Kathryn went off for a shower so we spoke to mike for a bit, then bbb and kathryn re-appeard coz someone had locked the showers! we spent ages with them and then it was bbb's bed time so we went and spoke to Pete who grabbed me for a photo when i tried to run out of the way of Jane who was armed with her cameras!
Then it was time to look for the car...we walked practically round the whole outside of the uni but eventually we found janes car! Jane told me not to put this bit but im going to anyway:oP jane decided to offer us a lift-i had directions and it seemed easy to get to but how wrong were we? it took us probably about 20 mins to find a hotl that was supposed to be 3 mins drive away from the venue! after asking directions and stopping to look at the map a few times we eventually got there!
Then this morning me & sam got lost again looking for the coach station coz my directions were still in janes car and the taxi man gave us the wrong number for the taxi so i tried another taxi number and that taxi firm had no taxis! eventually we got there tho and its 6pm now and ive just got home so im off to have something to eat now...
Part 3 coming soooon...
