The Mindsweep Tour

Another somewhat belated post...and I have been neglecting my blog again. Oops! In my defence, I do actually have a reason this time - still recovering from last week!

The end of February saw Enter Shikari return to touring the UK for their album The Mindsweep that was released just over a year ago. The Bournemouth date was the day after my birthday, and the start of my awesome birthday week of awesomeness.


Rory shirt is a wardrobe staple haha. I stayed in a nice little hotel right near the BIC, and watched Rick & Morty whilst pre-drinking there haha.


Somehow managed to walk straight in and to the barrier in a great position! The first band were The King Blues, a mix of ska punk and folk punk. I liked them a lot!


The more generic The Wonder Years were up next, and while they were also good I wasn't really feeling it so much. Aside from the obvious Shikari hype I was feeling!


And then the Enter Shikari boys!


I was about as close to Rory C's mic stand as I could have hoped to be considering I didn't turn up early to queue. The happiest me! I love this photo so much ♥


I was up bright and early in order to fit in a walk along the seafront, since I haven't been to Bournemouth before. Decided to match Rory's guitar for this day, although it turned out I got brutally rejected in the evening when he started high-fiving people and stopped before me (not bitter AT ALL =P)


Somehow the sun was so strong that it was warm enough to take my coat AND hoodie off!


I half-wished I could have stayed there all day, but I had a Cardiff to get to and a Sophie to meet.


We lazed around at the hostel for a bit before getting some disappointing munch at Wagamamas.


Shikari things happened.


We were on the barrier but kind of on the corner, but that means behind-the-scenes goodness!


We did a spot of shopping the next day and got sushi before heading home. We were both too tired out to do much more.

Pretty much as soon as I got home, I started trying to resist buying a ticket for the London show. But, naturally (as I always knew I would, even back when buying the Bournemouth and Cardiff tickets), I caved.


There was a Tea Party Club meet near Hyde Park in the afternoon, with a raffle, tea, and cakes. I turned up a bit late due to my check-in time over in Hammersmith, but was still a nice afternoon!


A quick outfit shot before getting changed in the toilets...


I ended up a bit late to the Ally Pally due to the tea party and it being a long way out, but I think I only missed part of the first Arcane Roots song. The rest of the running order was the same as before, only this time I sat out The Wonder Years near the bar with a pint in each hand. Which, as it turns out, was a terrible idea.


I was so drunk for the rest of the evening that I don't remember much at all other than being escorted to the bus by a concerned member of staff and being judged on the tube for getting grated cheese and crumbs everywhere other than my mouth. And the crowd was INTENSE.


But the stuff on my camera made me laugh so much when I looked through it, and after a shower the next morning I just couldn't stop smiling. The happiness lasted for a couple of days. And I'm NEVER happy. So it was still worth it (although I'm super annoyed at myself for not staying sober enough to remember more of it!).


Obviously after 3 intense gigs in stupid platform boots, you get achy. So I decided to just chill in my favourite part of London for a little while (the grass out front of the London Eye). I had a good raid of the local Boots as well, so my tum was happy!

I headed home early again as I just had no energy to do anything else. I don't really mind too much as I'm back in London again soon anyway and I'd had far too much excitement and exertion for one week. I still wish I could do the whole thing again though! Best week ever!

London Adventures, Part 2 - WARPED TOUR

VERY VERY VERY IMAGE HEAVY!

Got up pretty early in the hopes of going to the British Library since we got there as it closed the day before, completely forgetting that it was Sunday and wouldn't be open early. Noooo! But meant we could take our time getting to Wood Green, and we stopped in a nice little café on the way to Ally Pally. And when we got there we had time to have our leftover pizza before joining a relatively short queue!


Here's what I wore. I love my Rory C shirt, even though I have to tie it up because it's so huge. Also 10 year-old glasses just in case of incident!


I also got a better photo of St Pancras on the way to the tube station.


The area around Ally Pally was lovely, lots of trees and paths! Wish we'd have had time to go explore and look at the deer and stuff. But instead we saw this seagull.


The venue itself.


Eerie buildings hiding in the fog in the distance.

We ended up in the venue quite a while before the music started. Kicking myself now as it turns out the small queue that was forming when we entered was the queue for the Enter Shikari signing...could have bloody met them but we didn't know! And I had a panic too coz I thought I'd lost Rob!


Decade were the first band of the day. Their sound reminded me of From First To Last, and turns out they're local lads too (from Bath). Also good to see a singer almost get stuck on the floor after climbing back onto the stage so early in the day!


Pints were sunk while we waited at the barrier during Jim Lockey & the Solemn Sun's sound check.




And as always, they were bloody brilliant. We went to their signing on the Teenage Cancer Trust stall afterwards, and it was great to have a little chat. Plus we now know we a show in Thekla to go to in future!


Got a blurry drive-by of Watsky and Wax as we got more booze and started queueing for the basement. They sounded good to me (sorta ska-y punk vibe), but I heard that Watsky is a douche who jumped 40ft into the crowd and broke some poor girl's arm. No bueno.



More JL&tSS! Somehow most of our day was spent following them around. The Punktastic acoustic basement was super nice for a chill out as we could sit right at the front and rest our legs whilst filling our ears with goodness.


Bit of We Are The Ocean. They also sounded pretty good.


Selfiessssss!


A bit of Hacktivist while we were contemplating food. Rob wasn't impressed.


We decided to go downstairs to check out Max Raptor, which was a really good move as they were awesome. Nice to get a bit of good quality punk rock in and have a good jump about.


Caught a teeny bit of Coheed & Cambria while having a little panic. They sounded good as usual, but only caught one song I knew well though as we missed most of it.


Turns out I knew more Billy Talent songs than I thought. We stood pretty far back but we could still see and they sounded superb. I'd definitely go see them again.


More selfiessss!!


More booooooze!!


Rise Against sounded amazing, but we couldn't really see as we took the chance to inch toward the other stage! For...


ENTER FUCKING SHIKARI!!


We started off nearer the centre, but I somehow snapped this photo as System... turned to ...Meltdown when I got flattened. Had to be dragged backwards and go back in more to the side where it wasn't so rough, and managed to lose Rob Dx my batteries also fell out of my camera when I got it back out, but I somehow managed to pick them up and put them back in and take about 150 blurry-ass photos!


Rou's demon eyes!




The lights were awesome, the band were awesome, fgjfdklajhjgkflsjh.


Rory ended up on drums? Also Rou played a bit of trumpet during Rat Race which was a nice surprise.


ily Rory C haha. I picked the left side of the room as I knew it'd be where he was!




Glorious Rou beard.


AlphaSphere!


Zzzonked!


The setlist was a blinder, including the new EP singles and a mixed bunch of other stuff (mostly off the last album). My only regret is not getting a stranger to launch me as I'd wanted to crowdsurf out for Zzzonked. And I wish they could have played more!

It turned out that Rob had gone straight to our meeting point when we got separated, got drunk in a strop, and missed the whole thing, meaning I couldn't rave about how lumpin' awesome it was. But it wasn't really my fault as I thought he was right behind me and kept looking back for him.


And the last look at Ally Pally before returning to the tube station to find that the show overran and we had to get a night bus...and the awesome food place was shut when we got back. But overall was a really REALLY good day! Even if I did miss Flogging Molly AGAIN as they clashed with the main stage headliner.