Alerts are working so let's carry on.........

Hiya let's carry on with my instalments....

SUNDAY

 

Woke up around 8.30ish, Trina and I went down for breakfast.  When we had booked in the receptionist had taken our orders for breakfast for the two days there and then.  We both ordered full English but helped ourselves to other stuff too. (Such pig’s lol)  They had baby muffins which were gorgeous and we had to help ourselves to tea and coffee which was really annoying.  The cooked breakfast wasn’t great but we had to eat something!!  Once we had finished we went upstairs to get washed and changed and then went round to the Trafford Centre as Trina had some birthday stuff to get for people.  I made sure the first shop we stopped in (as it appeared to be the only one open!!) was the Disney Store.  J  I’m such a big kid!!  Trina and Wayne left me alone and we agreed to meet around 11.30ish to get back to the hotel for the taxi.  She also left me with the camera to take some pics of the Trafford Centre ~ which I tried to do but felt a complete knob as everyone was looking at me!!  I managed to find myself in the China part but couldn’t take any pics as there were too many people milling around.  Eventually she rung to say they were getting some food from McDonald’s and to meet them outside that bit.  When I walked round there were a lot of people so I rung her to find out where they were – it turned out they hadn’t got that far after all.  When they did appear, Trina asked if I had taken any pics of this part of the Centre as it was built like a ship, I said no but walked along and snapped a couple of shots – they haven’t come out very good lol.

 

We made our way back to the hotel and there were quite a few people milling around outside all waiting for taxis – I was trying to guess who was attending the gig and who wasn’t.  Our taxi arrived last and we made our way there!!  The driver was very friendly and we talked to him about gigs and stuff.  When we went past Old Trafford (Man United’s home) he said that morning there had been queues as far as anyone could see as the X-Factor were holding auditions.  When he dropped us off he gave us a card with the telephone number on and his name and taxi number for us to ask for him to get back.  He advised us not to get black cabs as they would charge us a fortune and we’d only paid £7 to get there.  At the cricket ground the stewards told us to go and queue round the other side of the venue.  There were a lot of people milling about now so all three of us were starting to feel excited.  Trina and I had arranged to meet Sarah from roger-taylor.net website at the gig but she had been dragged into going shopping with her mum so couldn’t get there until much later.

 

Once we’d made our way round the corner we found the queue, which wasn’t too big but there was more than one entrance.  If it had been a Queen gig, Trina and I would’ve panicked something rotten by now, but as we didn’t fancy getting crushed getting to the front wasn’t a big issue!!  There was a merchandise stall set up so we each got a t-shirt and went to join the queue.  It was snaked round like you get at fairground rides and we got to the back of the first barricaded off bit just after 12.30pm ish (Gates opened around 2ish).  Not long after getting there it started to rain *rolls eyes* but we were grateful it wasn’t as hot as it had been the day before.  We chatted and waited in the rain, talking about the people all around us.  I remember this one girl at the merchandise stall said something along the lines of………”It’s all Foo’s stuff” and her friend said, “Well yeah what do you expect?”  It was quite funny!!  Sarah kept texting/ringing Trina to ask where we were!!  Not long before we were due to go in she rung again, this time being in the correct place for the queue.  Trina made Wayne wave his arm about so she would be able to see us (he’s the taller of us three lol) and she rung again about 5 mins later.  Wayne and I were convinced she wasn’t gonna find us – the queue had grown so much it was unbelievable!!  But a few seconds after the call, there she was making her way towards us.  I kept saying that I couldn’t believe she’d found us, she said that some unhappy people were left in her absence lol……Not long after they decided to let us in.  It continued to rain on us every now and then but it didn’t bother us.  It felt odd not having bag fulls to be checked going through the queue but Trina had them this time *evil laughter*  It also felt odd not running in to make sure we get near the front!!  Found that rather too odd but didn’t wanna get crushed (I appear to be repeating myself here???!!) so we made our way in and found a spot close to the tower thingy in the middle.  Had a great view (was rather optimistic at this point) and got myself comfortable before the first band came on.  It was going to be a long afternoon with four support bands!!  (Well it was billed as a festival type event!!??!!)  Whilst waiting for the first band, I spotted someone wearing a Hyde Park t-shirt and told Trina we should go and ask them about Roger and Brian turning up (we didn’t have any confirmation that they had actually done so at this point), which she agreed was a good idea but as Wayne and Sarah had gone for a walk at this point we didn’t bother.  By the time they had returned we had completely forgotten all about it!!  Doh!!

 

First band came on – Eagles of Death Metal – the name suggested to me some heavy metal band wearing leather or dark clothes with piercing and tattoo’s, the type that appear at the Download festival (if you know what I mean ;-) let me just tell you that you should never judge a band by it’s name lol…………Death Metal wasn’t the word for it, I think Rock ‘n’ Roll was more their style but they were good J  The lead singer kept saying stuff like ‘let’s hear it for the ladies’ ‘ladies why don’t you scream for me’ and this malarkey.  At one point getting so fed up with hearing this, a heckler behind us shouted ‘What about the blokes?’ LOL Once they left the stage all 4 of us sat down trying to conserve our energy.  People were trying to leave the front of the area so would try and walk past us – poor Sarah always seemed to be in the way of the moving crowd!!  Once people had moved we shuffled forward and tried to avoid the dried up chewing gum on this ground sheet they had placed to protect the cricket pitch.

 

The next band came on stage – The Subways.  A really good band – I thinktheir English??!!  Not that, that matters lol……….how to describe them??  Well they were a lot like most of the bands that are up and coming at the moment (lol that’s a rubbish description isn’t it??)  Anyway they had a girl on bass and she was cool J  at one point the singer ran down the catwalk (??  There’s a catwalk how cool we thought!!)  He jumped off the front into the crowd – it was mad!!  He got back ok though, just in case you were worried lol didn’t recognise any of their songs but the last one they did Wayne was singing along.  We all looked at him oddly and he didn’t know how he knew it, (to this day he still doesn’t know!!) he just did.  It was Rock ‘n’ Roll Queen I think!!  Whilst we were watching the band I noticed something on the bloke standing in front of us.  Chewing gum!!  He had sat in something that I had tried avoiding lol…………Trina took a picture of it with my camera!!  Yet another break and time to sit down again.  This time though I could hear people talking about Dave and looking over towards the place where cricketers sit to watch the game.  I decided to stand up and see what was going on.  Just as I was looking over the Foo’s came out and stood on the balcony.  It was amazing but unfortunately I couldn’t get my camera out of my pocket quick enough L  The whole crowd were cheering and stuff………….

 

The next band onstage was Angels and Airwaves.  This band is American and has one of the blokes from Blink 182 in it.  He started babbling on about the bombs and terrorist attacks and got heckled from the people standing behind us.  To me they sounded like a U2 tribute band considering they used the exact same guitar sound.  (Have you seen Bill Bailey??  He does a bit where he’s taking the mickey out of the U2 guitar sound and shows us what it would be like at a U2 gig if a catastrophic error took place.  So he’s playing along with the guitar sound and then the amp cuts out and he’s just playing like a nursery rhyme or something – it’s very funny!)  Well Trina kept singing this little tune to me every time the band were playing…………….It started pouring down during this band so I put my hoodie up.  As the rain was also getting into my eyes I decided to stick my sunglasses on J  I looked well cool – not!! (I have shown the pic to my mum and she didn’t think it was me!!)  I was very glad when this band finished and wouldn’t recommend them!!  Yet another break and this time there were more and more people trying to get down to the front.  One more support and then the main attraction woohoo!!  It was getting more difficult for us to sit down L  Trina, Wayne and I had a pool going for what time the main band would come on.  I can’t actually remember the times now but it was funny coz the winnings would be £2 and we were coming up with suggestions of what to do with the money such as:  get the band to play for us privately at home with the sun shining or something like that lol…………..  We just got sillier and sillier I think!!

 

Next up were the Strokes.  I only knew one oftheir songs but on the Friday before the gig I couldn’t remember which one it was!!  As they started this bloke behind us was trying to make his way through.  I told him that he could go if he wanted but there was no way he was gonna get through!!  So he stayed were he was but we were going to suffer for that decision.  When the band finally played their most well known hit ‘Last Night’ the people behind us started mosshing!!  This was my first taster of mooshing and I don’t recommend it!!  Basically you could feel the people behind you pushing into you and even if you push back or stand your ground it doesn’t help and you feel yourself moving forwards but you’re not walking or running it’s a bit like fast walking I suppose, it’s a horrible feeling as you have no control.  Especially when I was going one way and Trina was going the other and the bag with all our stuff and more importantly my new t-shirt, was left in it’s original place!!  Feeling out of control I screamed really loudly and managed to make my way back to grab the bag.  All four of us decided it was safer to move at that point and headed backwards.  We managed to find a gap that all four of us could fit in comfortably but the view had got worse L  and because of that mooshing we had missed the Strokes one and only song that we knew!!  Grrrrr………………..

 

I shall have to carry this onto another entry as it's apparently too long..............oops