A busy 7 days

This past week has somewhat felt like I've been on tour with some rock 'n roll band. Truth be told its been far less exciting (let alone glamours) but it has been a bloody long week. It has only been a couple of trips to and from Melbourne, but it has taken its toll.

One of those two trips didn't really finish till 5am last Tuesday night (okay well into Wednesday morning) myself and a couple of mates went down to the midnight screening of Transformers 3: Dark Of The Moon (has Pink Floyd copyrighted one of those words??) The movie itself was okay. But i'll get to that later (this is sound very How I Met Your Mother right now.....)

The first leg of my long week begins at 8:15 or 8:20 I was probably a little late for work. We had to end up going over to Tatura which is about a 30 minute drive, the day was going along quite well till about 3pm when the shit hit the fan. Pretty much our whole days work was destoryed by some dodgy equipment. GREAT! It was actually one of the worst days I've had at this job, but there was nothing we could really do about the whole situation, except....start again, or come home! Thankfully, we came back to the office. I'll admit to being pretty annoyed after I got home, had quick shower, packed a little and mum dropped me off at my mates place. But it was all quickly forgotten about once we were on the road. 

The two hour drive to Melbourne is much better when you aren't driving solo. Navigating Kelv around the city kept me busy (and took a few years off my life) We did manage to only stuff up one turn, and even that wasn't such a big deal. We arrived alive, we are definitely better than Tiger Airways. Quick dinner at Gril'd, went for a round of bowling and before you could spell Megatron it was 11pm, and we were on our way to IMAX.

Much happier this time around the cinema has introduced reserved seating. Much better than last time, when it was a bit of a free-for-all, controlled chaos, but it meant rocking up at 10am to line up, rather than 11:30, buy your Popcorn ect and then queue for the better part of two hours trying to secure a spot not in the first half doezn rows. I'll skip a complete review of the movie because thats not what this entry is mainly about. But here's a snippet:

 The first one is always gonna remain my favourite I think. The second one has some good transformer scenes, but the script is basically shithouse. However the third and possibly (maybe hopefully) final installment from Micheal Bay was a massive improvement over #2. Some of it annoyed me greatly, but there is a new U2 song in there, even that was strange the track does not appear on the soundtrack but gets more airtime than some of the actual tracks on the soundtrack. These movies are turning into some sort of clusterfuck. I would love to hear a studio version of "North Star".

At the end of the day its just giant robots blowing shit up, whats not to love?

Finally the movie concludes at about 2:45am, said farewell to my mates traveling back to Shepparton, into another car and out to Melbourne's eastern suburbs.  The fiance is on night shift was "mummysitting" (with out explaining too much, because that's not my place..she's unwell) So she's at least half awake when I roll into bed about 3:45am, its well after 5 when I truly roll off to sleep and 11 when i'm awoken. Pretty much wasting the rest of the day, I'm back on another train at 4:45 in the afternoon, then on route back to Shepp at 6:30pm.

On the train ride home I am occampained by my iPad, and I watch "Unknown" with Liam Neeson, January Jones et al, its okay. Not really my cuppa tea in the end, the story shifts a bit too much. Home by 9:15 (what timezit in the world?) There is no dinner. Great. I'll attempt to cook macaroni myself, it turns out already, not my finest work. The rest of the week is pretty busy at work but its not long before finding myself on another train at 4ish in the arvo on Friday headed back to Melbourne.

For this train trip I'm greeted by Gran Turino to watch on the iPad, which I pretty much love from start to finish, one of the best movies I've ever seen, will definitely be buying this one on blu-ray eventually. So that kills most of the train trip, and I finally look out the window only to see North Melbourne station, festival hall and we have arrived, brilliant!  I meet up with a few people I know from Interference, whom I haven't really caught up with since the Tim Finn gig back in February. God, that was the last concert I'd been too! I suck. It's good to catch up, and we once again (for me at least) have Gril'd again for dinner. (Convinced myself to try something different though.)

The rest of the weekend went by fairly quick. There wasn't a hell of a lot of sleep had, we went over to visit family who lived about 20 minutes from Nicoles place, that was about as eventful as things got. The weather was too miserable otherwise, for Sunday at least. Wet and miserable. Was no soon back onto the second last train I hope to see for a few weeks back into the city, the Shepparton train looked like it might have been a little bit delayed as the PA announcement told us there was a "technical problem" but we ended up leaving pretty much on time. Home again jigaty jig, no dinner again, out to the supermarket again, a lovely microwave meal filled the void. Back to work Monday.

So that's my story of the last seven days. I hope things are a bit quieter for the next week.

U2 : 2011-06-01 - Edmonton, Alberta - Live Setlist

Sorry I'm late. The Canucks and the Stanley cup finals had my full attention this morning.

U2 have just taken the stage. Surprise surprise in the setlist so far. Things may get a little boring tonight, as there is no stream going around at the moment. Hopefully there's one around eventually. We've reached about 60 minutes into the show, not looking good for a stream.

2011-06-01 -Edmonton

~Space Oddity Intro~


01. Even Better Than The Real Thing 

02. I Will Follow

03. Get On Your Boots 

04. Magnificent

05. Mysterious Ways 

06. Elevation 

07. Until The End Of The World

08. All I Want Is You

09. Stay (Faraway, So Close!)

10. Beautiful Day

11. Pride (In The Name Of Love)

12. Miss Sarajevo

13. Zooropa (Fuck yeah!!)

14. City Of Blinding Lights

15. Vertigo

16. Crazy Tonight

17. Sunday Bloody Sunday

18. Scarlet

19. Walk On

20. One / Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (Snippet)
21. Where The Streets Have No Name

Its that time of the night again.....

I guess not....


22. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me 
23. With Or Without You
24. Moment Of Surrender

Thats a rap we are all done in Edmonton, U2 have hit the snooze button on changing the setlist at all. Hopefully they change things up in Anahiem. 

Hopefully will be doing the set from Seattle too, GO CANUCKS!

 

U2 : 2011-05-29 - Winnipeg - Canad Inns Stadium

"Thats It, Back to Winnipeg!"

I'm Bored. At work. So I shall be posting the setlist LIVE! (maybe) Today. Yay. 

U2's Crew need to improve their proof reading.

Le Fray are currently on stage. I hope all the U2-ers in Winnipeg brought their tomatoes.


8:52pm Winnipeg (11:52 Melbourne Time) The Fray are well and truly done in Winnipeg. U2 should be on in about 10 minutes. Shall be interesting to see if they play any of the rehearsed material from the previous nights private rehearsals. (Plenty of Achtung Baby stuff, The Fly,  Love Is Blindness ect.) 

8:59pm (11:59) - GROUND CONTROL TO MAJOR TOM! ....its show time in the world.


We're Underway at Winnipeg. 

2011-05-29 - Canad Inns Stadium - Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

01. Even Better Than The Real Thing  

02. I Will Follow 

03. Get On Your Boots

04. Magnificent  

05. Mysterious Ways / Snippet?

06. Elevation  

07. Until The End Of The World / Where Have All The Flowers Gone (Snippet)

08. All I Want Is You

09. Stay (Faraway So Close)

10. Beautiful Day / Heart Of Gold (Snippet)

11. Pride (In The Name Of Love)

12. Miss Sarajevo
13. Zooropa (FUCK YEAH!!! - Zooropa represent!)
14. City Of Blinding Lights  (Friggin' Cobbler!)

15. Vertigo / You Aint Seen Nothing Yet (Snippet)

16. Crazy Tonight / Discotheque (Snippet) / Please (Snippet) / Life During Wartime (Snippet) / Psycho Killer (Snippet)
17. Sunday Bloody Sunday
18. Scarlet   
19. Walk On / You'll Never Walk Alone (Snippet)

20. One / Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (Snippet) 
21. Where The Streets Have No Name 

We Wish.

22.  Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me (not Friggin' Batman!)
23.  With Or Without You 

All Over from Winnipeg! I think this is only the second or third show not to feature Moment Of Surrender on the 360 Tour.  I know how WINEPEG feels because the same thing happened at Brisbane II last year. Just doesn't feel right, bloody curfews! Looks like we've got a pretty locked away setlist for the rest of the tour. Maybe we'll get some extra Achtung Baby stuff as the leg progresses, then there is of course Glastonbury coming up as well.

Hope to see you in Edmonton in a few days. 

Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi - Rome

I vow to try and keep blogs regular, and well if its over a month I've probably abandoned this page. Alas, this entry is one day short of a month apart from the previous entry.


I've gotta say, I've never listened to anything Danger mouse has done, that is of course without knowing he was involved most of the stuff I've listened to before (Gorillaz ect) This album also features some artists I enjoy in Jack White and Norah Jones. Both of whom appear on three tracks (good one Jack, keeping it in the three)

Rome starts of feeling very Pink Floydy The first two tracks feel like you could be listening to "Dark Side Of The Moon" I also picked up similar feelings throughout the album which occurs mostly during the instrumental songs. The album is "inspired by spaghetti westerns" which is definitley noticeable. When I read that, I immediatly thought out muse's "knights of cydonia" just on slow motion.


My favourite tracks are pretty much all the Jack White ones ("The Rose With The Broken Neck", "Two Against One"  (the lead "single") and "The World", Norah Jones provides some good vocals as well. Her stand out track is clearly "Black" which is probably the second best tune on the album.Actually as soon as I was about to post the entry "Problem Queen" came on, and its another very good song as well.  

For an album that apparently took 5 years to make its very short, clocking in at little over 35 minutes, not that quanitiy = quality or anything I'm just making the observation it seems that most artists are realising the average person who listens to music these days has a less attention span than my pet fish. (and I'm no exception)


There's some catchy shit on this album. Finally something that's a little shiny in whats been a terrible year for music so far. A perfect album for walking the city on a cold winters evening, or as I used it last night to put me to sleep....er....that's supposed to be in a positive way. Probably not the album to be listening to driving down the highway late at night.

This album is hard to rate, I mean as I say there is some real good stuff there, and I've only been listening to it on repeat for the first 3 hours of work this morning but there is nothing that really, really stands out above the rest. Definitely check out "Black" (with Norah Jones) and "Two Against One" (with Jack White) and I dare say if you enjoy either of those tunes, might as well grab the rest of the album. It still goes to show that anything Jack White is involved in, is still worth listening too. As for you Danger Mouse, I'll have to check out some of your other work (and maybe even a new U2 album in the not too distant future!)

I'll give it 6.5 out of 10.

AFL Live - A Brief Review (PS3 Edition)

Howdy Folks, here is what we have a very short and non-too-detailed review of the new AFL Game that's been out since yesterday on the PS3. (Or Friday if you were lucky enough to live in Western Australia)

First of all, the last AFL game that was released was all the way back in 2007. The last AFL game I probably played was 2004. In comparison those games were crap. The best AFL games ever made were AFL 98 and 99. Thanks to a little bit of help from EA Sports.

 

However AFL live makes a pretty good claim at taking the crown from those EA released games. Last night I spent about 4 hours playing, after a bloody long day at work, followed by another 3.5 hours of Tafe. So I was pretty tried, but excited about having a crack at this game.

Here's a little list of pros and cons that I have thought about after playing the game so far. 

Pros:

* An AFL game for the next gen console, at last.

* Gameplay is excellent. I think its going to always be a challenging game. Previous AFL games were pretty simple to master (even on the harder difficulties) after a couple of matches, I get the feeling that whilst you may be able to dominate some games easily, it won't always be the case. 

* Momentum is huge! Just like in real life. We had a few games last night where our team was cruising 3-4 goals in front before the opposition scored a quick goal  and suddnely got on a roll and started to dominate. We still squeezed home by 4 points in the end, with some good defense. But that situation is very true to life.

Cons

* Graphics. Aren't terrible, aren't awesome. For a game made on a shoestring budget its probably a little unfair to criticise the graphics of this game. However at the same time its an improvement over the older games, where all the plays looked pretty much the same, the only difference was their number on the back of the jersey (obviousness)

* Commentary TERRIBLE! As excepted, if there is one thing that has never improved since AFL '98 its the commentary. Don't get me wrong, commentary in sports games can get stale over time, (NBA 2k11 fans know of the "spurt-ability is what I call it" line that the special comments guy uses pretty much at the start of every fourth period.) AFL live gets stale after about 30 minutes of play.

* Lack of a Career mode, VFL ect. The Wii version has both of these, and it baffles me why the consoles (not sure on the PC version) miss out.  There is a promise that next year's game (if it gets made) will have career mode across the board, I hope so.

* A few stupid little glitches that aren't game destroying or anything, just niggling little issues. For instance a smothered kick can go about 50 meters in the opposite direction (not very realistic)

At the end of the day, I'm just happy to have an AFL Game on the PS3. One that isn't infact complete rubbish. It'll never be as fluid as say FIFA, but its getting there, and a pretty accurate representation of the real thing (except my first game saw North Melbourne absoultley demolish Collingwood (hardly realistic)

Can't wait to play it some more! 

Back to Etihad Round 2 - Collingwood Vs North Melbourne

Okay this is going to be short and sweet, didn't exactly take notes at this match. In reality, after about 25 minutes of play, there was not a lot to talk about anyway.

Its been a big day already, and its not yet 2:10. We have just finished a stop over at eastland shopping center, on route to the footy via Werribee. why Werribee you ask? AFL Live is on the PS3 is being demoed there from 10am till 2pm, and we htave to be at the footy by 2:10 for kickoff. To be honest, I'm not really sure which I'm more excited about, the chance of seeing my Pies finally beat both my mates side, "Norf" or the game. (I think it was the game)

No a nice decent 45 minute trip, probably closer to an hour actually from Ringwood to Werribee, all for a good 20 minute hit out at EB games at Werribee's big shopping center. Fun times. One game I played with three randoms, we were Essendon, they were Gold Coast, Nathan Ablett dominated, the next game my two mates got in on the act it was Pies Vs "Norf". Norf won, convincingly, it's going to take a little while longer to master this AFL game than any previous one, it seems. With part one of the AFL day done, we then set sail for Etihad Stadium, which wasn't a bad drive in, consider that one of the lanes on the west gate was down (which I think has been the case for the 6 years I have driven over it!) 

The start was even, North had a few advances forward, but to no avail. The pies dominated possession by applying early pressure, it seems the hunger in the 2011 magpies was even greater than that of 2010. Maybe it was men against boys, which it most certainly was, North Melbourne have been rebuilding since about 2007, and haven't had much success since they were smashed by Port Adelaide by 10+ goals in a Preliminary final, Port then were smashed by 100+ in the most lob sided grand final since Lleyton Hewitt wiped the floor vs a young David Nalbandian. Before anyone knows it, the pies are clear by 3 goals and it looks like they have about 10 extra players on the field, man as fan this is great to watch. The umpiring is pretty ordinary during the start, for both sides. A couple of frees against north in their attacking area that probably weren't there, North are unable to convert from close in front, missing shots in the run, for set shots and just about any way possible. The Pies are up 5.5 to 1.4 at quarter time.

The second quarter is when you can just about declare the game over. North kick a terrible 1.5. Collingwood capitalise when it matters, only outscoring north with 4.3 but the goal from turnovers count is rising. 

The second half was all Collingwood, a bit of a demolition job in fact. 12.9 to 5.5 in the last two quarters, assured the Magpies of comfortable win. 

Votes for this week.

1. Cloke - 5 goals STRAIGHT! okay a few that went out of bounds, but still.
2. Pendlebury 39 touches, 1 goal. Silky smooth.
3. Swan 40 touches, ball magnet. leather poisoning whatever stupid term you'd like to use, this guy was everywhere.

My mates could only sit and watch, and say what I used to say about Geelong when they destroyed us in a Preliminary final in 2009, "Geez they are good" No offense, but the Pies haven't exactly ran into any world beaters yet. Carlton this Friday night should be an interesting one, the blue are up and coming, still maybe missing a big forward, but you never know in Collingwood V Carlton games. I've only seen two wins in probably 15 years of going to Pies V Blues games, and both of those came last year. Usually we'd either get smashed, or as it happend in 2004, 25 points up and 3 quarter time, Leon Davis boots the first goal of the final term, 31 points clear, and then chillax, and LOST! I remember countless beltings against those Blues in the 90's

Which is why it will be only so sweet to unveil the flag against the old enemy this Friday night!

Its Off To Etihad we Go - Round 1 -- Collingwood Vs Port Adelaide

Its off to Eithad we go. Or I go.


Wow. where did the last 6 months go? Footy is back already! All that "I''m going to watch the grand final 100 times on DVD over summer, yeah, never did happen. Its been a long hot summer (hardly) and now we are under the cover of etihad stadium...except the roof is actually open, strange. I think this is one of the first AFL games I've been to when the roof is open. The place is chaotic to say the least, and I haven't ventured to this stadium since two faithful nights in early December of last year. The queue for subway almost resembles the U2 general admission line up about 6 hours before the show, okay a slight over exaggeration, I'm bloody starving!


I'm pretty confident the Pies will get up today. But its round 1 and its always a little tricky to predict. Port have now officially a new coach, and 2011 is a whole new year. Pre Match, I'm tipping the Pies by 4-5 goals. Leon Davis is a late scratching (this does not effect my tip) whom has been battling an illness all week, and is replaced in the side by Brent Mcaffer. Last time Davis missed a game, we managed to smah the saints in the first week of October. Maybe that's some sort of weird omen. New Year, new story, lets see how we go!


Port hold the Pies down for the first couple of minutes in the opening term. Before Blair and Jolly convert a couple of goals. Almost as quick as Collingwood jumped to an early lead, Port Adelaide have pegged things back, and the game is again all square. Harry O looks like he's still on summer holidays for the first 20 minutes, before he pounces on a terrible kickin from the Power, and scores a long bomb goal from on the 50, trademark Harry O! Heath Shaw takes a great mark running back with the flight, to which the crowd applauds loudly. Port are holding strong early on though. Its not till late in the term when the pies break away with a decent lead. Dane Swan converts from an on the run goal and the Pies take a 3 goal lead into quarter time. 6.1 aint bad kicking compared with last year!

The first twenty or so minutes of the third term were much like the opening 3-4 minutes of the opening stanza. However this time the Power are able to capitalize. Port Adelaide manage to score 6 goals to 1. The magpies defence was very undisciplined, gave away some silly free kicks and leaked a couple of goals. My mum interrupts me at this point. She offers me some jam doughnuts. I knew she was at the game, but she has come down from her seat on level two, unannounced.  We talk a little about the game, how Taz is playing (she's glad he's back, I'm still not sold) I tell her Harry O has his mind back in Brazil on holidays and better bring it to the game against the Kangaroos next week. Arrangements to get home are made, and then unmade. Meanwhile, while all this chatter is going on Port Adelaide are attempting a comeback. Westoff boots truly, he's been accurate all day. All of a sudden 24 minutes into the third term the Power are only 16 points behind. Enter Andrew Krakouer who sells a bit of candy, then kicks a snap shot come drop punt come banana goal that seems to reignite the pies. Dawes converts from directly infront, Beams from on the run, Cloke again with a set shot on about a 45 degree angle. Just as they managed to do in the NAB cup final when challenged, the Pies have steadied, the upset of this very young season as been put on hold. While Harry O is still on vacation, the pies lead 114-72 at three-quarter time.


The final term is played out in more of the style of the second quarter. Collingwood largely dominate possession. and put a big impact onto the scoreboard (more accurate kicking included!) Simon Buckley (ah its good to be saying "Bucks!" again at the footy) takes the cake for goal of the quarter with a big goal from just inside the center square. The game was already lost, but the small amount of traveling Port supporters stay till the bitter end. Pies fans who have basically written off our team as "Duds" for twenty minutes in the third term, are back on the bandwagon (heck even the umpires were getting praise, momentarily.) Big H (Harry O'Brien) has had a pretty average game (if you can't tell) he fumbled alot and I guess it is only round 1, he is not alone over the course of the weekend. Krakouer has had a fantastic cameo appearance is the first official magpie to be subbed off in AFL history. Brent Mcaffer strolls onto the ground and scores a goal, less than a minute after he has been on. I can see the term 'super-sub' being used a lot this season.



FINAL SCORE:
Collingwood 24.11.155
Port Power 12.8.80


A disappointing turn out, considering this match was the only game on in Melbounre for the day. 35,700 or thereabouts. I guess with an interstate team with a small fanbase didn't help much, however with the Pies having 60,000+ members, I would have thought there would have easily been 40,000 turn up. 


Votes:
1. Blair - "The little man!" - 3 goals, a lot of good stuff from him. 
2. Swan - plenty of touches as always, the guy sitting next to me's supercoach captain, and also 3 goals
3. Dawes - had a great game, 4 goals and a few good marks. Good presence up forward.




Moving forward to next week. I'm never confident against North Melbourne. Worse thing, is a coupe of my mates are coming with me (whom are North fans) and I don't think the Pies have ever won when they have come.

NHL '11 BE A GM : Canucks #1 :A Shaky Start

Thought for today: Why are long weekends never long enough?

Last Monday I decided after giving the game a few test runs at a mates place, to purchase NHL 11 on the PS3. The game arrived on Thursday and I haven't seen much daylight since. I'll try and keep a bit of a nerderiffic story up about this. The game has really eaten into time I possibly should be spending on NBA 2k11, Killzone 3 or you know...normal life.

My team of choice is the Vancouver Canucks. Before I get flamed by choosing one of the best teams in the league, currently. Before I chose them, I had no friggin idea. I'm 23 addictive games into my first season as Vancouver GM. So here's a little back-story. I would normally, be default go to the team from Boston, as I also support the Boston Celtics in the NBA. Once again I'm not on the bandwagon...well maybe. But I always used to play as the Celtics way way back in the days of NBA Jam on Super Nintendo.

The Canucks pre-season started poorly. Losing every pre-season game in OT. Bar one. Which was lost after 2 periods. It was through inablity to score goals, more so the inablity to play defense. The story was about to change as the real season began. The canucks opened up the season with a two game home stand. Both games were won. The first with a goal with little remaining  in OT, the second; a big win over Florida. Another win in OT came against the Ducks. After a nice little 3-0 run, a three game winning streak came to a sudden halt, and the team hasn't really been able to get back into top gear since. Consistent form could not be found with an eventual 3 game losing streak the team has struggled with a 50% winning percentage to date.

23 games into the season, coming off a big win over Calgary (5-3) The Canucks are sitting 11-11-1. Theres still time to find our feet. Some  good trades, and some better defense will certainly improve the Cancuks chances. My next entry will hopefully show a little more in deatil of matches i've played. I'll update some trades I've made. I'll keep doing this for as long as I can be botherd, so it might all come to a grinding half at some point.

Slow Line On The Horizon

This is going to be a quick on the fly, not really drafted or thought about.... Its more so just to let everybody know that I'm still maintaing the blog!.....and finally, something non-Charlie sheen related!

No Line On The Horizon is the 12th album released by a little rock and roll band out of the little country of Ireland ....U2. I love this album to pieces now (maybe not every piece)But it took a hell of a long time.....(and the album release, as well....humph)

 

I must admit it took my several listens before I fell for NLOTH. I knew “Get On Your Boots” and had been playing it over and over, not quite as much I’ll admit as I was playing a 10 second snippet of Vertigo recorded off the radio in late 2004. But enough. I liked the song, but it was sort of sounding more of the same. Elevation Part III or Vertigo part II....but still with a good rockin tune. 

I still couldn’t wait for the album to be either released, or since we are living in 2009 (or so we were at the time) to leak online. Our U2 Christmases did come early, and straight after work...or maybe I even downloaded it AT Work  (It has been done before) 4 years of U2’s blood sweat and tears had been downloaded in about 2 and half minutes. 

The exact number of listens before I er “got” NLOTH I couldn’t tell you. But I could be sure it was about 2-3 months after release where everything seemed to fall into place. It’s a wonderful feeling. (It’s a musical journey) Which I think it why the album didn’t do well in a commercial sense. Look at the first 5 tracks. Its a little over 27 minutes before you reach the “hit single” ...which it wasn’t really a hit at all but anyway.  The average Joe-Music fan’s listening attention time these days is probably about 3 minutes. 3:30 would be pushing it...and don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with that at all....I just think that there is your one simple answer as to why No Line On The Horizon tanked big time. (Ok not really big time....you can have a look on Wikipedia that it still ranked very well...but it didn’t have the strong sales worldwide of its predecessor HTDAAB or even ATYCLB...but hey, the industry has changed just a little bit since 2000.) It takes nearly half an hour to get up to some “easy to get into” rock and roll tunes. HTDAAB? Vertigo. Bam. Straight off the bat, here we go!. I didn’t like this approach by U2 at first. But like I’ve been saying, it grew on me.

I heard a few of the songs live from be it bootlegs or television....the awesomeness that is "the claw" and the 360 degree world tour. The songs had taken a whole different live in the live setting. Just look at "Crazy Tonight" I personally already liked the studio version from the early days of listening....but in the live setting, its an absolute fucking monster! But I think that not always but most of the time is the case for a lot of U2 songs. from what is just rubbish on the studio "Elevation" to the really cruddy production of "All Because Of You" (ouch my ears, especially at the very beginning)...those are just two examples, I mean how much better are those songs live? I'm getting a little off track. 

By the time the 360 tour started, I'd completely gotten into NLOTH. I knew all the words, If they were Tori songs, they'd be my new best friends. Magnificent is classic U2 stadium anthem, with plenty of doubt its my favourite track on the whole CD. The only song that I've still not had interest in to this day is "White As Snow". I'm sorry, but for some reason this little quiet song about a solider dying in Afghanistan (thanks wikipedia) doesn't belong. Its NLOTH's "Peace On Earth" except its really out of place. All is not lost, I know people who love the track, and can't stand songs like "Stand Up Comedy" (which eh, I don't mind.) 

In summing up, to the average music fan, nobody is going to be able to digest and love this album from the very start. It takes time. You have to wonder if it was released by a young up-and-coming band dressed in hipster clothing, and not a bunch of old blokes in their 50's who no longer sport mullets or afro's, would this album have been better received around the world? The tour has certainly been received very well, which goes to show the brand that is U2 is still as strong as ever.

Radiohead - In Limbows

Hi Peoples,

Okay. So for this entry I'm going to post a little bit of a review on Radiohead's New album "The King Of Limbs" (aka In Limbos, cause ya know...who can tell the difference.) When I say review I'm probably not going to go into too much detail. Like anything Radiohead put out these days, it takes a little while to digest. I also apoligise for some of the shitty formatting that might take place, I wrote this in Notepad, and went through and quickly fixed  up fingers crossed.

I was at some point in time, in the past, a massive Radiohead fan. It all started with the first three albums which I would always listen to on high rotation ("Pablo Honey", "The Bends", which isstill one of favourite albums ever. and "OK Computer") So you can probably see where this review is going, by the time I got around to listen to Kid A, this was a totally different band, and I didn't, and still haven't found it as easy to love.I can't say I rarely care for "Amnesiac" and "Hail To The Theif" But that as they say, is another story!

Radiohead won me back a little bit with "In Rainbows" The album isn't the second coming of christ, but its a "15-step" back in the right direcion, in terms of the Radiohead I used to love. King of Limbs is a little bit of a step in the wrong direction, but not all is lost.

We Begin.....

As I write this review on my lunch break at work, someone has decided to cut up concrete on the street. Awesome timing. Its more annoying than the sound of Thom Yorke's voice (at times...)

"Bloom" kicks us off. On first listen, I had really disliked this track, I did love the little piano intro, that was cool. It has grown on me a little bit, but like quite a few of the bands "new direction" (since Kid A) for me, some of the songs go nowhere at all. Bloom kinda gets off the ground towards the end, a solid start to the album however.

"Good Morning, Mr. Magpie" is next, and the whole band are...er.."in bloom" here. This is a good track, but I again find it going nowhere. Radiohead certainly aren't a band that I expect to be lifted off the ground on EVERY TRACK. I'm just saying.

"Little By Little" is third, after my first listen, this was by far my favourite song. I found myselfbopping along in the wee hours (about 4am on a Saturday morning). The album hits lift off. Away we go right?

Maybe.

"Feral" is next....hmmm. Okay, In my opinon the album was just starting to get into the groove. "Little By Little was the "Reckoner" of this album, and I felt we were going somewhere....eh. Feral is a really really crap version of the song "Mofo" by U2. Thats the best way to describe it, it sounds a little similar to the studio version of mofo, but man I think it stinks, honestly.

Not that Radiohead release singles or anything like that...but err the first "Single" (lets use that  term as lossley as possible) from TKOL is "Lotus Flower" I didn't really appericate the song on first listen, but have come to love it after a few spins. (Is it still leagal to use the term "spins" when I don't often use Cd's or Records anymore?) Anywho, this song takes off from the business "Little By Little" started. Its got a great grove, the lyrics and Thom's voice are listenable. Maybe they didn't list this track start after Little, because they are quiet a like. (I'm sure if you dig deep and some radiohead die hard will demand I define every possible meaning to this track, but meh) The Song runs for 5:00 exactly, and is possibly the best five minutes on the album, Its the Radiohead of the 2000's running at full tilt.

Ah More piano-ey stuff. "Codex" follows as we start to get to the latter end of the album. I'm starting to like this song more with each listen also (I don't mean to sound like a broken record.) Its a really good tune, at any chance could its a wonder it hasn't ended up on anything Thom Yorke as done solo. It sounds like a really good chill out tune. A real grower also.

Huzzah! The annoying sounds of concrete being destroyed outside have stopped!


Birds, we have reached "Unknown Caller" Acoustic Guitar! we have reached "Give Up The Ghost"  This along with Codex and the final track "Separator" bring the chilled out feel to close out the album. While I wouldn't rate the other two tracks as high as I would Codex, they work very well to bring the album to a close. Or does it?

The conspiracy theories are out already, the lyrics in Separator are "If you think this over, you're wrong" It leaves me a little anxious as to see whats going to happen when the physical release of the album happens.

All in all, the album may only run for just under 38 minutes, but any longer and I think it would lose everything it has going for itself. IMO its not too long, not too short, lenghth wise, its just right. Its the style that still doesn't wanna make me grab my balls and say "FUCK YEH! RADIOHEAD RULES" but its a decent album. In Rainbows was going to be hard to follow up, and they've done a good job. For me, it lacks straight up "rock" songs that 90's Radiohead, and theres nothing really wrong with that they will still always have a massive following, its just something I don't "get", heck I'll follow Tori Amos to the grave (had to get a mention in) but I think you either get "it" or you don't....and thats the way some music will always be.

To your average music Joe this really is just any other album release by a band you may have heard your best friend mention. To the die hards this way very well be your Sgt Peppers, or the continuous sound of a few Englishmen who chopped down their Joshua Tree in 2000.

Bring back at least a rocking guitar tune. Otherwise a very good album to chill out to 

6.5/10.

R.I.P - The White Stripes

Before I start here, I'll admit that I am two weeks late with this post. But for this entry I'll be talking about the white stripes, their breakup, and how their music kinda changed my world.

Honestly, I knew of the White Stripes for a long time before I actually became a fan. I probably didn't catch onto them properly until early 2006, when I was introduced to Last.FM and "Elephant" To put things more into perspective I'm a massive U2 fan. U2 dominated my music listening from November 2001 till sometime in 2006 when I set foot into a whole new world. Yeah I owned a U2 iPod, and it thats exactly what it was, It would have been rare to find something else actually on it! So Enter 2006, with a whole new world of music early on I discovered a small band from england (Muse)  and one of my good friends from high school recommends I finally give the white stripes a proper listen. 

I already knew "Seven Nation Army" (but who didn't at the stage) It was the anthem for just about everything, and one of the only stripes songs I've heard on commercial radio in Australia. (if not the only) "Black Math" is classic stripes. Straight up rock n' roll. But before this turns into an album review...my mind is getting blown away by this awesome new style of music I'm hearing for the first time. I'm a little hazy on what happens next but, I'm pretty sure I race out and buy the rest of their albums (back in the days where one would do such a thing, nowdays I'd probably look for a torrent of the discography) "White Blood Cells" is probably my favourite album after going through and listening to everything (multiple times) My next purchase is, at the time, the white stripes only concert dvd. ("Under Blackpool Lights") Wow. Jaw dropping stuff, I love this DVD. The White Stripes are one of those bands who sound amazing enough on the CD, but when it goes into the live setting, everything goes up a couple of notches, and something amazing happens. They never wrote setlists for shows, it was more just walk out and open with this, throw in that oh and lets play this as well. 

That's enough a reason to me. A band that would get sick and probably kill themselves if they played the same boring setlist night after night. Tori Amos, Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen are among others who would be in the same boat. . I missed out on seeing them live and I will probably never get the privilege to do so.  Come the end of 2006 my musical tastes are still flying all over the shop, I start to give the stripes a little less airtime in favour of other new and old interests. (Muse were absouletly massive for about a 12 month stretch following the release of ("Black holes and revelations")

The White Stripes returned in June 2007 with the release of "Icky Thump" the title track of the same name signaled a return to the bands early garage-ey rock sounds. Once again the stripes captured my attention, and I was again hooked. I had my fingers crossed for a tour of Australia, which never happened due to Meg coming down with an axietey disorder, cancelling a few shows and the band never really performed live, again. Unless you count an appearance on the Conan O'Brien show before he finished his run at the tonight show.

There was definitley something special when Jack and Meg made music, they'd lock themseleves in the studio for two weeks and produce something amazing, and as good or even better than bands that spend 2-3 years on making a record. Their music was never over the top, or even groundbreaking really, it was simple in your face bluesy rock and roll. I still disagree that Meg isn't a good drummer. Maybe she wouldn't make a great drummer in a different band, but that is what the white stripes were all about, keep it simple. 

So I'm definitely going to miss my favourite "brother and sister" Detroit two piece. I actually don't believe they will record/tour together again, perhaps a one off performance here and there, but never what it was once like. I only say this because thats the way Jack is. He has always stated that this band was something that wouldn't last forever, and maybe they knew it was time. My onlt regret is, never seeing them live.

I got a letter this morning, what do you reckon it read? It said the band you love is dead. 

At least we will always have the music.

Weekend Happenings...

Hey Folks,

Hope you all had a good weekend. I had a pretty standard weekend. Trip to Melbourne to visit Fiancé's family, among a few other small adventrues.

Friday after work is always a rush when a trip to Melbourne is ahead. Even though I've been doing these trips to Melbourne (most weekends) for the better part of 4 years now, It doesn't get any easier packing and tidying up my room to hopefully make sure I get no unwanted intruders during the weekend. All of this whilst trying to unwind from what was a pretty busy week at work. But we got into gear, leaving Shepp by about 7 and we were off....Or well not quite.

Mum need a lift into town and I agreed to drive her in. About 2 kilmoters into the drive she asks "Are you still going to see Tim Finn this weekend?" ..."Oh shit"..."I left the bloody ticket at home, thanks mum". I was pretty lucky she reminded me. Otherwise I'd have been two hours away, and no ticket. Probably just would have purchased a new one at the gate. Anywho, we turn around, I get my ticket and we are now OFFICIALLY off. Stopping for dinner (Maccas & KFC, oh so classy!) and arrive at Nicole's place well and truly later than either of us wanted to be.

Saturday night I went to see Tim Finn. (Tum Funn) at the Corner hotel. It was my first time ever at a gig at the corner hotel, quite a nice little venue, one I wish to hopefully venture to again in the near future. I didn't really know the support acts that well (I forget the first guy) but he was pretty good....good acoustic guitar stuff, kinda up my alley. The second band ("The Chemists") totally sounded like someone dropped a brick on the lead singers foot during the second song (this would go on to happen in at least every second song in their set) The drummer guy who also played keyboard was only coordinanted enough to play the one note while slamming down the bass drum. It was pretty funny. Perhaps my standards are too high :P

So the opening acts started at 9, and were both done by 10:45, giving us 15 minutes before Tum Funn arrived on stage, strangely, right on time at 11pm! He was only scheduled to play till Midnight, but went through till 12:30ish. setlist avaliable here . All in all a great night, was good to catch up with some folks from the Interfernce forums, whom I haven't seen since U2 were downunder.

Got back out to croydon hills by about 1:45, where I was unable to get in the door..as my key is sometimes a bit strange, I sat at the door for about 5 minutes trying to get the prick of a thing to open and had no success, so I gave up...didn't want to wake anyone up as it was about 2am, and decided to sleep in the back of my car. Okay, so that sounds crazy ....and it was a pretty cold night, but I suruvived. I'm going to give 'bear' from man vs wild a fair old run now. But it was one of those stupid moments where I should have just gone and woken someone up, but eh...I survivied.

***now pause for a montage of times I've slept in a car***

Happy now? It was only one other time, by the way. Which was when Mum and I queued up for all night for U2 tickets before the Vertigo tour came downunder in December 2005. I had my drivers license test the next day and barely passed due to lack of awakeness.

Onto Sunday, well I awoke out of my car at about 6:30 and re-tried to get into the house, with still no successs, thanks to nicoles mum who was hopefully already awake let me in, and couldn't believe I'd actually spent the night in my car. (I would still like to point out at this stage I WAS FINE! and had not been rapped by a pack of wild St.Kilda players or anything, no.

The rest of the day I pretty much spent in bed or in a car. We went up Mt.Dandenong, well not all the way up...I can't remember the name of the town we stopped at, but had nice woodfire pizza for lunch. Back to shepp by about 10pm last night. Still haven't totally unpacked or tidyed up my new room from my 'room swap' we had last week with my sister, I'll get to it one day....hopefully.

This evening is apparently Valentines day, and my fiance and I are having a terribly romantic re-heated roast from last night, before she goes off to gym. I might settle in for some PS3 or a Blu-Ray/DVD of some kind. Ah, like sands through an hourglass!

Well harrow Blogspot

Firstly introductions out of the way,

My name is Daniel. I like music, movies, playstation, my friends...and I love my fiance.

Likelyhood is I'll keep this blog updated regularly for a while, before I forget about it. I used to run a journal on live-journal until I reckon that site has become totally rubbish. So we shall see how we go.

I have no real aim about what to talk about and stuff, so topics will be pretty random and mostly about whats going down in life. Hoping to get my act together and post some Music reviews...maybe talk about some gaming, sports stuff....nothing greatly out of the ordinary.

I have recently completed a bit of a tour of Australia following U2 around (Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney) So I'll try and post a bit about that, perhaps to kick off the next topic.

Till next time....