Here we are then on November the fifth (Bonfire Night tonight), and I'm trying to avoid mentioning that specific time of the year coming up...
Yes, my birthday is three weeks from today, and I will be on a week of holiday time then!
So, I've actually been off since Saturday, and today is Thursday, and I am happy that I will have done a few things with the time off, but am also peeved that I didn't get any visiting in.
Please don't take it badly though when I say that visiting pales into insignificance somewhat when compared to my Tuesday night! You will understand why as you read on! The title is a clue!
Let me see how my aging (44 years worth for the next few weeks) memory recall works shall we?
Hmm, Saturday?
I'm not really sure about Saturday... I think that me and Louise might have stayed in and had a lazy day of watching films and bits on the telly. Something we will have to find more time for as there are two DVDs needing to be watched from our Amazon Prime membership (what was LoveFilm before the Amazon people bought them out - now we gets unlimited DVD rentals, free online streaming, and free postage on Amazon orders for the price of what we had with LoveFilm).
Sunday was a trip to Rufford Park, where we inevitably got our cameras out. Louise accidentally deleted all of her photographs by selecting the wrong option so, because I love her, we went again on the Monday. On the Monday, as I parked up at Rufford Park, the handbrake came all the way up too quickly - I suspected then that the brake cable had stretched - an assumption proved later when we parked back up near home and I had to leave the car in gear. I had better get that sorted, when I can get out of bed early enough!
So, I've explained Sunday and Monday there then - quick work made of that hey!
Monday night however was a pain. Because of that brake problem and the fact that the car had the clutch bracket weld-fixed recently, I was very worried about my duties as "taxi driver" for the Tuesday night happening. The worries were also that I had no idea where I was picking these people up from, and would only find out on Tuesday morning by contacting them on Facebook. I could not sleep for the life of me! I eventually got out of bed and looked up a variety of things that might help me out, such as road maps to Manchester, the BBC news 24 channel, and other stuff like that, whilst also trying to calm myself down.
I eventually dropped off a bit after 5 I think, and then I woke up around 10. I found out where and when we were meeting up - a lovely village near to Worksop, which I reached by getting off the A1 at Blyth. Pick up at 4.30. My friend Skid said that I should follow him, as I could not find my satnav for love or money, as per usual! When I don't need it I seem to find it! Next time I find it accidentally, I'm taking it straight to the car and leaving it in the boot!
I decided to go back to bed for some sleep, and woke up at about two o'clock in the afternoon. At that point I quickly got a shower, and all of that malarkey, went out to Morrison's for some food bits, and just about had time to eat a slice of quiche and have a drink before leaving for the meet up.
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| I know, the picture gives it all away! |
From there we drove to pick up the two people I was taking, Richard and, oh heck I'm sorry, was it Claire? I feel awful forgetting now! Then we drove to a garage in Anston (up the road from the Butterfly Park that me and Louise have been to a couple of times), where both I and Skid filled up our cars for the journey. Skid was taking his sister Michelle, his brother Jeff, and their mate Rob (who I remember from the days when Skid owned the Frog & Nightgown pub in Worksop).
The traffic getting to Manchester was horrendous, and it ended up taking about two and a half hours to get there! The doors were opening at six o'clock for a concert where the main act was Motley Crue, supported by Alice Cooper! I was so excited to say the least!
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| The legend that is Alice Cooper! |
I first heard Motley Crue when my friend David Cooper had bought their second album Shout At The Devil in 1983. The other day I thought it was their debut album Too Fast For Love, but realised that it was later than 1981. It's shocking to think that it was so long ago now, but life is a passage of time isn't it!
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| Alice with one of his snakes! |
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| More from the Alice Cooper performance |
I'd always wanted to see Motley Crue live, but it remained one of those pie in the sky things! I'd also always fancied seeing Alice Cooper live. Me and my friend Andy both got hold of a live concert DVD of Alice Cooper live, and it was incredible with all of the theatricality and everything going on!
So, the tickets said 6pm for the doors opening, and we turned up a little after 7pm. Not great at all. I like to be early for concerts when I go to them, but what they hey!
During the time between booking the tickets and the concert itself, poor Michelle had unfortunately broken her leg, so we had to go to the help desk in the venue first and see if we could get her into seating somewhere, as she had a standing only ticket. The back up was for us to swap tickets, as by the time I was able to sort out tickets on the Ticketmaster site, there were only seats available - I had been trying from the moment that they became available! It took me two hours to sort my ticket out!
As it turned out though, Michelle was reassigned to what is called The White Room, which was a VIP area at the Manchester Arena. As luck turned out, that meant that me and Michelle technically swapped tickets, and I got the standing area as opposed to my seat.
Alice Cooper had just finished performing the classic eighties rock song Poison as we were about to go in. However, we still caught, erm, seven of his songs I think it was, and it was amazing! His band were absolutely red hot, and his voice was in incredible shape! The drama and theatricality was far better live than on a DVD, obviously. Alice seemingly had his head chopped off on a guillotine, was experimented on to create a giant Alice monster along the lines of Frankenstein (for Feed My Frankenstein surprisingly), School's Out was fabulous - an absolute classic of a song, and Alice's escape from the strait jacket was great as well. Fabulous performance, great staging, wonderful drama - an amazing showman! A concert of that would have been a night to remember on it's own, but this night was going to be even more special! |
| Nikki Sixx above the audience! *not taken by me - I did take a photo, but can't find it!* |
Lead singer Vince Neil was on fantastic form, his voice was perfect throughout, and his repartee with the audience was so good! An absolute star, as they all were. Mick Mars on guitar was a legend. His playing was astonishing, especially for a live performance, mesmerizing. Nikki Sixx was also amazing to watch. I get fed up of the whole thing that a lot of high brow bassists seem to have against metal and most rock bass players! They play what is needed for the songs! Also, in Nikki's case, he writes the majority of their songs anyway.
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| Tommy Lee on his roller-coaster drum kit - LEGEND!!! |
There was a roller-coaster type of structure set up to go from where his drums were on the stage and over everybody in the audience along the middle of the arena to around three-quarters of the way towards the back of the auditorium. It is rises and falls in the structure, and the gimble it was on rotated over a full 360 degrees, so that at times he was playing whilst it was upside down!
Of course he was strapped onto the drum chair, so that he couldn't fall off, and it was absolutely beyond words! So cool, and so Tommy Lee!!! It was breathtaking to watch him perform his drum solo section like that. I caught two minutes and 51 seconds of footage before my phone memory ran out - thank you Apple for not giving it's users a way to expand the memory on there with a memory card slot!
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| Vince (vocal) and Tommy (piano) - intimate stage for Home Sweet Home. |
The bit where Nikki and Vince both went onto separate lifts to go over the audience was amazing as well, made even more so by Nikki stopping a few feet above our heads, whereupon he three a number of plectrums towards us. Skid picked the four of them up, kept one for himself, and gave me, Jeff, and Rob one each - amazing! Something that I will treasure forever!!! He looked incredible on there, and it just added to the whole incredible show that they put on!
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| Nikki Sixx on the small intimate stage for Home Sweet Home. |
An absolutely amazing concert!
After that I went to customer service to get my ticket back, as they take the ticket away from you and give you a wrist thing to stop you from leaving the venue and trying to resell your ticket. Strange... Everywhere else just rips the stub off the tickets. Oh well, I got a standing ticket back, but I'm not completely sure if it is the exact same one!
I was hoping to get a group photograph of all of us together, but it didn't happen! A shame... I'm looking at future concerts for us to attend together!
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| Mick Mars, Motley Crue guitarist (gigwise.com) |
*now continuing to write on the 6th of November*
We started making our way back, once again with me following Skid, the man with the SatNav!
It was funny in a way, because once again I was moving lanes in anticipation based on what Richard at the side of me was saying, during the times when he hadn't dropped off! This time though, Skid was having problems with his SatNav losing signal. We went around that much that I joked about being peeved at us not seeing Coronation Street while we were there because we had seen so much of Manchester! We hadn't really - I was exaggerating!
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| Motley Crue (gigwise.com) |
Richard suggested that we carry on, as we were only a few minutes or so away from his place. I moved off and pulled up to the side of Skid, whereupon Richard explained everything. We all said our goodbyes. I'd have liked time to try and get a picture at Skid's, but it was very late - due to the fog we took it easier, so I dropped them off a little before 2am I suppose, and I carried on, stopping at McDonald's on the exit for Retford for a coffee to keep me going that little bit further - a freebie with one of my many tokens filled with stickers!
I came off at the junction for Newark, but found that the roundabout that led to had the Newark exit blocked off - thank you Highways Agency for such wonderful signs to warn us drivers of these things! I got off the A1 later, eventually reaching home a little before 3am I think it was. I was thinking 4am, but that can't be right!
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| Alice Cooper (gigwise.com) |
I was greeted with a cup of tea and some peanut butter sandwiches. Eventually I dropped off at some time around five I think, but was woken by the doorbell at a quarter to ten in the morning - our ex-neighbour who had accidentally left the wrong address on some eBay orders, which explained the parcels that had been arriving! Oh well, I was awake now! Once I am woken, I have almost no chance of getting back to sleep, especially where we live in the dead centre of town!
I got breakfast and made both myself and Louise a cup of tea (one each of course, not a shared cup).
I was doing some internet stuff on my phone, catching up with the responses to the photographs and videos that I had posted on Social Media, as well as seeing what everyone else was saying!
Whilst I was at the concert with Skid, we had discussed something about shutter speeds on cameras, so I mentioned it to Louise, and then we thought about going to Rufford Park again - well, why not?!?!?! It's close, not too tiring really, so it would be okay with the little sleep that I had!
More photographs were taken, but I personally didn't capture what I wanted to. Great Tits were still too flaming fast at getting bits of food from the feeding tables, and flying birds were still a relative pain to photograph!
After that we went home and watched a few bits and pieces, and we eventually went to bed.
Thursday the 6th of November saw us going to see the Ballet Theatre UK production of The Snow Queen at the Palace Theatre in Newark-on-Trent - about five minutes walk from us, if not less in fact!
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| Me dressed up for the ballet |
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| My sweetheart just after the ballet at the Palace Theatre in Newark. |
The performance by the group from Hinkley in Leicestershire was once again outstanding. They had chosen some great pieces of music to tell the story with, and the performance was beautiful!
Another lovely night out. We are both surprised that a photograph of us there got an amazing amount of likes on the internet, but that's social network for you. Something that Louise doesn't like very much, but here was a case where she didn't mind the picture going online. I am a social network junkie to a certain degree, and am irritated that I don't get more of a chance to partake of it.
Anyway, that is basically my time off.
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| Me and my sweetheart at the Palace Theatre in Newark. |
Here I am at work now on the Friday day shift after being awake since Thursday morning. Luckily it isn't a driving shift, or I an may other perhaps, would be dead from my falling asleep at the wheel! As it happens, I haven't dropped off yet, but I do seem to have an incredibly short fuse that I'm finding difficult to rein in, and there are other issues related to sleep deprivation affecting me such as stomach problems, slowness, a pounding head, and more!
I will see if I can catch a very few z's when I get home!
Anyway, that's one heck of a trawl you've done there reading all of that!
Thank you for reading, and please take care.
Friday November 6th 2015, (44 years, 11 months, and 11 days old).
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