First Solemn Sun Gig!

On Wednesday Solemn Sun played their first gig under their new name in Bristol's Exchange. I'd have gone anyway, but it was actually a free gig which was a plus!


I managed to turn up really early because I thought there might be a big queue, but no one really turned up until after the doors had opened! I sat in the pub for a bit reading, and then I made some friends while waiting which was good. And the bar had Beesting!


I was feeling too self-conscious to wear any of the colourful things I'd wanted to, so I dressed boring in a Drop Dead vest, H&M shorts, Primark OTKs, and New Look creepers. With my stupid huge backpack full of shopping and emergency food, of course.


The running order. I went outside when Champion was on as it was electronicky music that I'm not a fan of.


We missed the start of Wildest Dreams because we couldn't hear that anything was happening from the bar area! It was really good though, reminded me a bit of Warpaint.


Solemn Sun only played a short set, but it was soooo good!


Their sound may have changed, but their song formula hasn't which makes their music immediately recognisable as theirs.


Tfw new buddies figure out that your camera has a huge lag and do hand photobombs...


Everyone else seemed to get setlists. I tried to take a photo of one but I totally failed! It was a shame that they didn't play any old songs, but not really a surprise since they obviously want to leave Jim Lockey & the Solemn Sun behind.


I panic-bought merch (I never got around to buying JL&tSS merch which suuuucks), and I regret it. I have a million totes I don't use already, and the sweater is so plain (there's literally just a wetlook logo on the back that will be covered by my hair), but I got both for £15 so it isn't tooooo bad. The sweater should be really useful when the weather changes though, as it's practically a dress on me so will be good to wear with toasties!

I had a really good night, although I was pretty hungover when I woke up really early this morning! Oopsie. I never learn!

London Adventures, Part 3

Unsurprisingly I had quite a nasty hangover on the Monday morning after drinking cider all day the day before. Thankfully a shower perked me up, and we headed out to go round some museums!

First up was the Natural History Museum, which I'd never been to before. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, as I always find that enjoyment of museums depends on my mood at the time.


The 'y u no' dino arms!


'Ello Tyrannosaurus!

We went back to Paddington at around 3pm as we were super tired (and this was after having to convince Rob to go back to the museum a little longer and having a quick look around the remarkably uninteresting Science Museum), but when we got there we realised that our tickets weren't valid until past 7pm...oops! So we decided to go check out the London Eye after having a pot of tea even though we were too poor to go on it by this point.


Y U NO CHEAPER?!


View from the bridge.


A wild Christmas market appears! I really regret not getting mint hot chocolate and churros.


Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.

After wandering around a ton, we headed back to Paddington again and had tea in Barburrito, which completely wiped out the last of my money. Which was sad, as I wanted a hot chocolate for the train!


Pigeon scavenging. I wanted to feed it, but we were sat right next to a huge 'DO NOT FEED THE PIGEONS' sign =[


Bye bye London! And finally, the stuff I picked up at Warped. I really wanted merch but I would have had to forgo more cider, which would have meant I'd be hungover before Shikari!


You can see my flyer signed by Jim Lockey & the Solemn Sun! I also must remember to claim my free Rock Sound. Only other point of interest if the Step Up pin I picked up (I ordered a vest and wristband online as soon as I got home though, and there are a bunch of other things I want to buy/ask for for Christmas!).

Really sad that London is so expensive to get to, as I'd love to go more often. I was planning on going again next Saturday for an Indie Label Market that would have allowed me to have another chance of meeting Enter Shikari AND let me buy some super limited vinyl, but I forgot that I have work...WHYYYYYYY?!!

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.