“Close Your Eyes And Clone Yourself, Make Your Heart An Army”

This is a story about a man and a girl, from different sides of the world, a decade separating them in birth, and three and a half thousand miles. Never the twos paths did collide, until her 22^nd birthday, when a friend handed her a carefully wrapped box. When she opened it there were three CDs inside, of a man she had never heard of, and she was assured that if she listened to all three of the CDs in their entirety, something fantastic would happen.

That girl was me, and as you know, I don’t like change. I liked all my old music, so why would I spend a chunk of my night listening to (yet another) guy who thinks he is good at the guitar, and giving it a go? I also am completely stubborn, so the idea of introducing a new CD that I hadn’t chosen myself was an alien one. I’ll have to admit, it was a brave present choice for a girl with a stubborn streak a mile wide.

I lay on my bed, with the light off, and I listened. I followed the album order and playlist, and duly switched CDs when they came to an end. All the while I was sitting patiently, something was happening. My friend had been right.

I fell in love with a sound, a voice and a soul, and now John Mayer would be my desert island disc. I’m pretty sure that if I was stranded on an island, I could get through life if I had his albums stored safely somewhere, ready to call upon when I wanted to feel happy, or sad, or calm, or to relax.

This weekend, our paths finally crossed and I got to see what all the fuss was about for myself, when I went to see him live. I had missed out on the last time he visited London as I had an early flight to catch the next morning, but this time I was lightning quick when it came to booking tickets, and had almost forgotten, until I saw the box in my diary (I’m a pen and paper kinda girl) to warn me of my plans for the following weekend. I have never really appreciated live music, failing to understand why people enjoy it so much, but suddenly I got it. My sister laughed at me as I sat forward, perched on the end of my seat in sheer excitement, and stomped and sang through all my favourites. I was even captivated through the songs I didn’t know, listening to the sound of the guitar and feeling like I finally got it.

You know what? I don’t care if he isn’t your taste. We were all created differently for a reason, but we all share one thing. A passion for something, or someone. Everyone has a song; a band or a classical piece that transports them somewhere, and for me John Mayer ticks that box. I loved every minute of it, and when I got home I was too wired to sleep, singing in the shower and planning my next time to see him. I know people judge him on his lifestyle rather than the music he makes, but I have no interest in that at all. As long as I can sing along, it makes me happy!

What band or song gives you this feeling? Share your passions!

Like Poetry to my Ears

I have blogged before about how often I hear a song and wonder about the point of the lyrics, but I swear to whomever it’s politically correct to swear to these days that the world of music is headed sharply for the bottom of the pond.

At work, we have a carefully selected music system, where we all submit an eight-hour playlist, and these playlists are rotated so that there is harmony on the songs that are played and the regularity in which we hear them. You would think that given this system, there would be relative calm and a happy work environment, but there is not. I’m not sure what possesses some people to select songs that feature on their playlist, but I can assure you this; they never admit to it. I personally love a good selection of Wham!, but I wouldn’t actually go as far as to opt for it as part of my eight hours, for fear of becoming a social pariah in the office. It was bad enough when the Beach Boys came on and when the moaning started I stood up and hotly claimed ownership, arguing that I defied anyone to not feel happy when the Beach Boys were playing. They couldn’t. Win.

So far we have had all sorts. The office is a melting pot of ages, sexes and upbringings, so there is of course a wide variety of songs, from The Eagles to Daft Punk, Rihanna to Bob Marley. What you can guarantee, and is as certain as death is to life, that at least once a week we will get Imogen Heap, and also a song that sounds like a smurf has been carefully fed into the paper shredder, with someone drilling behind it.

And the lyrics! Some rap songs, for example, make it really hard for me to understand what the hell is going on, and the motivation for this particular lyrical avenue. It’s almost like the dictionary had a lobotomy, and I just know Bob Marley is turning in his grave, alarmed at the amount of overshare that we get as an insight into these people’s lives.

Historically, rap (I use this in the loosest terms so I don’t get abuse) hasn’t had much to look up to. Lets take the unique Vanilla Ice

“cooking MC’s like a pound of bacon / Take heed cos I’m a lyrical poet (that’s opinion) / if there was a problem, yo ill solve it / check out the hook while my DJ revolves it”

And then, years later, graduates from the Vanilla Ice school of lyric writing, LFO:

New kids on the block had a bunch of hits / Chinese food makes me sick… when you take a sip you buzz like a hornet / Billy Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets

Apparently, if it rhymes, you’re good to go. I hear these boys also wear a badge stating they are poets but they just don’t know it.

And even today, they are still at it, with Kanye West leading the pack

You should make your own toilet roll, cos you the s**t”

Compliments a plenty with that one, hey? Obviously, this is a cultural pandemic and not just specific to rappers. The worst ones have quite a catchy tune so you find yourself humming along, but then you clock the words and have to head off to the loo to apply some brain bleach to the affected areas.

And here are my top 5 terrible song lyrics, as chosen by me:

5) Hanson – Mmbop

Plant a seed, plant a flower, plant a rose/ You can plant any one of those / Keep planting to find out which one grows / It’s a secret no one knows.

Lets be sure of this people, it is a secret we know. You plant a seed, and the majority of the time, it will grow. Sure, if you find the seed on the street it will be a surprise as to what actually grows out of it, but chances are, the majority of seeds will grow.

4) Black Eyed Peas – My Humps

So don’t pull on my hand boy / You ain’t my man, boy / I’m just tryn’a dance boy / And move my hump.

This upsets me as Will.I.Am wrote the lyrics to Ordinary People, a song that I absolutely adore. And then this. How. HOW?!

3) Vanilla – No Way No Way

Ah, if you got the genes and think / Ah, you can buy me with one drink / Ah, come we’re livin’ in a dreamworld, boy / Ah, no no no no no way, no way, man-ah man-ah man-ah

Is a highlight. Lyrical genius.

2) Vengaboys – Boom Boom

Boom, boom, boom, boom / I want you in my room / Let’s spend the night together / from now until forever / Boom, boom, boom, boom / I wanna double boom / Let’s spend the night together / together in my room

What a double boom is ‘bear thinking about.

1) Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney

Because she’s mine  /The doggone girl is mine / Don’t waste your time / Because the doggone girl is mine

I can’t help but think that this trend for terrible lyrics comes from looking up to Michael Jackson and Sir Paul McCartney. I just cant fathom how two of the greatest songwriters ever were put in a room together and the only word they could think of to describe the girl they were fighting over was doggone.

I rest my case.

Know any ridiculous ones?

Backstreet’s Back, Alright?

There are some times in a girl’s life when she regresses back to her pre teen days, and she frickin loves it. And this weekend was one of those times for me (plus two friends and my sister) when we got the chance to go to see the New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys hybrid tour.

It. Was. Awesome.

I’m a little young (it’s rare I get to say that!) to really remember New Kids on the Block, but I could hum along to enough of their tunes to be OK with going to see them, but the Backstreet Boys are a band I knew as a child, mainly because my sister had a massive obsession. She loved them and listened to their music all the time, and by osmosis the songs perforated my hearing and nestled in my head.

So I was surprised when I emailed her to say I had tickets, and she seemed quite disinterested. Fine! I thought. Plenty more people who will come with me!

But she came, and it made me laugh when, about half way through, she looked across at me and mouthed “I LOVE Brian!” gone was the emo kid with a cool taste in music, replaced by a ten-year old who wanted nothing more to grow up and marry a Backstreet Boy.

It was so cool. Have I mentioned that? It did get a little inappropriate when New Kids on the Block, who don’t fall into the ‘kids’ category any more, were thrusting in their PVC pants. We all looked away, a little embarrassed that they were pulling out all their best Chippendales moves and we were ever so slightly repelled, and half of the party decided it was a good time to take a trip to the bar and/or the bathroom. After all, they are older than they used to be. There was also a chant that they were all trying to start, which went N-K-O-T-B-S-B, which was all too much for us (in fact, the whole crowd) and we got lost at the K and mumbled the rest. Plus, I was perturbed by the fact that they had missed a ‘b’ out in the middle.

But the Backstreet Boys were nothing short of legendary. Well, except the weird faces that Nick Carter was pulling. I try to keep my thoughts about his quiet as my friend Charlotte loves him, but when he pulls the face, it makes me feel like a teenager that just got inappropriately groped by a youth in a nightclub. Sort of dirty and like you want to curl up in the foetal position and rock. I think it’s the sweaty curtains that were only borderline fashionable in his heyday, let alone fifteen years later.

I recorded a lot of it on my camera, but unfortunately the over excitement got to much for me, resulting in some real Blair Witch Project style filming, not to mention the drowning out of the actual singing by the four of us screaming out lyrics and whooping at regular intervals. Embarrassingly, at one point you actually hear me say “Im so excited!” and my friend replies “i think I might cry!” hahahaha.

So my two close friends, my sister and I had the best night we have had since the days when we used to make up dance routines and sing into our hairbrushes, swooning over the appeal of those hot American boys. And I have had The Right Stuff stuck in my head for the past 48 hours.

Some things never change.

Thanks to the people at Superbreaks who provided us with the tickets. They offer hotels in London, and sponsored this post. But all opinions are, as always, my own!

Electric Shocks on Aching Bones

At the start of the Weekend of Sister, I finished work and met her outside Covent Garden tube station. Well, eventually, after a conversation of “I went past the Apple store? I went past David and Goliath?” “Do you see Whitt…. I SEE YOU! STOP WALKING!”

We went for a steak (I love a steak) and then went to take our seats ready for the Snow Patrol gig at the 02. Having been given tickets, I was fearing that they were standing. I like going to see live music, but I am only content with standing if I love the band and can dance along singing to the tracks with merry abandon. Seeing as I could only think of one song that they had done (If I lay hyyyyyyere, if I just lay hyyyyyyere), I was a bit worried that I might suffer from a case of boredom and want to go home, but have to stay as my sister loves them.

That wasn’t the case.

And I can barely look at you/But every single time I do/I know we’ll make it anywhere/Away from here

When we got there, we were ushered to a suite. A suite? Right. Fanceh. We grabbed a drink and took our seats, ready for the show. The warm up act were called Everything Everything; the sort of band that apparently people had heard of, but seeing as I listen to Magic, I hadn’t. Little sister and I concluded that they were the sort of band that you could listen along to while chatting, but not the sort whose CD we would buy.

When Snow Patrol came on, I was pleasantly surprised. The lead singer has a fantastically haunting voice, and as they started their set I suddenly remembered. Snow Patrol were the soundtrack to my summer the year I left school.  Every song that I recognised took me back to a place; a garden in the sun or a room in the house that I used to live in, and I smiled. Every memory was something that shaped the person I am today, and I loved it.

Strain this chaos turn it into light /I’ve got to see you one last night /Before the lions take their share /Leave us in pieces, scattered everywhere

Little Sister was in her element too. She looked at me when I didn’t recognise the songs, incredulous that I had never heard the melodies before. It turns out her friend supported them a few years back, and I think she has been in love ever since, something that I was totally unaware of.

So my verdict? They aren’t a band that I would have chosen to go and see, but once I was there I realised how many songs of theirs I had on my iPod, and how many songs I knew the words to. The lead singer has a haunting voice that leaves you mesmerised, and when he dedicated a song to his four-year old niece who was in the crowd, I welled up. It was a fantastic night, and I would definitely go again.

Thanks to the people at Superbreaks who provided us with the tickets. They offer London guides and hotels in London, and sponsored this post. But all opinions are, as always, my own!

Its Understood That Hollywood Sells Californication….

Thursday night was, in summary, the best night ever.

As you all know (because I have been talking about it A LOT) I went to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers on Thursday night at the 02 arena.

02 are a phone provider here in the UK, and when they were thinking of things to do with the failure that was the Millennium Dome, it was purchased as a music venue. Not sure I totally understand the point of the dome, but propaganda in the UK states that it was built to house the millennium exhibition for the turn of the century. This is clearly a reason I should run the country, whoever thought it was a good idea to spend such a lot of money on something that essentially just was one night, was a bit of a wally. I know the exhibition went on for ages, and maybe I should have made the effort to go, but in my opinion what they have done with it now is fantastic. It still looks a little bit like a toy story alien from afar though.

So we booked tickets to see RHCP ages ago, and although the date was looming I had forgotten it. Little sister and I share a mutual love for them, although in true sisterly fashion my favourites aren’t hers, and her all-time favourites are my ‘ah, there alright’ tracks. But this April we drove to LA and back to San Diego listening to mostly all RHCP music, as the rest of our tastes are so diverse they are the only ones we can settle on, and there is something in their music that makes you feel like you are really cool and totally content when you are driving through the Orange County in the sun with the roof down and Californication playing loud. The reality of it was that we were almost always behind a lorry and being smoked out with fumes, and I got some really dodgy burn marks from where the seatbelt was covering my skin, making me look like a demonic zebra. But the cool idea was there, no?

So yesterday I got a half day and we drove up to London. It made me laugh that the sat nav took us through all of the south London boroughs and not on the motorway, and at one point my ever so helpful sat nav asked my sister if she wanted to switch to pedestrian mode as we were going so slowly. No thank you!

When we took our seats, I have to say, I freaked out. I have two fears, heights and stairs. I know the latter is a bit strange, but as a child my dad used to have to carry me down stair cases in castles as I was so terrified of falling to my death. Spiral staircases are the worst. I think the stairs thing deserves a separate post though, it’s a bit mental. More on that later.

Anyway, so our seats were the last row from the back. This doesn’t matter because you have such an awesome view, but the stairs are quite steep and the seat rest of the row in front of you only comes up to your knee. I get this fizzy feeling in my spine when I am high up, and spent the whole support act thinking about how I was going to get back down, if I would cause a scene and that if I needed a wee there was no way I was going.

But then they came on. And I lost all fear, jumped up and boogied till I could boogie no more. I screamed along to Can’t Stop, Californication and Scar Tissue, and bopped to Dani California and all my other favourites. I couldn’t wipe the massive grin off my face as they jumped around the stage and put on, honestly, the best show I have ever seen. You think I was excited for Bruno Mars? That was just a warm up. They even blew Bon Jovi out of the water, and as the world’s biggest Bon Jovi fan ( I can’t back this up, I don’t have any tattoos or anything) I was surprised about this.

Nothing I can say will make you understand how fantastic this band are live, so just take me word for it and go see them. You won’t be disappointed.

“She Was Covered In Leather and Gold…”

It’s really late and I should be sleeping but I’m wired from the night I have had. The day finally came when I went to see Bruno Mars, and I absolutely loved it.

For everyone who is looking for a post today where I don’t gush for a time on how amazing the man is, I would recommend heading to the BBC site for a while and checking back tomorrow, because this is not something that I can promise.

If you don’t know me, you might not know about my major obsession with Bruno Mars, or as I like to affectionately refer to him, Future Husband. I love him. So when my friend suggested we see him, and we realised he was playing at Brixton, we immediately jumped at the chance.

And tonight was the night. I spent the day mooching round central London waiting for my friend to finish work, and then we met and headed straight there, thinking we would have food, catch up as we haven’t seen each other in months, and then go to the gig.

There are three options for food in Brixton. Nandos, Burger King and Cottage Chicken (actually, when rereading this I think it’s called Chicken Cottage, but my version makes it sound more grim!).

Nandos has a queue outside right up the street. Damn! Everyone else had the same idea. And Cottage Chicken is like budget KFC, not the sort of thing I could even consider eating even if I was faced with possible death. It looks like you might catch bubonic plague off the tables, and I’m sure it’s not actual chicken they are serving. Maybe a chicken cottage is a strange cross breeding plant. So we roughed it and went to Burger King.

But Bruno. The warm up act was a girl called Skylar Grey who actually wrote ‘Love The Way You Lie’ (made popular by Eminem and Rihanna) and her vocals have also been sampled on a couple of other rap songs. It was a weird choice, and three songs in the crowd were either sitting down or looking like they were going to kill themselves, me included. My whinging started, not helped by four middle aged ladies who were clearly pissed up and determined to ‘HAAVE FUUUUN!’ regardless of the condition of the toes of the people around them. They were rude and obnoxious and so drunk that they were fall dancing into people, but amusing to watch all the same, especially when they played Rockin Robin in the gap between one act and Le Mars, and they jived for a full three minutes, much to the disgust of a girl who kept getting jived on.

And then the lights went off and the music started, and I was transformed from an unimpressed twenty something to a gushing fifteen year old who was at her first boyband concert. I was actually convinced that if I had a heart attack, I would die happy.

Seriously though, the guy puts on a good show. Well known for doing a load of slow songs that are a bit vomit inducing if played in the wrong circles, he managed to keep the crowd happy for the full set by mixing it up with trumpets, jive dancing and jokes throughout. As you all know, I like funny, so this has cemented his place in my heart. It felt like it was over before it started, and even the torrential rain couldn’t dampen our mood. Nor the fact that Stockwell tube was closed and I had to visit pretty much the whole of London to get to Waterloo, or that a taxi back to my house from the station cost me nearly a tenner.

Please can I go again tomorrow?

“Seasons Change But People Don’t….”

Music makes memories. It cannot be denied. You can hear a song and be catapulted back to a time or a place, or a feeling that you had decades ago, just by the strum of a chord and a tone of voice. I’m really into my music, and being a bad sleeper, a night rarely goes by where I don’t plug my head phones in and listen to John Mayer or Norah Jones to get me off to sleep. Some people like to watch TV before they go to bed; I use music to take me to places I had forgotten. I guess that’s why I’m so into books, it’s the same feeling. In the next two months I am all booked to see Bruno Mars (voice like silk, would like to marry him) and Red Hot Chili Peppers and I’m pretty excited.

So I thought I would share some of my favourites and why they make me think.

This takes me back to my favourite memory of the summer. Sitting in a café in Spitalfields with Shane, with one earphone, shuffling through his eclectic choice of music. He was new to me, serious and clever, funny and really interesting, and I had already formed an opinion. It was all generic black music, Usher, BoyzIIMen, Aretha… the stereotypical stuff that I thought he would listen to. Until I got to this one, and I burst out laughing so violently, making him die laughing and the other people in the café look at me like I was a mental patient and he was my carer. They couldn’t see the earphone and I will never forget the look on his face, total triumph that he had proved me wrong. Hilarious.

This one reminds me of being fifteen. I bought the CD single and listened to it so much that my friends would only hang out if I promised not to play it. My family hated it, and my friend went to a Justin Timberlake concert and called me when it came on a few years later, remembering the song she was forced to listen to for an entire summer. I still love it to this day, and my fifteen year old self pops out of nowhere and recites the whole Nelly rap bit. As I can’t even remember what I’m supposed to be doing from day to day without a diary, I find this fairly impressive.

This reminds me of my dad. He loves Dire Straits, and I never thought I did until a few years ago where music became about what you like whereas what you think you should like. I love Sultans of Swing, it makes me feel happy and puts the biggest grin on my face.

This is a new one to my repertoire. It’s thanks to someone who is growing on me like mould. Never fails to pull it out of the bag, and this is one such surprise.

I love Maroon Five. Songs About Jane takes me back to the year that I took my GCSE’s. My dad had just met his wife and was never in that summer, so our house became the stomping ground for me and first boyfriend, and my sister and all her friends. I remember sitting on the kitchen counter in my pyjamas waiting for pancakes to cook and singing my heart out. I knew every word to every song, and we all used to dance around with the windows open and the summer air flooding in. I thought that summer would last forever. It didn’t. These things never do.

“She’s reinventing loving me when we’re resembling cutlery on the sofa”.  So simple. So good. So true. I love those Sundays when all you can do is take the pillows from the bed to the sofa and watch TV for the entire day. That’s my favourite sort of day.

This is my favourite song of all time. I put it on in the car when ive had a particularly bad outcome or a rubbish day and I belt it out like you have never seen. People in other cars look at me weirdly. I just put my sunglasses on and pretend they can’t see me.

There had to be a John Mayer one, right? It’s a tossup for me as to which is my all-time favourite. I love In Your Atmosphere, I love Slow Dancing in a Burning Room, but if I had to only listen to one John song for the rest of my life it would by Why Georgia. It’s stunning.  I can’t get bored of listening to it on repeat, and his voice melts any stress that you might be feeling. Plus he’s a bad boy, and I can’t help but think that’s good. As Professor Green would say (the all time Buddha of music, lol) “the good attracts me, the crook attracts you”.

What songs take you away?

Spice Up Your Life?

I have a great memory for song lyrics. It’s a talent I wish I could use elsewhere, like for facts or for work or to be a genius, but no, my burden is my amazing talent is only reserved for songs. I’m also a pro at guess the intro, people would kill to have me on their pub quiz team!

I’ve had this talent since I was a child. One day my parents told me that I had to go with my dad to take his friend Nick to work. In London. On a Sunday. I couldn’t think of anything I would rather do less. I didn’t spot that a) no one works on Sunday and b) he probably would have got the train as he was a grown up and didn’t need his best mate and his two kids taking him to the office.

Danielle and I sat in the car for the whole journey merrily singing along to the Sunday top forty. Nick commented on my propensity to learn a song and then Spice Up Your Life came on. “Shimmy to the left…. if your having a good time, shake it to the right.. .If you know that you feel fine” me and my sister sang, and then were asked “do you like the spice girls?”

“God no!!” we commented. “They are, like, soooooooooo uncool!” of course we did, but we didn’t want to say it out loud in case it was being taped and would be played back at school. “They’re RUBBISH!” ultimate insult.

We got to Wembley Arena, and were offloaded. Turns out Nick was the bank manager for the Spice Girls, and he had managed to get tickets for the two ungrateful cherubs that he doted on. Awkward.

We LOVED IT. We zig ah zig aaaahed and spiced up our lives all over the place, until the end of the show, when we were asked if we would like to go backstage. By this time we had shrugged off any idea of being cool, and I was proudly wearing my animal print top like I was related to Mel B. (to give you a mental image, it was sort of like a female Harry Potter child dressed as a leopard).

My sister was so excited she threw up.

Have you ever met anyone famous?

Soundtrack Of Your Life

A friend of mine is the youngest of two children and her parents started a tradition when she her sister was born, to buy the single that was number one on the day of their birthday every year till they were eighteen. I thought this was really sweet; a yearbook of the soundtrack of happy snippets of their lives, and so I have created my own. Sit back for the good, the bad and the downright ugly!!

On the day I was born (16^th May, 1986), Falco were number one with ‘Rock Me Amadeus’. I actually have this on my iPod, but in my defence it’s because I downloaded it thinking it was the nineties dance version. It’s not; it’s basically an Austrians homage to Mozart. But it’s quite catchy, despite me not speaking German and therefore not having a clue what he is saying.

Skip to 1989, when I turned three, and Ferry Cross The Mersey was at the top of the charts. Maybe this explains why when delirious on the Isle Of Wight Ferry, the only ferry related song I could think of was this, and impressed (annoyed?!) my friends by singing it in my best Liverpudlian accent, causing us all to fall about laughing and determine we needed some sleep and less sugar. I don’t remember much about being three, other than what photos tell me. I was podgy and had fat little knees and elbows, and chattered endlessly. I also had a clown fancy dress outfit that I pretty much refused to take off, and only wanted flamingo pink tights for my ballet outfit as a present that year.

Two years later and I turned five. Cher and The Shoop Shoop Song was number one for months, and I remember dancing to this. It’s the song from one of my favourite films, Mermaids, and I was getting ready to go to first school and start proper ballet. Life was so exciting! This is still one of my favourite songs, incidentally.

By 1998 I was twelve, and from what I understand, a right little madam. Still dancing, and getting ready to go to secondary school, I remember Aqua, Turn Back Time being number one. I also remember constantly being at loggerheads with my mum and feeling really nervous to start a new school.

In 2003 I was turning 17, and R Kelly ignition was number one. These were the times of our lives! Borrowing older sister and cousins ID and going clubbing, having to get up and go to college the next morning feeling like death, but having A levels to study for. I don’t know how I used to survive in psychology on two hours sleep and a killer hangover, but I did.

So that’s the soundtrack to my life! What’s yours?

When Dreams Are Shattered…. Haha

So I went to the festival, I saw, I drank and I danced. I got wet, I slept on the floor, I used a portaloo. You all know this to be true.

But I didn’t really talk about the music. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be some silly post about how musically intelligent I am or how I think that my taste in music is superior (we all know it isn’t, I like Duran Duran) but I did thoroughly enjoy the shows that some of the bands put on, and was seriously disappointed by some others.

Firstly, I booked my ticket to see Kings of Leon, and Tinee Tempah (musically schizophrenic). Tinee decided that he was far too busy, and cancelled. A curse on you and yours, Tinee Tempah!

Friday came and we went to see Kaiser Chiefs and Kings of Leon. And Kaiser Chiefs were AWWWWEEESOME! I didn’t think I knew that many songs by them, but I loved it. Being two or three inches taller than an actual midget, I did have to do some heavy duty bouncing around to be able to see anything, and I liked it, although at one point I lost a welly and had to scrabble around in a sea of legs to find it.

And thus it was time for Kings of Leon. A little bit of background here, I love them. I love the lead singer, I love the drummer, I love the music, I could even cope with the showering of wee I got when waiting for them to come on. But I was disappointed. This is an understatement. It was a bit like being a child with a new packet of crayons, and someone coming along, stealing them off of me and breaking them IN MY FACE. When I spoke to my more musically knowledgeable sister afterwards she said “ah right, no, they’re shit live.”

At one point I was so bored that all I could think of was “if you are that rich and successful, Caleb, then why don’t you get your teeth whitened or even invest in an electric toothbrush? You are looking dead ropey.” Which isn’t the thought you should be having when in the presence of gods. How the mighty have fallen! We left before the end, with cider and pizza calling us louder than the sound of Kings of Leon spectacularly forgetting the words. Fail.

On Saturday we saw Chase and Status (amaze) and that was about it. It was warm, we were all drunk and for some reason dubstep in the Strongbow tent made us forget the Foo Fighters. Who apparently were amazing and this will haunt me till the day I die.

Sunday came, and so did the rain. We braved it and poodled off to see Plan B, who was the highlight of my weekend! He did some odd mixes, some interesting songs and made the rainy day that little bit more fun. Me and the girls rocked out the robot and did the dad dance before going home defeated by all the water.

Next year…. glamping. And maybe Duran Duran might headline…..