Diary of an up and coming sociopath

So it turns out that the reason I occasionally end up going on to the M40 at Longbridge, instead of the A46, is because the road markings are incorrect, or at least, unclear. Go in the lane marked, A46, follow it straight down the exit and you end up on the M40 heading towards Birmingham with a confused look on your face and a vague plan of co-ordinating some map-reading in an attempt to find your way back where you were supposed to be. In my limited experience.

On the drive back from Oxford this morning, it rained, pretty badly. I’m starting to suspect there’s some kind of bad-weather deity who lies in wait for me to head out on a long car journey before unleashing the fury. Well, I’m going back to Oxford later today. Do your fucking worst!

I was quite glad to get my comics today, a whole chunk of issues finally caught up with. Also, I grabbed the new Placebo singles, which I have yet to listen to. Went for dinner at Nan’s and sat around there for a bit, then picked Nikki, Jo and Emma up to embark on the previously described failure of orientation. The story ends well, we made it to the gig with loads of time to spare. Because the venue was about an hour late opening the doors. We stood in the cold for a good 45 minutes wondering when someone would take mercy on us. Apparantly, it’s the Upper Room who are to blame for both this, and Paul’s lack of a soundcheck. Yes, as if making music of dubious quality wasn’t enough, their tardiness doing a soundcheck left me in the cold and meant that the first time I saw Paul’s band had to be at a time where the sound was crap. I’m starting to actively resent support bands.

We were opn the guestlist for this gig, courtesy of Glenn. Not the first time it’s happenned, but I’m always glad when it does. I was asked to show ID, so in order to prove I was who I said, I showed him the side of a card which contained a photo of me and a barcode, but no name or birthdate. Not really sure what was going on there, but he seemed unable to disagree with the card. Emma and Jo had to buy their tickets like a pair of regular humans.

So, as previously discussed, Paul’s band, or rather the band Paul is in, “Unreal Coriander” sounded a bit dodgy. The songs themselves were pretty good, certainly lyrically superior to the Upper Room anyway. They started with a cover of Feeling Good, which I would say is a bad choice. I’d say that because I hate the song and their version does it no favours (nor does Muse’s, so they’re in good company) so naturally it’s what I’m going to say. Besides that, they were alright.

We listened to the Upper Room again. I guess I’ll never like them. They were better than the previous time we saw them, but then again it’d be hard to be worse. Much in the style of “Saint Rose”, they’re a support band I’ll only be glad to know are playing a gig I’m going to because it means there can’t be anyone worse in their place.

Easyworld themselves were as good as ever. The crowd wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as at Oxford, and given the sedate nature of the gigs recently that’s saying something. The sound was slightly improved and the venue much cleaner than the Zodiac, and the band were much more “on form” in that they seemed a bit more organised than back last week. The strangest part about this gig was the wafting aroma of fish and chips from the Uni’s recently installed chipshop, “Battered.” I’ve smelt a lot of weird things at gigs before, many of them I’d prefer to forget, but Fish and Chips wasn’t on the list until today. Dav shared some anti-Coventry banter with the crowd as well as making the point Dave Gorman seemed fond of (and thus, I presume all entertainers do when visiting) that Warwick Uni is actually in Coventry, not Warwick.

After easyworld finished, Jo and Emma went home and we hung around talking to Ceri and Ben for a while, and later Glenn and Dav. We learnt, entirely by accident, the real reason why “Dav” isn’t “Dave” which had somehow eluded us until now, and I’m forced to admit it does really make sense. At one point I described how the Stereophonics made me very, very angry and Dav said that while he thought the course laid out by the first album could’ve made them the best band in Britain, by the 4th album it made him want to kill people. So I’m not alone in that. Dunno about “Best Band in Britain” though. Has he not heard 3 Colours Red?!

I dropped Ceri and Ben back to their respective houses, with Nikki and I imparting the (unfortunately tiny) sum of knowledge gained about Uni upon them as we went. I took Nikki home too, and then myself came back to write about the day’s events. Having had this nice short break, tomorrow I go back to Oxford, do some project/coursework and, most importantly, try not to think about the money I’m not making.