the national - the astoria - 22nd may

(ir)regular readers will be cheered to note that my rubbish camera has come out of the woodwork again. sadly not in its usual capacity - there aren't any gig photos, and my scanner's broken.....



support was from the annuals, who were okay-ish. the national's set is as above... and as ever they didn't disappoint.

shedloads of fan reviews available here.

the rest of the night went a bit wonky.
we got offered aftershow passes, and seeing as last time i didn't go, i couldn't really turn it down.... taking into account that i was fairly drunk, brimming with hormones (mother nature decided to inexplicably delay my period by nearly a week and i'd already been hysterical at coronation street the day before) and harboring bad grudges against something that was done without malice or bad intent, i then proceeded to begin to royally fuck things up.

had a shouty/stroppy/accusatory rant at one of the people i love most in the world, really upset them*, walked off and then sobbed hysterically at my friends for half an hour in the bar.

then i decided it was time to blow my nose, order a whisky and, fuck it, start drinking with my favourite band in the world.

tall violinist dude padma newsome (birrova long time hero) has not only cut all his hair off but also got himself married to someone lovely. i spent most of the night talking his ear off, buying him tequila and trying to persuade them all to play a gig in leeds (to no avail).

i also managed to acquire matt (the singer)'s autograph on my diary....

.... i think it's about this point that things start getting a little hazy.....

pocket and me merrily distributed fake empire stickers to all and sundry, i've got a mysterious entry scrawled in my diary (james alderman at live nation, who are you and why are you there?), i had a ball (as far as i remember), got called special (in a non-inverted-comma-way) and apparently threw me beverage all over mr newsome as i was leaving.

sorry bout that, dude.

the next morning included very hungover frock shopping, ill advised haircuts and seeing random royston vaseyers on the escalator at kings cross. relatively painless journey home.... and then time for the ridiculousness to start up again....


* merrick, i'm very very very very very sorry.