Sunday, July 11, 2004
Massive Attack on Lou's Birthday!!!
Lou's Birthday
We both took the day off work to make the most of Lou's special day. The forcast was for strong winds and heavy rain, great. First was a cooked breakfast of the birthday girls choice prepared by yours truly. Next we had to have our shots for Hep A and B costing a cool £57 each!
I had booked a ride on the London Eye for the afternoon so we headed down to the south bank for lunch and on to the eye. For those of you who have not heard of the London Eye previously known as the millennium wheel it is basically a very large Ferris wheel that takes you 140 metres above London affording a fantastic view.
Due to the whether predictions we did not have to brave the long, snaking queues usually lining up outside the ride and pretty much hopped right on. Were joined by a group of screaming school children who would chorus “we're all going to die” whenever the wind gusted. Luckily the rain held off for the “flight” and we got our look.
Lou had given Rae, Steve herself and I vouchers to have an aqua massage. We thought this a good opportunity to redeem them. The machines look like a tanning bed that you lay face down in but instead of getting bombarded with harmful UV rays you get pelted by jets of high pressure water. You remain fully clothed and are protected by a plastic sheet. It was quite invigorating but I would not swap it for the good old hand made version.
We dinned at a Local gastropub and ended the evening with a very fine bottle of champagne (from the champagne region of France, not to be confused with sparkling wine which they make in NZ)
Massive Attack at the Brixton Academy
Lou bought tickets for this show as a surprise but she isn't very good at keeping secrets. I have to give her some credit, she didn't come right out and tell me, but when I guessed what it was she affirmed my suspicions.
I have not really been listening to MA for a while, to be honest I didn't even bring any of their CDs over with me.
According Steve The BA is one of the best music venues in London and I have to agree. The acoustics are great and even though we were sitting down up stairs (there were signs around the walls warning people not to stand up) we had a great view of the stage. The interior has a standing area and a mezzanine. Around the stage is a permanent set in the form of a 16th century villa. My only complaint was the smoky atmosphere. Half of the crowd we smoking at any given time which created an eye stinging haze.
This was professional concert I have ever been to. On equal level with the great music the lighting was the star of the show. If you think of the LCD displays they have in banks showing their latest interest rates or whatever. They had about 40 of those arranged as horizontal blinds able to show any colours. They were used like one large screen. Some of the less psychedelic images were the heart monitor, the matrix and a spectrum analyser which showed the intensity of the music.
The most moving song was “safe from harm” which was dedicated to the innocent people who have died in Iraq. During the song, names and ages of dead children were printed on the screen. All of the bands we have been to see (with the exception of The Datsuns) have mentioned their disapprovals of the war in Iraq. It is great to see these people using their status to have a positive effect on their audience.
We both took the day off work to make the most of Lou's special day. The forcast was for strong winds and heavy rain, great. First was a cooked breakfast of the birthday girls choice prepared by yours truly. Next we had to have our shots for Hep A and B costing a cool £57 each!
I had booked a ride on the London Eye for the afternoon so we headed down to the south bank for lunch and on to the eye. For those of you who have not heard of the London Eye previously known as the millennium wheel it is basically a very large Ferris wheel that takes you 140 metres above London affording a fantastic view.
Due to the whether predictions we did not have to brave the long, snaking queues usually lining up outside the ride and pretty much hopped right on. Were joined by a group of screaming school children who would chorus “we're all going to die” whenever the wind gusted. Luckily the rain held off for the “flight” and we got our look.
Lou had given Rae, Steve herself and I vouchers to have an aqua massage. We thought this a good opportunity to redeem them. The machines look like a tanning bed that you lay face down in but instead of getting bombarded with harmful UV rays you get pelted by jets of high pressure water. You remain fully clothed and are protected by a plastic sheet. It was quite invigorating but I would not swap it for the good old hand made version.
We dinned at a Local gastropub and ended the evening with a very fine bottle of champagne (from the champagne region of France, not to be confused with sparkling wine which they make in NZ)
Massive Attack at the Brixton Academy
Lou bought tickets for this show as a surprise but she isn't very good at keeping secrets. I have to give her some credit, she didn't come right out and tell me, but when I guessed what it was she affirmed my suspicions.
I have not really been listening to MA for a while, to be honest I didn't even bring any of their CDs over with me.
According Steve The BA is one of the best music venues in London and I have to agree. The acoustics are great and even though we were sitting down up stairs (there were signs around the walls warning people not to stand up) we had a great view of the stage. The interior has a standing area and a mezzanine. Around the stage is a permanent set in the form of a 16th century villa. My only complaint was the smoky atmosphere. Half of the crowd we smoking at any given time which created an eye stinging haze.
This was professional concert I have ever been to. On equal level with the great music the lighting was the star of the show. If you think of the LCD displays they have in banks showing their latest interest rates or whatever. They had about 40 of those arranged as horizontal blinds able to show any colours. They were used like one large screen. Some of the less psychedelic images were the heart monitor, the matrix and a spectrum analyser which showed the intensity of the music.
The most moving song was “safe from harm” which was dedicated to the innocent people who have died in Iraq. During the song, names and ages of dead children were printed on the screen. All of the bands we have been to see (with the exception of The Datsuns) have mentioned their disapprovals of the war in Iraq. It is great to see these people using their status to have a positive effect on their audience.
Comments:
Post a Comment
