katie writes stuff

I heard Frank play this song live for the first time tonight, and I stood on a chair and I danced, singing along through happy tears, for my stepdad.

I just really want to point out the awesomeness of this song today.

You're not as messed up as you think you are
You self-absorption makes you messier
Just settle down and you will feel a whole lot better
Deep down you're just like everybody else.
[...]
So why are you sat at home?
You're not designed to be alone
You just got used to saying "no"
So get up and get down and get outside
Cos it's a lovely sunny day
But you hide yourself away
You've only got yourself to blame
Get up and get down and get outside

And of course I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous, the last five verses of which do the same thing, but today, RNTBAI came on as I walked home in the sunshine and it is so perfect for how I'm feeling right now.

♥

We got back from the Seth Lakeman/Levellers gig about an hour ago. It was great, though they played a few songs I didn't recognise and only three that I was really hoping for. Seth Lakeman was also really good, and played both the songs I wanted :)

I'm not too sure on the set lists this time, as I couldn't always make out what was being said between songs. Still, if my guesses are accurate:

Seth opened with a song from his new album which I think he said was Hearts and Minds, and then Preacher's Ghost. After that, one of the ones I was hoping for, King and Country, followed by Solomon Brown, Changes and then the second of the two I was hoping for, Setting of the Sun. Finally, The Watchman, The Riflemen of War, Jar of Hearts, Ye Mariners All, Poor Man's Heaven and Kitty Jay. For his encore, he played Race to be King.

The Levellers didn't introduce any of their songs, so I'm somewhat relying on the lyrics I could make out and Google. I think they opened with No Change and I didn't recognise the next two after that, but from there we had:

1. Beautiful Day <3333
2. World's Gone Away
3. Too Real
4. (Another song I didn't know well enough to catch the name of.)
5. One Way
6. Boatman 
7. World Freak Show
8. Carry Me
9. Barrel of a Gun
10. The Cholera Well
11. (Encore) What You Know

The people in front of us looked round mid-way through One Way and grinned at me, presumably because I knew all the words and singing along loudly, and we started dancing together - it was awesome :)
I was really hoping that they would play some of my other favourites (Hope Street, Sell Out, Fifteen Years, Another Man's Cause and Belaruse, to name just a few...) as well, but it was a good set anyway.

Tomorrow is Cambridge and Regina Spektor, yay! <3

Photography by auntsarentgents/LightCapturePaper; Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0.

I went to see Tori Amos with Alison at the Manchester Apollo tonight. It was right up there in the list of Best Nights Ever :-)

We had brilliant seats, and the entire concert hall was alive with energy. She played lots of oldies, and I spent most of the gig slouched in my seat with my eyes closed, just listened. It was bliss. I didn't know all the songs, and her voice is so radically different live that a few of them were nearly unrecognisable, but those I got were Caught a Lite Sneeze, Cornflake Girl, Icicle, Spacedog, Northern Lad, Mother, The Power of Orange Knickers and Precious Things, along with an encore: a song I didn't know and Tear in Your Hand.

I picked up a shirt with a pointillist picture of Tori and the lyrics "by the time you're 25, they will say you've gone and blown it / by the time you're 35, I must confide, you will have blown them all". We wanted to get our tickets signed as well, but she escaped out of a different exit and we didn't get to meet her.

In other news, someone at University of Warwick has designed an ecological Formula 3 car. It's steered by carrots, made from potatoes, runs on waste chocolate and can do 125mph around corners. I'm amazed. I mean, there's such a thing as waste chocolate?

Last night was the best night ever. I was right near the front, in the centre, close enough to see the beads of sweat on James Dean Bradfield's forehead.

They played two brilliant sets — first, the new album, Journal for Plague Lovers, in its entirety, and then a bunch of old favourites, kicking off with Motorcycle Emptiness, and then

• Your Love Alone Is Not Enough
• No Surface All Feeling
• You Love Us
• Tsunami
• La Tristesse Durera
• Faster
• If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
• Little Baby Nothing
• Australia
• You Stole The Sun From My Heart
• Sorrow 16
• Motown Junk
• Everything Must Go

...and then they finished by playing A Design For Life, with JDB holding out his mic to get the audience to sing. Of course, most of the audience, myself included, had sung along to every single song from both sets anyway, but this one, it was just us singing.

After the gig ended, I headed back towards London Bridge (via Marine Ices, of course) to catch the last train, where I bumped into Topper (of the bolognaise/lasagne dilemma fame) and just as he was telling me about his personal game, Friday Night at London Bridge Bingo, involving many varieties of drunken people, we saw a zombie — not on his list of Things To Spot, apparently. Once on the train, I have vague recollections of hearing someone cry "fucking Muggles!" at other passengers, but I have no idea why.

Now on the coach home, feeling fantastic but knackered; I had a bit of a rush to get from nanaya and alextiefling's place in SE7 to Victoria in a little over an hour this morning. I made it, just, and collapsed into my seat with 2 minutes until departure. Now speeding along the motorway somewhere near Watford with air con blasting in my face, yay. Praying fervently for a stop at a services somewhere, as otherwise, it's a nonstop journey to Stockport, and I'm dying for a drink of water.

...k, passing out now.