White Lies

Beach Break Live

16.6.11-20.6.11

Mine and Bec's first time at Beach Break, and it was Bec's first ever festival. Hadn't really heard much about Beach break until this year, we decided to go after a good chunk of our favourite bands were announced to play it.

The festival itself is tiny compared to the others that I have been too, which turned out to work really well. The campsite and main arena had a really chilled out vibe, that is lacking at Reading festival. I think this was mostly down to the crowd all being over 18 and students.

First act we saw was Ed Sheeran on the rainy Friday. We've been fans for a while of his music, well ever since I saw him on Jools Holland. His set was great, and oddly enough his rapping worked amazing well. If you don't know Ed Sheeran is a very white, auburn haired 20 something year old. This isn't a combination made for a good rapper, but he pulled it off with credibility. The highlight had to be when he played 'The A Team', he got a good sing-a-long for that. Later on that night we saw Professor Green, who we've decided is oddly attractive, and Tinie Tempah. Both brilliant sets. Apart from the initial being crushed at the start of Tinie's set. I got my angry face on, which isn't that angry considering I was wearing a ripped Alton Towers poncho, and pushed us back a bit.

The next day was the day we were both looking forward to the most. Three of our favourite bands in a row - WAS, Example and then White Lies. WAS were hilarious as usual, the crowd was a little disappointing for them, but still we loved their set. Slightly embarrassed myself at the end as Bec dared me to yell 'I LOVE YOU KEITH', having a little cider in me I accepted the dare and went on to shout at the quietest point in their set. Example was brilliant, the crowd was completely with him and he went down very well with the student audience. White Lies were headlining that night, I was interested to see how everyone reacted to their set after Example. I was pleased when everyone had loads of energy for them and their set was brilliant. We had met two nice guys earlier in the night and out of nowhere during 'E.S.T' they lifted me and Bec onto their shoulders. This was amazing, we could see across the entire crowd and Harry looked straight at us. It was really fun and an oddly intense experience being above the crowd, you can never get an idea how big the crowd is when you're on the floor level with everyone else.

Finally the weather was beautiful on the last day. We spent most of the day sunbathing and listening to some really great bands on the mainstage. Later on we watched Katy B who we both enjoyed and afterwards Magnetic Man were playing. Their set was awesome, again I got lifted up onto a nice mans shoulders and the crowd lost their shit during 'I Need Air'.

For such a small festival Beach Break was brilliant, I prefer it to Reading as it has a much nicer and chilled out vibe. I would love to go again if it has a decent line-up.

Muse at Wembley

11.9.10

Best gig I've ever been to! Everything about it was epic and ridiculous.

They came on with 'Uprising', but before they arrived on stage a whole load of 'protesters' came out to the crowd with banners and flags. When they walked on stage everyone went crazy, being at the front was insane. They played each song to perfection and used Wembley to put on an amazing show. For 'Undisclosed Desires' Dom and Chris came onto a small stage that moved into the crowd then finally up above our heads. Dom's drums were rigged so they came alight after he hit them, which looked amazing in the dark. They played an intro for a few minutes then Matt came back and joined them on the moving stage. I swear Matt looked at me, ha.

The most insane part was during 'Exogenesis: Symphony, Part 1 (Overture)' when a huge 'UFO' came out and slowly crept around the arena. About half way through a woman dressed as an astronautic popped out and began spinning in air, it was really beautiful.

'Knights of Cydonia' was beyond epic. When the last riff kicked it everyone went completely nuts and a huge pit broke out. I think I started the pit I'm not sure!

Such an amazing gig, everything about it was ridiculous and we all loved every second, can't wait to see Muse again.

White Lies were good as usual, although Harry's voice did brake a lot and they played a surprising amount of new material, which was good, but not great for a Muse crowd.

White Lies - Nottingham

25/11/09

Best gig bar Linkin Park, they were amazing beyond belief.

Went with Lizzie to Rock City, never been there before and it's a nice venue. Waited half an hour to get in and managed to get front row again! The two support bands were actually really good. the first was Violens - they reminded me a little of Vampire Weekend mixed with Jack Penate. The lead singer was a bit of a perv and asked the girl by me if she wanted to meet later!

The second band Asobi Seksu were fronted by a tiny Chinese woman who was badass. They were quite odd but overall we liked them alot.

Finally around 9 White Lies came on with Farewell to the Fairground. The crowd was amazing and was into every song they played. Harry's voice is so gorgeous, he looked at me LOADS which made my night as i was singing along to everything. They did a Talking Heads cover which was cool, Harry looked at me as if to say WOW YOU DONT KNOW THE WORDS TO THIS!?!? I later got kicked in the head about 8 times by crowd surfers, and my ribs are bruised to shit - totally worth it though. They have defintely improved with playing as Harry wasn't as shy as he was the first time we saw them play. It was an intense gig as everyone was so into the music and Harry seemed to look at us all really intently. Best songs were The Price Of Love and Unfinished business.

I need to see them play again!

Farewell to the fairground

A place to hide

Farewell to the fairground

NME awards tour Bristol - Florence and the machine, White Lies, Friendly Fires and Glasvegas.

15/02/09

Went with Chrissy to the Carling, well now the '02' but i don't like that so i refuse to call it that!

All the pictures and video were taken by chrissy :)

Florence and the machine

She was on first and i was really impressed, her voice was brilliant and powerful. I didn't know many of the songs, but we really enjoyed them anyway. Chrissy has a few pictures and videos so I'll hopefully add those later. Florence was a bit mental, but i liked her dancing! 'Kiss with a fist' and 'Dog days' were my two favourites.
Kiss With a Fist

White Lies

They were my favourite band, every song that they played was awesome. Same as before i only really knew one song, which was a shame as i really want to see them again now i know all their songs. The lead singers voice was gorgeous, really deep and smooth sounding and he was rather cute (!) Best songs were 'To lose my life' and 'farewell to the fairground'. I got the album as soon as i got back, best CD i've heard in a long time. As i know all the songs now i think my 'now' favourites would be 'Price of Love' and 'Unfinished Business'.

Chrissys video

Friendly Fires

They were funky, we had fun doing some interesting dancing :S. Florence kept dancing on the side of the stage, and then finally came out and pretty much danced like a ho-bag on the lead singer, which was oddly funny. They were good, just not as good as White lies i thought, some of the songs were a tad random. Best track was 'Skeleton Boy'.

FF and Florence

Paris

Glasvegas Quite a lot, well all of their songs sounded the same. Not that they were bad songs just a little repetitive. The lights and strobes were cool and they super loud. Best song was 'daddy's Gone' the part when everyone sang along was nice too. I wouldn't go out of my way to see them again.