A Seaside Rendezvous (3)

John said you could see the back of my head, but you can't, I was further forward and dead centre but this is a brilliant capture of Uprising, and believe me it doesn't capture one nth of what it was actually like to be there.

How could it?

A Seaside Rendezvous (2)

I didn't take many pictures, while you are messing about with cameras, you're not *there* and I needed to take as much of my day in as I could.

I found much to my delight, I'm nowhere near as singular as I had thought (!) I'd say fully half the ten ish thousand strong audience was about my age. (if you read this stewedrat, say hi)

Teignmouth is an utterly delightful sleepy little town, it's own little backwater world, the people are unfailingly friendly and polite being geared entirely towards the summer visitors.

A little more of the MUSE jigsaw falls into place.

But as I well know, no matter what you think of where you grew up, sooner or later you need to go home and if you can make EVERYONE know about it, so much the better :-)

I spent about 3 hours sitting on the stone edge of one of the seafront flower beds waiting for the 6pm 'doors' opening. For some reason for at least 2 of those I was joined by members of the Teignmouth & Shulden rotary club who had come down to soak up the atmosphere.

I didn't catch any of their names, but they were utterly charming people, we discussed this and that and they were genuinely interested in hearing about MUSE. One of the ladies was particularly excited to find that their plumber (he did all the work on our new house!) was the uncle of Lead man Matt Bellamy.

They were going to come down later with some sherry and sandwiches and sit on the front and listen to the concert on the other side of the hoardings. ('do you know, I really wish we had bought tickets now!') I REALLY hope they enjoyed.

The one thing I did glean is that the licence for the concerts was given on understanding that the sound level would not be above 84 decibels. I have wondered if either the council has no idea what a decibel is or whether it was to be measured from some point on the edge of town - or maybe the next town - or the next county - at the bottom of a well - with earmuffs on. 84 db is not very loud. This was at such a level seismic sensors all over the South west must have been redlining. You could actually *see* the bass lines on the video screens as the cameramen were physically shaken by them. You had to breathe between drumbeats as your internal organs were rearranged.

It was wonderful.

And at the houses and apartments across the road from the Den (a seafront strip of charming park) every window and balcony was filled with the (mostly elderly) residents watching every moment.

Inside every old person is a young one wondering what the **** happened, and for just a few hours we were all 30 years younger..

I will see them again at the O2 this November, and I can't wait, but this was a truly special utterly magical evening and I do hope that now maybe Teignmouth has cracked its shell they will have the nerve to fully break out. I know my friends at the Rotary club want to...

Muse are there again tonight, have a brilliant night guys, I truly wish I could be with you again but I have had one night of magic and maybe, just sometimes one night is enough. And I have Chris Williams' engagement party to host.....

A Seaside Rendezvous (1)

Muse
Dream and fate
The world's largest best entertainment institution

They exploded onto the stage with Uprising, their single taken from their new album The Resistance out on the 14th.

They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be VICTORIOUS

You dance, you scream, you have tears in your eyes, you punch the air in victory, you *believe*

*THIS* is MUSE.

They don't put a foot wrong, this isn't the massive stadium gigs, its one of the small stages recycled from Glastonbury tricked out with a victorianesqe proscenium arch and tatty end of the pier velvet drapes.

There is no giant plasma screen backdrops, no laser equipped satellite dishes scanning the skies, this is no push the button and run, this is rock at its loudest, most visceral, most primal, at it's very very best. They make comments to us and each other between the songs, They are having fun, they are home.

And we heard songs from the new album, I'm not sure how many appreciated it at the time, this was stuff that had never been heard before, by the tour in November we will all be word perfect, but this was NEW and we were the FIRST.

I haven't finished on my day by a long chalk, but now I need a sleep.

I believe....

here goes..

Its as windy as all hell, but at least it seems to have stopped hammering down with rain.

I didn't sleep that well, I must be mad..

My friend Rachel who works in Exeters premier hotel says the place is full of journalists and Muse's 'people' but still offered to get me a room by pulling strings, there's not one to be had anywhere.

Teignmouth is a small sleepy seaside town.

I wonder if it has the *slightest* idea what's about to hit it...

They don't make 'em like that

The recent mobile phone saga.

I like the Motorola V3. (I'm not sure which version, there were a few and I couldn't track the differences anyway) It's been around for an age, it does all I want, it's pretty big, but thin. As far as I can gather it a lot of other people do too, I believe Motorola keeps trying to shut it down but people keep buying it. There's a raging market in grey imports.

And while I'm no regular watcher (how could I be) it even turned up on a recent Ugly Betty in the hands of a new hunky bloke, now thats fashion..

My first died ignominiously in the early rainy hours of one morning a few weeks ago, I'd always loved that phone, (well as much as anyone can love a mobile phone, i.e not screaming at it in frustration *too* often) and it had been dropped a number of times before, but this was just one of those unfortunate accidents, it's hinge just caught a big lump of concrete and suddenly it had a removable screen.

I replaced it with a new one from eBay, one of those mentioned grey imports, it looked the same but didn't really feel it, for something already that thin it seemed even thinner, even flimsy. I managed to crack the external screen within days, it didn't seem very sensitive and the vaunted laser cut keyboard was reduced to mere foil. The black finish was chipping and marking very fast and the end came for it when it developed an 'unless you press your fingers into a certain place on the back the phone cut off' fault.

Back to eBay and this time I've got a refurbished one, (ie replaced the OS to get rid of the original provider 'locking') my theory being it would be one of the older tougher ones, and yes, it is that and it's even a proper 'made in China' Motorola, not an 'improved' made in Singapore one.

This one works perfectly, even if it does look anaemic (it's silver, not the black I was used to). Chinese Motorola's, they don't make 'em like that no more...

the last piece in the jigsaw

Trish the Taxi isn't usually available around 9am as she has a standing order taking a lady into Taunton.

Only for Friday she is, the final jigsaw piece.

Now I can get a taxi to Wiliton, a bus to Taunton, if Tim doesn't come through with a suitable jacket I have time to nip into Debenhams and get one.

My ticket on the train to Teignmouth is actually booked (with a reserved seat!) I know where the 'Den' is, I have my ticket, my tee shirt, my iPod. I even know how to get home after, a train to Exeter, another to Taunton and Adrian, Trish's long suffering husband is picking me up at the station at 2.45 am.

I don't ever remember things taking planning like this before, once I just would have gone and to hell with the consequences.

Life for a 50 yo Muse fan :-) I saw a statement on one of the newsgroups, stating there was no such thing.

Think again, we just plan a bit more....

All things DO pass

'We've seen it all, Bonfires of trust, Flash floods of pain.....'

Actually a line from the Killers but its nearing the end of the season and thats what it feels like (well I may be exaggerating a trifle, but never let it be said I say things just for effect :-)

This is the last 'family week' and as today is the bank holiday it all winds down to almost nothing for the rest of this week.

There are some lovely people, of course there are, there must be, unfortunately they are more then offset (you know who you are, The Baileys, The Fishers, The Palmers to name but 3).

The one thing that you do learn is when Saturday rolls around and you think 'oh god no not THEM' is that another saturday will come and you'll be left, maybe a little battered bruised and with a slightly more tarnished soul but still there. That in itself is a sort of victory. All things do pass..... even scroates....

There's a couple of blue rinse weeks which are nice, Organ week (well really more synth these days, so please no comments) and trannie week reprise, this is where I came in..

Again emphasizing the fact that I am not one for overstatement or any form of hyperbole, Friday I am off to Teignmouth to see the first of the 'home coming' gigs by *undoubtedly* the greatest most talented rock band in the world if not the universe, MUSE.

Watch this space.