karohemd | Proper Weekend Update

On Friday I could finish work early as my deadline was at 1 and I had bugger all to do afterwards.
Had dinner, read a bit and was picked up by

robinbloke.

crag_du was picked up as well and we made our way to Evil² without any problems. Sat around playing Halo and chatting to

ditzy_pole,

zenmeisterin and

civi and watching The Best of the Muppets Show on DVD. Tested my new air mattress which is a lot more comfy than my old one but takes a bit longer to inflate.

We had shopped at Tesco's on Friday evening so I had bacon, sausages and eggs to make a big fry-up for Robin, Craig and myself. Robin picked up

phoenix_tat from the tube (nice to see you again!) and shortly after

ditzy_pole as our, well, ditzy guide,

phoenix_tat,

crag_du,

robinbloke and I headed off to Hyde Park via means of buses and tubes. In the park we saw the queue and realised that it was for the gold tickets (in front), the main queues being at the back of the fenced off concert area. A huge amount of people there (88,000 in total, apparently). We didn't have to wait for long until the gates were opened and found a place to sit diagonally behind the mixer desk, about 100 yards away from the stage.
The waiting turned out to be a bit painful but we had fun chatting to each other and a cornish couple, teasing

ditzy_pole and relaxing as best as we could.

Then the first act finally were on and boy were they bad. They might have been reasonable if the sound had been set up properly and they had actually done their act professionally (running the wrong backing track to start with wasn't). So Chicks on Speed were literally booed and bottled off stage. Thankfully only plastic bottles. It was all over after half an hour.

After about half an hour wait, James Brown and his orchestra came on and they rocked and grooved the joint. There were a lot of people who didn't like or even know James Brown but there wasn't a single boo and soon the crowd was dancing and singing. Really, really good and easily worth half the entrance price. If only I could have seen the stage or at least the screens better... The sound was still very quiet (due to regulations) and also ripped apart by the wind a bit but it was OK. It's a real shame if a fantastic performance gets marred by inadequate sound management. :o( James Brown was on for a dood hour and played all his old hits. I was actually quite impressed with how many people in the audience sang along to Soul Man, although the average age was well below ours, maybe early twenties. Far too many teenies and drunken and obnoxious trendies for my taste.

Another break and then the Chilis came on, jumping right in with Can't Stop, my favourite track from By The Way. They can play live everything they play on CD, maybe even better, changing bits and pieces here and there, a true live band. Very very impressive and higly skilled musicians. All of them. Chad's perfect beat, Flea's bass lines lying on top and going all around it, quite often picking up the main riffs and pushing John's guitar into the background but then stepping back again, all the while driving along the songs, with Kiedis' vocals finishing it all off. Quite a short set (about 80 mins, today's was even shorter) but covering the range from old to brand new (one song not on any CD yet), two covers and several improvised bits in between.
Also very cool was the audience's reaction to Chad's drum solo when he played the beat from Queen's We Will Rock You. It's those little things that make a gig worth attending. Another of those high points was Flea's obscure trumpet solo. Fantastic.

All in all a very good gig, only let down by the inadequate sound management. The weather behaved as well, there were only two short bits of rain that didn't hurt much. Good thing I had my hat, though, as it protects both against sun and rain.

Getting out was a bit chaotic and while we had promised to meet up with

ditzy_pole, we didn't quite know how to get to the main entrance to Hyde Park, especially not with those thousands of people. We couldn't reach her on the phone, either so we just relied on her finding her own way back. We walked quite a bit away from the park until we finally managed to hail a cab. We were in the cab for a while when Karolina called and we then detoured and picked her up.
We made it to Evil without any problems and collapsed in the lounge.

zenmeisterin and

civi returned from Brighton where they had spent the day with

davywavy,

cryx and

barty and a while after

ksirafai's sister (who wouldn't admit to the resemblance) and her boyfriend appeared.
Watching the Blues Brothers was the perfect way to end the day/evening.

Today we went shopping,

robinbloke to Camden, me to Leisure Games (Chez Goth, Lunch Money - Sticks and Stones, Beer Money, Star Munchkin 2 and Darkness Unleashed (CAH supplement)). Came back to Evil, picked up Craig and our stuff and drove back to Cambridge. I was home around 6 and collapsed on the bed for a bit. Phoned an old mate in Germany to report about the Chilis gig which made him jealous ;o), had dinner and listened to today's Chilis gig on Radio 1 while catching up on LJ.

Work tomorrow. Good night.