Oh yeah, forgot to say!!

Remember I was talking about reviewing the Jagermeister Tour and sending it off to various people?

Well...

METAL HAMMER ARE PRINTING IT!!

That's right, the 100-word review I sent off to the magazine is being printed as the 'Reader Review' and will either be in the issue out on Tuesday or the following one at the end of May! Be sure to pick up a copy - even if you're not really into your metal - and have a read of what yours truly had to say about Skindred!

Also on that front...

WESTERN EYE MAY BE PRINTING IT TOO!!

On top of Metal Hammer, a 400 word review of the whole gig may be printed in UWE's paper. The new edition will be out soon, so fingers crossed on that front.

There are other future plans afoot, but until more developments occur I cannot reveal them, sadly. You'll just have to keep tuning in, but I tell you this now, it's VERY exciting!

Will this really be it? Who knows, you may get another post in a few minutes!

(For now) Laters xx

Done and done.

Tomorrow morning I hand in my final piece of coursework for my second year. After that, a quick check of the calender tells me that I am free for the next 21 weeks before lectures start again on September 24th. 

How am I feeling right now? Well, a mixture of emotions. I'm relieved because I have yet again managed to complete my assignment on time - this after my essay title was only agreed on Friday evening. I do wish my tutor had been more responsive when replying to my emails, but what's done is done and it wasn't a huge factor in any respect given that I completed the essay. I just wish I had been given more time to properly research and nail down what I wanted to say: I do feel that it's a little rushed. Nevertheless, it's in.

I'm also feeling quite scared in a way. This time next year all written assignments will be done and I will have two, maybe three performances to go before my entire undergraduate year is finished. Then it's out into the big wide world. Time has flown, although it always does when you're having fun. I have made so many wonderful friends at university and had a blast in the process, so I can definitely say it's been worthwhile coming. However, I take comfort in the knowledge that I will still be able to enjoy their company for the next 12-14 months minimum.

Despite this fear, nothing can take away my happiness right now. The last week has been amazing for so many different reasons. Here's a quick run down:

Sunday saw me in London with my family as my Mum ran the London Marathon. She completed the course in 4 hours, 49 minutes and 40 seconds, which for a first-time marathon runner is an absolutely fantastic achievement. Words cannot describe how proud I am for her, she's come a long way since she first started running last year.

Tuesday saw Chelsea Football Club make it to the Champions League Final on one of the greatest nights at the Nou Camp in Barcelona. Leading 1-0 from the first leg, they lost defender Gary Cahill after 12 minutes before Sergio Busquets scored to put Barcelona 1-0 up and level the tie. A moment of madness saw captain John Terry sent off and we swiftly went 2-0 down though Andres Iniesta. Barca were flying and all looked lost. But on the stroke of half-time Ramires scored a precious away goal and we were heading through once again.
The second half saw us deploy a 5-4-0 formation as we camped out in our own penalty area. It looked to be for nothing when Didier Drogba appeared to foul Cesc Fabregas and gave away a dubious penalty. Up stepped the greatest player in the world, Lionel Messi, and I thought it was over. But he hit the bar and we survived. Barcelona were tearing us apart, but somehow we held strong. On 81 minutes Drogba was replaced by Fernando Torres, and in injury time the Spaniard broke away from the defence, rounded the goalkeeper and scored. 2-2 on the night, 3-2 on aggregate and we were through. Now we face FC Bayern on their home turf in Munich on May 19th, but Tuesday night will be remembered for a long time.

Wednesday saw me finally get back into employment for the summer and if I keep it together for the rest of the year and maybe on further. Lovely little coffee shop next to Syndicate in the city centre, I start training tomorrow. I'm proper happy about this because it's been a struggle balancing out everything this year, but hopefully I will be able to get somewhere with this now. Combine with my Student Ambassador job that I intend to keep and I will be a very happy third year.

Thursday was all about Twelfth Night, done by the Drama Society. A wonderful night out and a very funny production to boot. Everyone did exceptionally well and I was really pleased I went to see it.

So, that's been my week so far. In other news from the last 15 days, I am now directing the Drama Soc radio play on my own as my co-director has had to pull out. Not gonna lie, I am a little nervous about it, but I am very excited at the same time. Next week is about adapting the script for radio use and away we go! Four of my church friends were baptised today, which was wonderful - just a shame I couldn't go down to see them due to my essay. This is in addition to the six (yeah, SIX) that were baptised on Easter Sunday. The church is definitely moving forward in Christ and that's something to be very grateful about. Details for the Drama Ball have come to surface, and I am helping out with that on the live music front. All well and good I will be signing a few songs onstage and letting the inner prat inside of me take control for a good 10-15 minutes or so. Better on stage with a microphone than jumping around my room with an old deodorant can. One of these days I'll go through the floor...

That's pretty much it for now. With uni out of the way for a while I should be able to update a lot more - I won't get as lax I promise!

Laters xx

Special: Jagermeister Tour Review!

What do you get when you put one of the UK's hottest live bands, a trio of alt. rock legends and five British rockers on one bill, add a different opening act for each of the 5 night stretch and then sell tickets for a fiver? The Jagermeister Music Tour 2012, that's what!

After a successful stretch last year, the Jagermeister Music Tour returned to the UK, running through Glasgow, Newcastle, Leeds and London before finishing at the O2 Academy in Bristol. The venue sold out before any of the others, a mixture of generations filling the venue for a night of brilliant music.

Opening the night, local act Turbowolf (8). I wasn't sure what to expect from them, but they thoroughly impressed with their unique brand of psychedelic, electronic rock. Vocalist Chris Georgiadis, looking like the hippie brother of the 118 guys, made very good use of the limited space on stage, his mad eyes encapturing every audience member present and rounding everything off with a little bit of crowdsurfing. Black Spiders (8) continue to show us why they are a force to be reckoned with on the live circuit, newer songs like 'KISS Tried to Kill Me' slotting in perfectly alongside more well-known numbers such as 'Stay Down', and no time is wasted between songs - banter is kept to a minimum to allow the music to do the talking. The big surprise of the night is Therapy? (9) who gives us a balanced mix of old and new songs and really get the crowd going, inciting the first pits of the night with an 11-song set that had pace and power. 'Nowhere' and 'Screamager' off 1994 album Troublegum and new single 'Living in the Shadow of a Terrible Thing' were particular highlights and the band put all pre-show doubts I had about them to rest.

No such doubts about headliners Skindred (9), however: the reggae metal boys hailing from Newport in Wales are well known for their energetic live shows, and despite a false start when they lost all power on stage before they'd even played a note, they recovered to give the 1,600 strong crowd a performance that made the price of the ticket even MORE of a bargain. It's a mystery  to many why these guys are playing academies and not venues like Hammersmith Apollo: the crowd didn't stop moving for the entirity of the set. The band played four songs from new album Union Black and mashed up plenty of others - 'Pressure' was combined with their cover of AC/DC's 'Back in Black'; 'The Fear' had the outro for 'Rude Boy For Life' and closing song 'Nobody' was preceded by a snippet of Slayer's 'Raining Blood'. They even threw in a small intermission of Beyonce's 'Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)'. Frontman Benji Webbe is as charismatic as ever with his banter and his prescence, and is probably the UK's best frontman not called Bruce Dickinson. But the best is yet to come, as on encore song 'Warning', the Academy is greeted with the sight of 1,600 people swinging clothing over their heads and performing the 'Newport Helicopter'. By 11:30 it's all over, as is the Jagermeister Music Tour for 2012. But what a tour.

At long last!

It's over. The madness of my second year is FINALLY over. I sit here writing this from my family home in Gloucester, able to kick back and relax for the first time in over 3 months. And WOW, it feels good!

Of course, now I'm looking towards next year. In 12 months' time I will have graduated, more or less, and that's a scary prospect. But hopefully I will have everything in order for the years ahead as I go off into the outside world, with nothing more than 21 years of life experience and a BA(Hons) degree in Drama with Creative Writing. My saving grace is that it IS 12 months away still, I have a while to prepare yet.

In other news, two of my cousins are expecting children later this year! They're due on the 10th and 11th October respectively, and with my grandmother turning 80 on the 9th, that makes for a very busy month! What's even better is that the arrival expected on the 11th is in fact twins! Many congratulations to them.

My first gig of this year is on Saturday! I have been waiting for this for the last five months, and you can expect a special review in the wee hours of Sunday morning or the afternoon of that day too - the latter is more likely. All well and good the review will be printed in the university's paper and a shortened 100-word version printed in Metal Hammer magazine. Fingers crossed eh?

What else? Ooh yes, Drama Society things! Well, firstly, more congratulations are in order as we retained our 'Society of the Year' award from the Darts Society and have now won it 3 years out of the last 4, which is a fantastic achievement and now we must look to win it four years in five! Also, I have been chosen to co-direct one of the radio plays due to be recorded in the coming months - we have adapted two of our original writing pieces, 'Into Oblivion' and 'Subject to Requirement', and having performed in the former last year I am very happy to be directing it this time around! Talking of Original Writing, the next Showcase is coming up and I am looking to direct AND act in it, so here's to auditions going well.

Right, I'm going to resume my Pokemon adventure on my phone - get my newly caught Vulpix up to scratch.

Laters xx