yackie chan

so although last week was pretty uneventful, this weekend just gone was a busy one.

friday; apryl and i headed to peterborough ("petersburg?!")to see polar bear club and generally hang out. the show was awesome and it was good to see pbc playing their own headline shows again after spending so long on tour with gaslight anthem. as always, just hanging out with the six of them, plus stan was awesome and a fun night was had by all. it was also the 8th anniversary of emmett's 21st birthday so we brought him a cake as well a belated one for stan who's birthday was the previous week. oh and goose broke the door to the backstage room, nice work.

saturday; apryl and i, joined by ams, drove up to leeds for the lonewolves thirty days of night records all-dayer at joe's well. got there with plenty of time to spare as we weren't playing until 5pm so we walked into town where ams added to his collection of vans authentics and we got a brew from costa. also managed to briefly see rob which was good as i really don't see him enough. headed back to the venue and after watching headcase (fun band to watch, check them out) we set up and played. on stage the sound was ok and everyone i spoke to thought it sounded good off it. we were kind of sloppy but it was still fun to play. as a wise man once said, "everything is ok when i'm behind my drums." everyone who watched us seemed to be into it and we got a good reception.
after packing away, smalls and ams headed back south as the former had to be up early the next day and apryl and i met up with jim and his friend sam to go and meet steph and jack (sid and nancy) to get little t's and go the cinema to see watchmen. we left aaron at the venue as he was intent on partying all weekend. we didn't see him again until we picked him up on monday morning.

for those that don't know, little t's is possibly the best restaurant i have ever been to. it's a japanese restaurant that serves both meat and vegetarian/vegan food and it is incredible. i got the vegan chicken legs to start and then the vegan mango duck bento box. it ruled. hard.
we then bidded farewell to jim and sam and headed to see watchmen. now, i love the comic so i was pretty excited to see this adaptation. although i thought it was good, i'm not really sure if it lived up to my expectations. don't get me wrong, it wasn't a BAD film, it just wasn't as good as i was expecting. i guess, as jimmy said, you can never really make a book/comic THAT good into an amazing film as well. there were excellent parts to it though, in particular the opening title sequence that detailed the chronological events of the watchmen and also the special effects were amazing. overrall though, i'd probably give it three out of five if i was asked to rate it.
after the film, we drove back to steph's parents for nintendo wii times (steph ruled all at boxing) and chain ate bread like it was crack.

sunday; we all headed to hyde park to see mike smith and rob again. got tea/lunch in an awesome little cafe near their house then headed into town to see polar bear club at the cockpit.
the room they played was the very top room in the cockpit and i wasn't even aware that they did shows up there. it was a fun show though and yet again i lost my mind to their cover of 'ten minutes' by the get up kids. hung out for a bit after the show and then said our goodbyes. drove back to steph's with less incident than the previous night (fuck leeds' one way system/roadworks) and crashed out watching family guy.

sunday; drove into town to drop off steph who had a dentist appointment and then myself, apryl and jack headed over to kirkstall to meet pbc and stan for sound bites breakfast. for some reason stan is obsessed with this place. it is pretty good, but basically just imagine a slightly better than average northern cafe and you're pretty close to knwoing what it's like. got the standard beans on dry toast (being vegan in a greasy spoon is great) and then said our final goodbyes to pbc who head back to the states today (tuesday). they're back in 10 weeks for their headline tour with ruiner and defeater though which will be an awesome two weeks as i'll be joining them to sell merch for them, as well as helping out the other two bands. good times will be had.
anyway, after this we headed to pick up aaron from wherever he had stayed and then set off south for norwich. it always makes me a little sad when i have to drive home and see that first sign saying 'the south'. the north of england is so vastly superior to the south it's ridiculous.

we got home in relatively good time and apryl and i just chilled out for the rest of the evening watching csi:ny. i have watched so many episodes now that i can almost solve the crimes before the csi's do. also, why did messer have to ruin everything in season 4? those who watch it will understand what i mean.



sorry for the long post, as i said it was a busy weekend. back to reality of sorts this week. it's rubbish.

x