Magnum, Newcastle Academy, Sunday 25th October 2009

Ah, Magnum. Bless 'em - they drew the short straw. Out of all of the gigs I've been to, theirs could hardly have been less conveniently placed. They chose to play Newcastle on the day the clocks went back, so I bet everyone was tired after having their body clock all screwed up. Personally, I'd had a really horrible, depressing week beforehand, and I wasn't feeling too well either. But there's no cure for the blues quite like a rock concert, is there?

I was pissed off to wake up far too early with a really sore throat. I wanted a shower but I couldn't stand to go for one feeling the way I felt, so I went downstairs and saw Amy for a bit, eating Cornflakes and drinking vanilla green tea to help my throat. We flicked through the previous day's papers and played some Magnum through my laptop before I decided I was awake and well enough to go for my shower.

I'd been thinking my outfit through for a while, and now it was time to put it on - nice blue pants, a black bra, socks patterned with heart-shaped Union flags, light blue skinny jeans, black Stonehenge shirt (Spinal Tap), black jacket and boxing boots. I squirted on lots of Emporio Armani Diamonds to make myself smell good enough to eat.

Dad had been for a bike ride, and he returned while me and Amy were lazing around downstairs. I needed to go to the supermarket and he said he'd take me, so I waited for him to get changed, donned my black trilby, and we headed out to Tesco in the Fiat.I needed cash, primarily - and the two cash machines were out of order. This completely messed up the second thing I needed - Magnum ice creams. Dad put them in the basket with lunch, and I still owe him the money for them … Stiggy and I had spent a long time choosing which ones we wanted, eventually settling on some posh ones full of chocolate, chocolate ice cream and chocolate brownie bits. They were on offer, too. Bonus!

Because we both still needed cash, we stopped at the Co-Op on the way home. I withdrew £30 to be safe.When we got home, Dad started lunch and I went upstairs to check my deviantArt messages. I managed to answer about half of them before lunch was ready - a dangerous mistake! It's either all or none, or they build up more, I find.The leek and potato soup we had soothed my throat well. I also drank one of those paracetamol drinks you make with a sachet of powder and hot water because I don't take tablets, but I felt rubbish enough to not want to feel rubbish any more. When we were done eating, I set about getting ready. This involved filling my pockets with all the necessary items - camera, spare batteries, earplugs, phone, cash, debit card, house key, tickets and, for some reason, the set list on a little piece of paper. (Yes, I looked at the set list. I'm not proud of myself, but I'm glad I did it, for reasons I will reveal later on in the story.) Dad left before we did to go for a walk somewhere with Charlotte, so he gave me another £20 for stuff for Amy and said goodbye. He seemed in a really good mood, which is always nice, especially when it's Dad. And especially when he's picking us up from a gig …

Ready way too early, I spent quite a lot of time playing solitaire and freecell on my laptop before I decided I couldn't stand it any more. We set off at quarter to two: we were meeting at two. It takes around five minutes to get there.

"There's no going back now," Amy said to me, as we walked away from the house, "If we don't know any songs, we'll just have to not know them." Or something like that, anyway.

Of course, we arrived a bit early so we sat down to wait, Magnums in hand. We played Magnum songs on our phones, and I opened the Magnum box. Each ice cream was in its own separate silver box … dead posh!

Stiggy arrived not long afterwards, so we went and paid for our tickets and sat on the platform. £11.25 for me and Amy - not as bad as I'd expected it to be! Because the train wasn't until twenty five past two, we had a bit of waiting to do. Amy and I practised our 'Bob Catley dance' - hard to describe, but watch just about any live Magnum video and the BDC will become clear. I caught my reflection in one of the shiny advert signs and realised my bottom half looked kind of like 80s Bob Catley.

The weather was miserable, eventually raining and driving us into the shelter. My throat was getting sore again - the boxed Magnum in my hand was growing more and more tempting. I decided to just have a tiny bit. Before I knew it, I was scoffing the whole thing. It was heavenly. And because Stiggy got 'food envy' she started hers too, making me feel less guilty. Amy was good. She waited.

When the train arrived, it was absolutely packed, despite being one of those epically long ones. We had a quick search for three seats somewhere near each other with no success, so we ended up standing in one of those connecty bits. Still eating our Magnums … Amy got started on hers. We were all excited, giggly and rather loud; much to the annoyance, I suppose, of the other poor people who had been reduced to standing. When we reached Darlington, Amy reckoned enough people would get off to allow us to find a seat. By this point, I'd finished my Magnum, as had Stiggy: but neither of us wanted to throw away our posh boxes! We took them with us as we searched for seats. Still, we couldn't find three together, but we were so bored of standing that we just squished onto two seats, me in the middle. I tried to fit the Magnum tickets into the Magnum box, but they were too big so I made do with putting my train ticket in there instead. Amy, in true graphics-student form, deconstructed hers to see how it fitted together. A woman who worked on the train passed us, and asked if we had any rubbish. We probably looked retarded, saying we didn't whilst playing with rubbish!

To my irritation, nobody checked our tickets! We could have ridden for free, and used the extra money for Magnum-related stuff!

The train terminated at Newcastle, meaning everyone got off. It was a huge train, and therefore somewhat hectic - this one man who passed us caught my attention, though. He was wearing a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt that I swear he got free with an offer Classic Rock did.

Consequently, the train station suddenly filled up. Plus, we'd arrived on a platform quite far from the door. We struggled our way through the crowds, trying to make our way out. As we walked, I realised I had a bit of a problem. A problem so horrific I really can't write it here, and so horrible that I could not sort it out in public. I simply struggled with it.

Having decided the Academy management probably wouldn't allow our Magnum boxes into the gig, we chucked them away (sadly) and carried on up the street. It was cold, and windy - I kept a firm hold on my trilby as we trekked up to Beatdown Records. I was in quite a bit of pain by this point …

A visit to Beatdown always cheers me up, though. We'd been worried it'd be shut, but we were OK. We had 'til four. Having discovered the Vinyl Room on the day of the Skindred gig, Stiggy and I lead the way to show Amy. The lady we met last time was there again! She didn't recognise me at first, but after a few minutes she asked if we'd been in the shop before. I explained that me and Stiggy were indeed the girls from three Sundays ago - only this time we'd lost a Laura and acquired an Amy. She asked if we hadn't managed to convert Laura so I explained that this was a different kind of band really, and she didn't know much about them.

I could honestly spend hours and hours in that place. We chatted to the woman and browsed through records, unfortunately unable to buy any of them due to the upcoming concert. The cool thing about this shop, though, is that if you like the look of something you can put it on the turntable and play it. Much to Amy's irritation I played the Blockbuster! single. I wanted it so much … and Wig Wam Bam… Amy said afterwards that she'd wanted to put on the W.A.S.P. picture disc of Animal (F*ck Like a Beast), but had been worried about the bad language. I knew the woman in there wouldn't've minded - Laura had asked her about that sort of thing last time before recommending Steel Panther's album Feel the Steel to her.

She loved our accents, too. I called Roger Daltrey a 'little beauteh' and she commented on what I'd said. I'd said I was flattered, even though I'd been exaggerating my accent … she was from Glasgow, I think. I was gutted - after last time, Laura hadn't noticed an accent at all, I'd thought she was Irish, and Stiggy had thought she was Scottish. She was right … and I was wrong! Damn!

At about ten to four, we said goodbye and had a quick browse around the CDs. Sweet FA had gone but there were a couple of other Sweet CDs left that I drooled over, including Desolation Boulevard, before we left. The man in this part of the shop was shutting everything off, and he smiled at us as we walked out - Stiggy and I both liked him. I mean, come on! He had nice long hair …

I was reminded of my discomfort as we strolled into the city centre. Of course we still wouldn't be able to buy anything, but we love Newcastle so much that we could spend a long time simply looking. We discussed our Newcastle- and Geordie-love as we went. Of course, HMV was our first stop. Lots more Sweet to add to my music wish list … I tried not to look too hard in case I found something I so desperately wanted that I started screaming, but I had a quick dabble around the Metal section, tutted at the availability of Sonisphere t-shirts outside of Sonisphere festival, and flicked through Brian Johnson's book Rockers and Rollers. I hadn't even realised it was out yet. That's definitely going on the Christmas list …

I was kind of hoping we'd bump into the Maiden boys from the Skindred gig. Apparently they lived in Newcastle, but we had no luck.

We made our way back through Eldon Square shopping centre and to the Gate; the tall, magical entertainment complex full of various restaurants, movie quotes, and reliable toilets. Finally, I got to sort out my problem… ew. It was horrible. I won't be wearing those pants with those jeans again in a hurry …

With just over two hours until doors, we decided we might as well eat. We were hungry - I'll remind you that it felt like nearly six to us, instead of nearly five. After withdrawing an extra tenner from a Northern Rock cash machine, we went to Burger King right over the road from the Academy. I just had a chicken burger, Stiggy a bean burger meal and Amy a chicken burger meal, I think. We settled at the table with the best view of the Academy.

Hanging round on the steps outside was a bunch of teenage boys, one of which looked a lot like the blonde Maiden boy who had talked to me at Skindred. As I ate I kept a close eye on them. They appeared to be dancing. Strange …There were quite a few random songs playing in Burger King. Stiggy commented that it felt like we were in a 50s diner, and it sort of did.It was dark outside. Far too early - I felt shattered. Not ideal for a rock concert.

We finished eating a lot sooner than we'd expected. Now what to do? Most places were closed, or closing - it was a Sunday, after all. We tried to hang around for as much as possible, but when I noticed Possible Maiden Boy leaving, I insisted we went out to follow him. The weather was colder and more miserable outside.

PMB came back the other way, and passed us. Up close, I wasn't so sure it was him.

With nothing else left to do, we headed towards the Life Centre to loiter … until it started properly raining! The only shelter was to the side of the main square, sat on these big, curvy ledges that you'd slide off if you weren't careful. Dark, chilly, but dry. Stiggy got freaked out by a spider, so I sat between her and it.

There then followed forty-five minutes to an hour of random conversation as we waited for the rain to stop, which it didn't. By six it had calmed down somewhat, so we decided we'd go to the loo one last time before joining the queue. We wanted good places.

Unfortunately, we'd planned to go back into Burger King. And Burger King was shut.

As we waited to cross the road, though, one of the lads from the steps approached us.

"Excuse me, would one of yous dance with us?" he asked, in an accent that could've been Geordie or Irish, I'm not sure.

I thought quickly, laughing, "Well, we're just off to the bog, so you don't really want to dance with us," I informed him.

He saw that as fair enough, and returned to his friends. No hard feelings, then! I felt I did well - I didn't want to dance with random strangers, but I didn't want to make enemies of random strangers either. We laughed about it all the way to the Gate, where we made our second and final trip to the bathroom. Stiggy used a lot of this valuable time to hide her bag under her jacket. It took so long because she kept reckoning she looked fat. Honestly - she complains so much about girls, but then she totally is one. When we'd assured her she looked fine, we made our way back to queue.

There were only a few people there already, and there were two gigs on - Sonic Boom Six were upstairs - so it was likely some of them would be queuing for that. Especially the ones in Sonic Boom Six shirts. And then a couple in front of us left, so we moved even closer to the front.

We'd expected to be pretty much the only teenagers at Magnum, and so far, we'd been proven right. Any teens in the queue were clearly Sonic Boom Six fans - the people turning up to Magnum were mostly middle-aged male rockers, some with their partners. Most of these partners looked like rockers too; a few, however, were dressed up all smart. ? Really? To a rock concert?

I checked out some of the Magnum t-shirts that the men were wearing. They were really arty and nice. I looked forward to buying my own, predicting that it would have Into the Valley of the Moonking album art on it.

I contemplated whether or not to buy a battered Mars Bar from a nearby fast food shop. I'd planned on it and I'd been looking forward to it - now, however, I didn't see the point. I still wasn't feeling 100% and I didn't think I'd enjoy it that much.

We chatted about different bands and rock stars as we waited, playing songs on our phones. Amy talked about her W.A.S.P. excitement; Stiggy talked about her Saxon excitement. Aw, gigs are so awesome.

A woman came down the queue with leaflets for a club's Hallowe'en do. I got three by mistake.At seven, the doors opened. We filtered in gradually - it was a mark of just how "popular" Magnum are that several people bought their tickets there and then, at the box office. We were directed around these people to have our own checked, and we were in!

We went up one flight of stairs, but where the Sonic Boom Six fans continued going up, we got our tickets checked once more and got through another door, thus arriving at the main stage. Dead quiet so far - we were among the first in, after all - so after a quick glance at the t-shirt stall we ran to the front, arriving on the barrier, slightly to the right. Get in! First time on the barrier for a real band, and not just a cover/tribute act! Not that there was a great deal of competition for this prize position - we actually seemed to be attracting stares for the fuss we made. Most people were content to hang about, chilling and having drinks. And the barrier took its time to fill up.

Stiggy ruled that it would be better to buy a shirt after the show, but I was set on getting mine straight away so I didn't have to worry about it later. After instructing Amy to keep my place, I dashed back across the floor and up the steps into the bar area where the shirts were being sold. There were three types - a men's shirt with the Into the Valley of the Moonking cover on the front, a women's shirt with the word 'Magnum' on a pretty pinky-purpley cloudy thingy, and a sports style shirt. The man in the queue in front of me bought the men's one - he held it up to reveal the tour dates on the back, making my decision for me. I asked the woman for a small. Apparently the smallest they did was a medium! What? Did slim people not like Magnum?

Fortunately, I'm tall. Therefore I can just about pull off a medium men's shirt. I bought it and rushed back to the barrier.

Of course, in my absence the other barrier-dwellers had made themselves a bit more comfortable, meaning my space was now restricted. I gave Amy £20 and she ran too.

Where there had been a man to my left, there was now a young woman. She was wearing some sort of pass around her neck and carrying a digital camera.

"Have you listened to the support band on MySpace?" she asked me.

I told her I hadn't. I never do - what's the point with support bands? They rarely don't suck. Besides, the best way to judge a band is to see them live. She agreed with this, at least - she explained that she worked with the band, who were called Decadenze, and that they sounded way better live.

Amy returned with the girly shirt - no tour dates, but to be fair she would have drowned in the other one.

I got out my earplugs, ready for the support band. I've started wearing them recently because sometimes I feel like my hearing isn't as it should be, and other people agree … they're actually quite good. It's not that I don't like loud rock, but they cut out a lot of the static so the sound quality improves. However, stupidly, I dropped one on the floor at the other side of the barrier.

I could have done with them too. The choice of music was terrible, mostly miserable American wannabe-metal bands who sound like they're being forced to make rubbish music as opposed to doing it because it's awesome to play in a band. I remember hearing Stone Sour with Through the Glass. The songs played a lot like the track list of a free CD I got with one of the first ever issues of Classic Rock I bought. A couple of them had singers that sounded like Geddy Lee, but I'm pretty confident that they weren't.

A couple just down the barrier from us were acting nauseatingly mushy. The woman was leaning back on the barrier with her forehead pressed to her husband's; both of them had their eyes shut and just stood like that for ages. I mean - what? Is a Magnum concert really the time and place for slushy (sick) behaviour?

It didn't help that I was still tired out. I draped my shirt and leaflets over the barrier (which, incidentally, would fall off twice during the show. Gigs sound funny from the floor. I ended up leaving the leaflets, though…) and rested my head on them.

After what seemed like ages, Decadenze took the stage. Five men who go to the same barber and stylist - the hair was all slightly longer than the average man's, and clearly had had too much effort put into it, and every single member was wearing all black. The singer even had black nail varnish.

God knows why they were supporting Magnum. They neither looked nor sounded like Magnum fans, their music loud, shouty and generic. You know the sort I mean - so many new bands who never get further than being support acts share the same sound.

Where are all the decent bands?

I don't know what you think, but I've noticed that nowadays, anyone can sing for a band. The world is buzzing with all these new musicians - perhaps inspired by and spawned from certain guitar-based games - who can really play. Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of talented drummers, bassists and guitarists around. But in this frenzy of instrumental excitement, people seem to have forgotten that bands need frontmen in order to flourish. And an arrogant arsehole who can just about carry a tune with his bland voice does not constitute a front man, despite what Decadenze think. This country has churned out some outstanding rock frontmen - has our supply really run down so fast?

Not that any of this matters. Because not even Hendrix could make a good live show out of such mediocre song writing. I mean, what is the use of having good musicians when your songs are - let's be blunt here - shit? That is another thing emerging bands tend to do wrong. Songs lack the attention-grabbing riffs needed to hold the interest of a rock crowd. Their songs just sort of happen. They start, they end. There's no substance, no structure - merely a lot of noise. If I could give bands like this one piece of advice, it would be to sort out their influences. Do their homework - the last century is full of legendary groups of all forms of rock who indeed made a lot of noise, but made it well.

Overall, Decadenze played a set full off that amateurish bull that only a support band could (just) get away with.

As if to add extra disgust, the areshole singer spat water everywhere. He was good at spitting, I'll give him that. Stiggy, Amy and I all got sprayed. Repulsed, Amy folded her arms and glared at the end of their set as everyone else applauded. For some reason, this prompted the singer to throw her his wristband. I didn't see it, but she deliberately didn't catch it, and it fell behind the barrier.

I was left wondering why Magnum had allowed such a terrible support band as Decadenze left the stage. It amazed me that the woman who'd been next to me hadn't been the only one singing along - a few of the older guys had looked like they were enjoying themselves too. They'd clearly been MySpacing … down with the kids or what? Despite the fact that the only other "kids" I'd seen, besides us, were two young lads just behind us. Man, are Magnum cool …

Venting our frustration, we bitched about Decadenze. The woman next to me left and was replaced by the original man. I told Amy who she worked for, much to her disgust. A roadie patrolling the space behind the barrier picked up the dropped wristband, and gave it to me. Fair enough … if they ever do get slightly bigger I can flog it, I guess.

This wait was horrible. We were all worn out and it felt like almost ten at night despite it not even being nine yet. I crossed my fingers at the end of every song, but nothing happened for a while. The man beside me said something that I didn't catch.One of these songs, I think, actually was Rush this time! The Big Money. That was more like it.Waiting …

Zzzzzzz …

"This is it," Amy said after a while, when quiet fell, "I can feel it."

Nope, she was wrong. Another song started up. Damn! What time was it? Just gone nine. Where the bloody hell were Magnum?

Luckily, they weren't far away.

After another song or two, the lights went from being red to pretty much non-existent as the Intro from Into the Valley of the Moonking began to play. I always forget how atmospheric concert openings are. I love them. I got my camera and began to film …

The lights came on again, dark blue this time, with little twinkling white dots dancing on the backdrop of the stage. I'd wondered why there were no pictures or anything there … Amy told me to turn round, and when I did, a beautiful sight met my eyes. Above all the dimly lit faces of the crowd, stars were swirling around on the balcony in the same deep blue light. It would have made a fantastic photo, but sadly I was still filming.

"MAGNUM!" bellowed a couple of blokes near us, dominating the whole crowd. Not for the first time, either.

One by one the band, aided by torchlight, made their way on. My concert nerves had only been slight this time - practise makes perfect, eh? But now they were eradicated completely. Amy's favourite, Mark Stanway the keyboard player … Stiggy's favourite, Tony Clarkin the guitar player … where was "mine"? Where was Bob? ( The 'mine' is in inverted commas because Amy reckons I fancy him. I don't. Really.)

Ah. I caught a glimpse of a cloud of fluffy hair just off-stage. There he was.

But when he came on just before he had to start singing, I got the shock of my life.

He looked so old. He was sixty two, granted, but something about him seemed way older. His once-blonde hair was white and his face, although the same as always, looked weary and worn. I was amazed to see how tiny he was too - shorter than the others by far, and the white shirt he was wearing swamped him.

He still had his voice, though, launching into Cry to Yourself, the song that follows the Intro (which can be a slight irritation when your mp3 player's on shuffle). I looked for the features I'd found on Amy's Live in London DVD and found that his dancing, though not quite the BCD of old, wasn't far off. He moves more now, where he used to stand pretty still. And he was still as strange as he always has been!

We were in a fantastic position for photos. I got loads and loads.They followed with my favourite song from the new album Take Me to the Edge. This one's a bit heavier, making it easier to 'get into'. And Bob looked down and gave Amy a little wave! I thought I might've imagined it, but I asked afterwards and she said she was sure of it as well. Cool!

Remember near the beginning I said, with regard to Magnum's set list, '…for reasons I will reveal later on in the story'? Well, now it's time to reveal them.Magnum appear to be one of those bands who, when they tour a new album, they tour it. Not quite as epically as Iron Maiden on the A Matter of Life and Death, tour, but the majority of the material they played came from the last few albums as opposed to the classic Magnum era and thereabouts. This was why I was glad to have taken a look at the set list - most of the Magnum I know is old, so knowing the newer songs they were going to play, I did my homework and played them on You Tube a few times. It sucks not knowing songs at gigs.

Brand New Morning was one of these songs. While singing along to the chorus, I took more photos on the bits I was shaky on.

Bob introduced the next song. I can't remember exactly how word-wise, but he was holding a little pot thing about the size of a shot glass. It had things inside it - my first thought was pills, but when Bob sprinkled the contents everywhere we discovered it was glitter! Aw, pretty. One of the evil venue security men came strode over to check it out, like it was something suspicious. Luckily, he seemed satisfied that it was merely perfectly innocent glitter.

Anyway, the song was The Moonking. No prizes for guessing which album that came from. And although it was well performed, it was the lights that really stole the show here - a huge, realistic full moon materialised on the backdrop. The lights throughout the show really were beautiful. And from the front row, it didn't even feel like we were in the dark at all.

My least familiar song next, When We Were Young. Cheesily, it got me thinking about Magnum then and Magnum now. Mainly, however, I concentrated on my photos.

I knew the next song - No One Knows His Name. Although I sang along more to the music than the words, because there are some pretty little keyboard bits in the chorus that I really love.

Bob is a very dramatic front man. He never stops moving his arms, almost acting out the words of the songs. And the fan at the front of the stage was a great help, blowing his hair all over the place.

More pretty melodies and more pretty lights with Dragons Are Real. Although Bob didn't sing some of the higher notes in the chorus the song wasn't really affected. I need to buy Princess Alice and the Broken Arrow now, even if it's just for this one track. It's so magical it sort of sweeps you in.

There followed a chilled-out from ITVOTM; A Face in the Crowd. Extremely relevant to the couple of thousand faces in that crowd that night, gazing up at Magnum in all their coloured-lit, pretty-songed glory.

We All Run presented a bit more of a beat, if a slow, steady one. It's hard to clap along, though, when you're rammed in on the barrier.

I wanted arms-in-the-air space for the next song, too, so I made use of the empty gap between the stage and the barrier. Les Morts Dansant, French for 'the dancing dead'. This was more like it: classic Magnum from my favourite Magnum album, On a Storyteller's Night. Quite a deep epic of sorts, it puts across the horrors of war. I made a short video, not wanting to spend this whole song holding my camera steady.

As it was possibly my most familiar song of the show, I could judge it better as a live performance, and it was spot on. Bob got really 'into' it, and it gave an atmosphere that I'm sure everyone could feel. The two "MAGNUM!" blokes kept filling in words in the chorus, even when they didn't have to:

"What a night though it's one of seven…"

"SEVEN!"

They were actually pretty funny …

At the end of the song, Bob apologised, I think, for getting emotional.They turned upbeat again for the happy All My Bridges, lifting spirits all around. Followed by another 'all' song (they seem to have a few) All England's Eyes. Yes - another oldie! I shone. I'm such an old man at heart. I had a lot of fun during this tune.

And then - another oldie! Get in! The title track from their Vigilante album, which I'd just bought Stiggy on vinyl for her birthday. Not that Bob really said the word very much: he started with "Vigi-" and we'd finish "-Lante!"

They seemed to be going out on some heavy tracks after Les Morts Dansant. Yes, going out. After Vigilante Bob said goodbye, and they exited stage left. But obviously, we weren't going to leave. After all, how many bands don't do encores?We stood around cheering and whistling for a bit. A couple of smattered-around chants of "Magnum! Magnum!" started up, but no one seemed to be able to keep in time with one another so we reverted to the general cheering.

According to Guitar Hero, you're not supposed to write your encore on your set list, because then your fans will know you planned it. Makes sense - encores are meant to be earned.

So why do bands write their encores on their set lists? I could see one on the stage. There were two songs written at the end, and two lines down from the rest.Sure enough, Magnum returned, much to our delight. The lights turned a fiery reddy-orange as they began the creepy intro to Don't Wake the Lion. Bob kept moving his fan, and leaning over it to cool down.I don't know this song very well, but it was very effective live - the music and lights combined made for a brilliant show, and I spent quite a lot of time concentrating on taking photos - mainly of Bob, but also of Tony and Alan, the bass player.

The final song came after this lengthy epic - Kingdom of Madness. Everyone knows this song. (By 'everyone', I mean among Magnum fans, of course…) It drew us in with the heavy beginning, then got us all singing during the contrasting tuneful chorus. Knowing it was the end made me enjoy myself even more, even though after two bands I was absolutely shattered. The line 'and a lovely time is had by all' made a lot of sense right then.

But the show wasn't over then - "It's meet the band time," Bob announced, proceeding to go through everyone and finishing, of course, on Tony Clarkin - "He has all the songs for Magnum, and of course for you." Tony really is a great songwriter. And he gave me a thumbs-up! I made eye contact with him, cheering, and he smiled. That made me happy, as he's not that smiley a man.

The lights came on again pretty much as soon as they left, a new song starting up over the sound system that I knew, but could never name, which is still doing my head in now - it sounded like a cross between AC/DC and Magnum, and the chorus had a slowish 'yeah yeah yeah' line.

The crowd filtered out quite quickly. Stiggy bought her shirt - the girl's one - before we left the main stage. And it seemed Sonic Boom Six were done too, because emoish teens were trickling from upstairs.Where Dad usually waits, though, there was no one. Well - plenty of rockers hanging around, of course, but no Dad. Admittedly we were about ten minutes earlier out than we'd expected to be, so we waited for a moment.

As I had a bit of change, I went to the fast food place for a can of Coke, and we returned to the meeting place. A couple of blokes were having a conversation that included Whitesnake and Gary Moore."

I heard Whitesnake! I like Whitesnake!" Amy cried.

"I heard Gary Moore! I like Gary Moore!" I added. However, I hadn't seen him live, where I had, of course, seen Whitesnake, as I pointed out.

Dad and Charlotte rounded the corner not long afterwards. We headed off with them to the car, ready to begin our detailed verbal assessment of the gig. This, of course, included a rant about the awful support band. But mainly we talked about Bob. He honestly has to be the weirdest front man I've ever seen: Stiggy was actually wondering if he was on drugs, he just seemed so spaced out. I reckon he's just kind of strange anyway. He liked to bow and blow kisses out across the crowd - a tad flamboyant, perhaps, if that's the right word?

We discussed much random crap on the way home, including X Factor - Stiggy's mum texted her to tell her that the twins were still in, much to all of our disgust. We don't like the twins. We really don't.Conversation kept flowing quite well. The DJ on the radio played the song Forever Autumn from Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds, which Dad and Charlotte both love, but find kind of sad. Stiggy gets annoyed with it - she used to have a teacher who made her type to the WOTW music. But eventually we couldn't avoid our sleepiness. The car was wonderfully warm and comfortable as we travelled smoothly home, first dropping off Charlotte, then Stiggy.

We went to bed pretty much the minute we got in. I thanked Dad for picking us up - it should be the last time for a while! - and headed upstairs. I stuck my ticket up with all my others, right beside my signed Skindred one. I got my Pjs on, laid out my big t-shirt to wear the next day, and got into bed.Diary entry that night/early next morning:

'Magnum Sunday 25

There's nothing like a great trip to Newcastle to cure them blues, is there? Even when you can't buy anything, because it generally means you're going to a gig. We got the train and ate Magnum ice creams on the way there, then went to speak to the cool lady in the record shop. We looked in HMV and had tea in Burger King. It rained. We hid under shelter outside the Life centre. Then we went to the Academy to see Magnum! My God, I was absolutely amazed by how old Bob Catley looks. It's like he's a completely different person to how he used to be.'

So yeah - Bob got old. But people do. And when it comes to rock 'n' roll, age comes quicker, it seems. However, what really matters is their ability to keep pumping out great tunes. Therefore Magnum still rock - even though I would've loved to hear more classic stuff, the songs they did play they played flawlessly.

Stone Gods, Newcastle 02 Academy 2

Finally, I can get down to writing this damn thing! I’ve been so busy finishing off Hot Leg that I haven’t been able to start it. It’s now Wednesday, 25th March, and the show was Saturday. Oh well. I’m doing it now; that’s all that counts.

Saturday was a beautiful day. Proper warm and sunny – I got up quite early (for me) and went straight for a shower. I was planning on having curly hair again so I needed to re-wash it. When I got dressed I made sure I was wearing posh underwear again. The exact same underwear I wore to Hot Leg, actually … it’s like a concert ritual. It has to match. At any other time I don’t give a crap.

I put on my dark pink socks with light pink dots, my black jeans and my Airbourne shirt. First time I’d worn a band shirt to a concert before. Stone Gods were going to be the first band I’d seen for the second time – the first time supporting Airbourne on the main stage. This time, I’d checked the tickets – they were going to be at Academy 2. We were going to try for the front again. Or somewhere near.

The morning was like any other. We are breakfast and did other morningy type stuff before going off to town. I wore my Vans, but no jacket, because it was just that sunny. We had a lot to do so we took the car down and parked near the dentist. The next day would be Mother’s Day and we needed flowers for Mum’s grave.

There was a climbing wall outside the town hall for the Everest fund. Dad quite fancied a go on it, but apparently his jeans were too tight to climb properly. When we were walking up the street having just bought hay and wood shavings for the guinea pigs, two people I knew from college actually came up to us with leaflets for it.

Something really cool happened when we were buying flowers. Dad had gone into the stall to pay for them while Amy and I waited just at the entrance. I saw this woman in a Rolling Stones t-shirt and I was looking at her to assess her for poserness. You can’t be too careful these days. I mean, New Look sell them! Teenage girls wear them because they like the look of the funny tongue! This woman, however, seemed to pass my test. She was wearing it properly. And, just when I decided this, she actually came up to us and asked if we knew whether or not Airbourne had tour dates planned for the near future! It’s always my hope, that when I wear a band shirt someone will show interest in it, but it rarely comes true. As a result I was overjoyed – we talked about Airbourne and other music for several minutes. Dad returned and joined in. The woman said she’d never laughed so much at a concert before, and Dad agreed that Joel O’Keeffe was indeed a good showman. She, like me, had a sister who had similar music tastes to her and they used to go to concerts together. We told her a bit about what else we were into and mentioned that we were going to see AC/DC next month. Unfortunately she, like so many other people, had missed out on tickets.

After a good chat about awesome music, we said bye to her and moved on, eventually returning to the car. Dad told us that Charlotte was in Brompton with Courtney watching the girls’ football team, as Courtney quite fancied joining. We drove up to see them. At first it was hard to find them, until we figured out that the girls were playing behind the school. We went around and found our way to the side of the pitch where Charlotte and Courtney were watching. It was perfect football weather, for playing and watching. Amy had a friend who was subbed in at the second half.

We chatted and watched. I hadn’t seen Charlotte in a fortnight and Courtney in longer, so we had a few mildly interesting things to talk about – Charlotte had been to see Slumdog Millionaire with her Nana and she asked me what I’d thought. We agreed it had been a really good film.

Just into the second half, Dad had to go to meet his friends Nick and Dawn in town to show them some bikes. I decided to go home – I was thirsty as hell and growing increasingly worried about the state of our lunch. We’d bought Fatso’s sandwiches. Fresh sandwiches in a black Land Rover in the sun … eurgh. Off chicken tikka.

So Dad dropped me off at home while he went back into town. The first thing I did was put the sandwiches in the fridge to cool down. I was really hungry but I wanted to wait for Dad and Amy before I ate. I did have a snack, though, and downed quite a lot of water. I was so thirsty.

Because it was such a lovely, sunny day, I put the run under the trampoline where all the long grass is for the guinea pigs to eat. It was only just starting to get nice weather-wise, so they weren’t used to grass, and I had to ensure they didn’t eat too much and get diarrhoea. Lovely. It’s a funny idea when you say their names, though – Axl and Slash with diarrhoea. Hahaha!

I sat on the trampoline with my Vans and cleaned them. I do this obsessively – I love them so much that I can’t bear it when they’re muddy, so I try to make sure they aren’t. Of course, they’ll never be as perfect as they were when I bought them, but they’re close enough.

Dad and Amy came back after a bit – Amy informed me that Brompton had lost, but that they played well. Then we ate lunch! I was starving. It was the last day of the Six Nations rugby so we watched that. England v Scotland at Twickenham … Aunty Caroline was there. I was insanely jealous.

After lunch, the ‘getting ready for Stone Gods’ commenced! Due to my anticipation it was probably way too early, but oh well. I straightened my fringe, covered myself in Ralph Lauren Rocks!, put on my jacket (complete with about £70 in cash in the pockets), put on my Vans and did other wholesome, getting ready activities. Dad gave me £10 for lunch, then took it back and gave me £20 to include train tickets as well. I stuffed this in my jeans pocket. I was already carrying my phone, my camera and some spare batteries in there, resulting in very awkward shaped fronts of my legs.

Dad offered us a lift to the station, but we wanted to walk. Way more exciting! I made sure I had the tickets, and the sweets I’d bought from the sweet stall in town, before we set off. Whooo!

Amy and I got to the station first. I was really warm in my stupid denim jacket, but it was essential for money concealing purposes. We waited under the shelter due to the fact that there were some disgustingly repulsive chavs sitting on the bench. I swear they were making comments about our matching t-shirts. Wasn’t it obvious we were going to a concert? I even had the tickets in my hand. One of them spat on the floor. What a minger.

Ellan soon arrived. She, like me and Amy, was wearing jeans and a denim jacket. Double denim! How awesome we looked. We chatted and stuff while we waited for Steph. Ellan had a little bag, which she was going to have to hide later. You’re not supposed to bring them into the Academy.

The awful chavs went away at some point, so we decided to sit down as we were bored and tired from all the waiting for Steph we were doing. The floor was still spattered with chav spit, though, which we had to avoid. Because the bench was in the shade, the metal was cold on my bum. Brr.

After what felt like years but was only a few minutes, Steph finally arrived. Not only was she slightly late, she WASN’T WEARING double denim AND her ticket was different to ours! Tut! She had her Sublime shirt on and a black velvet jacket and she, like Ellan, had a bag. Which would need concealing later. Because she’d only decided she was coming a few days before the show, she’d printed her ticket off herself and it was on a piece of paper.

Now that she’d arrived, we went to buy the train tickets. The same guy served us who had given us the timetable the previous Thursday. The tickets were extortionate. Almost Dad’s whole £20 for an adult and a chuld single. My God. It had cost just under a tenner for me and Amy to get to Middlesbrough and back the Saturday before.

When Ellan had paid, she came out of the door laughing – the guy had called her ‘ma’am’. “Do I LOOK like a ‘ma’am’?” she demanded of us. No way. None of us are remotely ma’am-like, and almost definitely never will be.

We went through the subway to our platform where I couldn’t resist starting on my sweets. I offered them round, of course – I had cherries and fried eggs, along with marshmallows. (These were for Amy – she’d given up sweets and chocolate for Lent, but apparently marshmallows don’t count as sweets). Ellan and Amy had a marshmallow each, but Steph’s vegetarian and it was highly likely that everything contained gelatine. I told her my dream instead – I know it’s not the same! – where she, Amy and me all went to see Lynyrd Skynyrd.

We didn’t have long to wait for the train, only about ten minutes. It was a busy train though. We agreed we’d stick in pairs if we couldn’t all sit together, but luckily Steph and Ellan found a table for four. It was covered in a dismantled newspaper and two empty plastic bottles.

The journey was fun. Amy and I were riding backwards so we were all happy and hyper and stuff. Even more so, I mean. I broke into my sweets a bit more, too, eating quite a few of them. It was really warm on the train. They were getting all nice and squishy. In the end I got Ellan to take them away from me.

Amy and I were sure that Spurs were playing that day. With Ellan’s help we found the sports pages of the paper and we were indeed playing. We talked football a little bit. Steph was disinterested at this point.

One thing about the train journey in particular that I really like was the fact that we went around corners. On the journeys I usually take the tracks tend to be straight, so I got all tripped out. A daft little thing, I know, but amusing.

We stopped at Durham and the whole place was so neat and nice. Steph expressed her jealousy at not living in such a tidy place.

When we arrived in Newcastle, we had to go on a bridge over the Tyne, and I was a little bit freaked out – looking out of the window it felt sort of like we were flying. Being my usual paranoid self I started to wonder what would happen if the bridge collapsed. We were soon on the other side though.

The train station at Newcastle is quite a big one. We pulled into it and started getting ready to get off. I turned to get out of my seat and came face to face with a guy’s bum. Ew. I turned back quickly and waited until everyone else had got off before I did the same.

We followed the crowds out of the station and onto the street. Whooo! Newcastle. First things first: get our bearings. I think Ellan took the tickets off me and put them in her bag but she could’ve done this back home. I knew the Academy was quite nearby, and once I found that I’d know my way into town. Hoping to God I’d be able to find my way around, we set off. It was only a couple of minutes before we arrived on the street where the Academy is, and went off down there. We hadn’t gone far when I found a small music shop. Our first cool, little shop of the day! We went in. It was all weird music though. There was only one woman in there and I’d heard of hardly any of the bands on sale – they were all international artists of unusual genres. What I di find was an album by Big Joe Williams – AC/DC covered his song ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’.

I wanted to see another little music shop that Charlotte had showed me, because every time I’d seen it in the past it had been shut. It wasn’t far from the Academy, and it was sort of underground.

Going in the shop was somewhere between heaven and hell. Heaven because there were tons and tons of amazing and rare albums, hell because we couldn’t buy any. We had nowhere to keep them and none of us wanted to have stuff on us to protect during the gig. We had to make do with having a good look around, moaning and crying when we found any particularly awesome things that we really wanted. For me, these things included several Iron Maiden singles collections, ‘Live at Donington’, Bruce Dickinson’s album ‘Accident of Birth’ and the single ‘Tears of the Dragon’, the Scorpions album ‘Blackout’ which I can never find anywhere, and a collection of rare AC/DC songs with Bon. Even though there was only one song on there that I didn’t already have – ‘Rockin’ in the Parlour’ – it was still really cool. There was a photo of Bon on the front, smiling in a red shirt and holding a glass. On the back, there was a slightly more disturbing picture – ‘ACDC’ written across the band’s backs with Angus acting as the lightning bolt in the middle, wearing nothing but socks and his SG. Eurgh.

Just before we finally left, we were browsing the bargain bins in front of the counter, whinging to ourselves: “Why did we come in here?” “This is torture!” etc. There were two young guys behind the counter, and one of them started talking to us. He had longish hair, and he was wearing a rather weird t-shirt – a creature with a fly’s head, a woman’s body including breasts, but also with a penis. This penis was erect. The shirt featured the words ‘Sex Wound’.

We told him about the show, and how we couldn’t buy anything because we didn’t want to take it in with us. He presumed we were going to see Airbourne due to Amy’s and my t-shirts, so we explained that we were actually going to see the band who supported them, Stone Gods. He said his friend had told him about the gig. Then he asked if we’d heard of Sex Wound. I looked at his t-shirt and said “I have now”.

It turned out the two guys were in the band, and the one talking had designed the t-shirt. He asked us if we liked it – I had no idea what to say. Ellan liked it, though. She genuinely did and all – she said later that the only problem with it was that a girl wouldn’t be able to get away with wearing it. That was true. It was definitely a man’s shirt. I told him very truthfully that it was a ‘scare your granny’ type t-shirt, and he seemed satisfied.

It was sad to move on from that awesome little shop, but also somewhat of a relief. We noted their website, which was written on the side of the shop: it was beatdownrecords.co.uk. I will definitely be going back there. It was mint.

We headed out towards the town centre again, back past the Academy this time. There were already a collection of teenagers in dark clothes hanging around on the steps.

Mainly to assure myself I knew the way around Newcastle, I took them to that big, pretty building that has a cinema and a whole bunch of restaurants (though this could’ve been after we went to the other CD shop, I can’t remember properly). Reassuringly we got to the cinema place OK, and although there’s nothing to do there unless you want to see a film, have a meal, go to the toilet or gamble, we walked around, going up the escalators (where a girl ran past us screaming she was going to be sick, but laughing at the same time) and down in the lift, which was full of kids. Whenever it moved, I sang “Going doooowwwwn!”

We checked out the cinema listings but the one film I was interested in seeing – the one about Anvil – wasn’t there.

I proposed a walk down to the Tyne next. For two simple reasons: I knew where ti was and it was free.

This proved to be way more difficult than I’d first anticipated. To begin with I was in familiar territory, but soon enough I took a wrong turning and had absolutely no idea where I was. I didn’t let on, though – I was confident I’d find the river eventually. After all, how hard could it be? There were signs and stuff. I followed these, and used my sense of direction, until we finally arrived at the Tyne bridge … yay!

Hang on. We were meant to be under it …

Well, we were almost there. I found a subway and took everyone a bit further down, but still not as far as I would like to be. There weren’t many people around which sort of scared me. Plus, Ellan and Steph were lagging behind – neither of them like exercising that much.

Amy was a turd to me when I was panicking slightly. I asked her for the time, and she told me it was half six … like a sucker, I crapped myself, and we proceeded to argue about my sense of humour.

We got there in the end! Whooo! Back to the people, right by the river. A straight road to the Millenium Bridge. When we got there, we sat on a bench for a bit of a rest after tons of slopey walking. I wasn’t tired but I had the feeling that Steph and Ellan were. I asked them if they wanted to come on the bridge – the whole reason we were there, after all – and they didn’t. So me and Amy went on it alone, jumping up and down to make it move and taking pictures of the view. I didn’t dare leave the other two on their own for too long, though, so we pretty soon set off back.

There are two big buildings on the other side of the river: the Baltic and a big, shiny one. Steph asked me what it was called, but I couldn’t remember so I texted Dad. He replied with ‘Baltic or sage i think x x x’. That’d be the Sage, then.

The way back was relatively more simple than the way there. I followed the route Charlotte had taken us on, lost it, but still returned to the main bit of town very quickly to my immense relief. I had another sit down, again more for the benefit of Ellan and Steph, particularly Ellan, than myself. This sit wasn’t nice – very cold stone wall.

We decided it was about time to eat again, so we started making our way towards Greggs. Steph had been complaining about needing the toilet for quite a while, and on the way there we passed a really weird, space-age toilet thing on the street designed for disabled people. It was coin operated. Steph was a bit freaked out by it so I went first (there was a 20p already in the coin thingy). It was well strange! A voice talked to me all the time I was in there. However, there was one problem: the only reason I’d wanted to go to the toilet wasn’t in there. When I emerged, I informed everyone of my highly interesting experience on the toilet, and we moved on for food. We’d find a normal, sane, free, non-talking regular toilet.

I had a sausage and bean melt and Fanta, and Amy had a pizza baguette and Dr Pepper. I also bought a packet of rainbow cakes – they contained no sweets or chocolate in case Amy wanted one.

We sat one some benches near the freaky-deaky toilet to eat. Whilst I had my mind on other things, a bald Geordie man came over to me and pretended to nick off with my pasty. Because I wasn’t watching properly I didn’t realise he was joking, and I jumped really badly and tried to hide it away. The man and all of his friends started laughing at me so I said “I’m starving!” loudly after him to try to excuse my action. All I did was make myself look even more of a turd.

I’m sure you’ve all experienced this next problem – your rubbish trying to fly away. Mine did this, and when I tried to rescue it I slammed my fingertips on the bench, breaking two of my nails extremely painfully – one of them was my strumming nail! This one broke in layers. Even now, almost a fortnight later, it’s not ideal for playing guitar with. (Today is April 23rd and it’s long again. Yay!)

Steph and I ate two of my cakes, and I carried the rest of my Fanta and the remaining two around with me, too full to finish them but convinced I’d eat them later. We headed back to the cinema complex where we were sure there’d be a toilet. There was, so we all went. It was really funny – you could hear both Steph and me doing ‘feminine things’ at almost the same time, and the pair of us started laughing. We also used this opportunity to sort out Ellan and Steph’s bags in front of the mirror. They looked OK hidden under their jackets.

While we were in there, I found an arcade game that involved riding a motorbike. I hadn’t been on one in years, so I said I’d have a go providing I had the change. It only cost £1 and I had a pound coin … I jumped on. It was fun. I never brake or change gear on games like this. In fact, all I do is accelerate and turn. I came fourth, which wasn’t bad. I’d played as a slutty-looking woman and ran into quite a lot of people. They tended to fall off and practically fly away whilst I remained unharmed. Ah, just like real life …

Time to make our way back towards the Academy. There was a little bit of a queue when we got there, but it was just over an hour until doors and I didn’t want to stand there for all that time, so I took everyone down to the square in front of the Life centre. There was a big sculpture containing an emo (well – he was sitting on it). He had two friends with him – one boy, one girl – who were sitting on the floor making out. Dirty, dirty emos.

Steph and Ellan hid their bags while I disposed of my leftover food responsibly. I put it next to a bin just in case a hungry hungry hobo fancied a snack. After all, it seemed a shame to waste two rainbow cakes and the best part of a bottle of Fanta.

I returned and took a photo of Steph putting her jacket on, simply because she looked a turd. She took a few more minutes and we went back to the Academy, for real this time. A couple more people had joined the queue but it was still relatively short. A few people ahead of us there was this bloke we know from college called Callum. Steph thinks he’s cool, because he has dreadlocks. He’s kind of annoying, though. I was surprised to see a familiar face. I guess I sometimes just forget that I’m not the only person who exists and does stuff outside of school.

The queue gradually got longer, but not by much. I think we were waiting there somewhere between half an hour and forty five minutes. I was dead excited – I’d never queued until doors before, just sort of turned up afterwards. It wasn’t as boring as I’d expected it to be, either. We talked about random stuff and played various awesome songs on Amy’s phone. At one point two ugly women with bleached blonde hair and disgusting outfits went past and Callum was shouting “Oh my God! What the F*CK is that?” and stuff for ages. I couldn’t stop laughing. We saw quite a few Airbourne shirts, which made sense, as that’s how quite a lot of people found out about Stone Gods.

We devised a plan of action to be carried out once we got inside – two of us would go to buy shirts, and two of us would run for the barrier, then we’d swap. Or something like that.

The doors opened a bit late. Initially we’d been told they were at seven, but I got an e-mail a few days before the show telling me it had been moved back half an hour. More like twenty five minutes! GOD! Once we did get to the doors, the security guys stopped Steph from going in for a minute, but she didn’t get too far behind. We got our tickets checked. The guy didn’t rip them, he just scanned the bar code. Then we ran. All the way up the stairs and to Academy 2, me screaming “Run to the hills!” all along the way. It was practically empty, and we managed to grab spots on the second row again, to the right this time. Well – it’s not really organised into rows, but you know what I mean. Around that general area. As you can see, our plan of action fell through. Callum and his friends were a bit to the left of us.

As the place was only filling up relatively slowly, I decided I’d try for a t-shirt. I instructed everyone to keep my place before dashing off. I found out why the place was so quiet, though – they were all hanging around the t-shirt stall. It wasn’t worth it. I’d take my chances after the show. I rushed back to claim my place, and the venue steadily grew busier.

This is one thing I’m a little bit confused about – the songs over the sound system. I’ve remembered all the ones I knew but not exactly when they were on. I’ll just write it this way and hope it’s right.

‘Shout at the Devil’ was on quite near the start, to which Amy and I nodded and sang along hardcorely. And I’m quite sure that was the only one I knew that was on before the bands.

The first band came on way sooner than I’d expected. I knew the support was supposed to be a band called Black Spiders – sure enough, their name was on the bass drum. They were all wearing a lot of black and they looked pretty moody. I think that this was because we didn’t appreciate them enough. I quite enjoyed their set, thinking I might buy their album afterwards. They sang a song (in the first draft they apparently sang a sock) which basically went ‘who the f*ck are you?’ and another one about how crap reality TV is. I totally agree! I hate reality TV!

I took a few photos but not many, as I was saving my memory for Stone Gods.

After the band went off, I told the other three my theory about why they had looked angry. Ellan admitted that she hadn’t been that into them. I was a bit surprised. I hadn’t stopped mildly headbanging (i.e. nodding) all the way through, and my neck was really aching. Ellan went off to the bar for a drink, and returned a bit later.

A few guys came on to mess with the stuff on-stage. Soundchecky type guys. Steph said something to me about really wanting that job, just coming on the stage and playing the guitars for a little bit for a band. Then, the ‘roadies’ started up a tune.

WHAT?

These weren’t Stone Gods! They were just a bunch of guys with long hair and moustaches! (Five of them, but the singer had a guitar so there were three of those). I noticed, however, that the drum kit still had Black Spiders on it. Could these guys be them?

Aha. The singer introduced the band as Black Spiders before yelling “F*ck you, Newcastle!” We had to yell back, complete with gestures – all together, then just us girls, then the guys. Steph told me later that she felt embarrassed whenever people swore, where Amy said she’d been genuinely annoyed at being sworn at because she’d (well, I’d) paid to see them. She’d been very sincere in her ‘f*ck you’s and one of the guitarists had noticed, and laughed at her.

The genuine Black Spiders were all right. I think I preferred the other band, though.

There was one thing about this lot that really stuck out – their drummer. He was INSANE. Think mad as Nicko McBrain and evil as Satan, combined with a beard. Honestly. We were all freaked out by him.

Again, Ellan went for a drink after the band went off. However, this time she didn’t come back. I found out throughout the show, via text, that she’d also gone to the bathroom to splash water on her dace, and settled at the back.

There were a few cool songs on between Black Spiders and the headliners. The first of these was ‘Ace of Spades’. You can tell which songs are known by everyone because you can hear them all singing. There was one song that I didn’t recognise for ages, despite the fact that loads of people were singing along. It was only when Amy sang “bam-a-lam!” in my face that I realised it was ‘Black Betty’, but not the original. I hadn’t recognised the style it had been covered in, which was much heavier. It was quite good, though, and a lot of fun. The third cool song was ‘Stand Up For Rock ‘N’ Roll’ by Airbourne – excellent choice. There were tons of Airbourne shirts, and it’s extremely likely that the majority of the crowd were Airbourne fans. Again, everyone was singing and really enjoying themselves.

One really, really, really annoying thing happened before the band came on, though. A dude fainted on us. That’s right, FAINTED. ON us. Literally – he had his head on Steph’s shoulder. Amy said he glared at her when he came round. She reckoned he’d been faking it, which seemed highly probable, as he’d had his eyes open and, when his friends had tried to grab him back he wouldn’t move for ages – evidently, he’d been trying to sneak his way forward, the dirty dog. Luckily he went back eventually, when his friends made him get a drink. It sort of ruined my night a bit, though. I was all panicky and shaky for quite a while afterwards. Plus, because we’d all shifted around, I had a slightly less good view.

Pretty soon, though, the lights went down, and the ‘Indiana Jones’ theme music came on. Stone Gods time! They came on from the side we were at, resulting in loads of cheering, much louder than anything so far, and launched into their biggest single ‘Don’t Drink the Water’. Richie Edwards had shaved off his beard! He resembled a boiled egg.

For me, this opener seemed strange. I’d been expecting ‘Burn the Witch’ like last time, but shows are never exactly the same, and I wasn’t bothered. Especially as I got to do the dancey bit! It had looked so awesome at Airbourne that I’d been looking forward to it as much as the concert itself, just about. Amy remarked later that it wasn’t as fun as she’d expected – what had she expected? It was only jumping up and down to music! Even so, I knew what she meant. Again, even so, I loved it.

The next song was ‘You Brought a Knife to a Gunfight’, one of my favourites. It was almost exactly like at Airbourne – I loved doing the hand gestures accompanied by the shouty “F*CK YOU”s.

After this, Richie talked to us. I think it was here that he told us about the first tour date – ours. He said that when they’d been told that the first date was going to be Newcastle they’d been really pleased. I’m still not sure if he was just saying it – he swore he wasn’t, and Dad said on the way back that he’s noticed there is something about Newcastle. But still. Pretty much all singers say stuff like that.

Anyway, he went on to say that they’d never done the next song before, making me feel kind of special. And to my surprise, the song was ‘Making it Hard’, my personal favourite if I had to choose one. You could sort of tell they’d never played it, because to me it sounded slightly flat, but it was mint anyway. I love the song – it’s so nice and feel-good, yet filthy and double-entendre-y at the same time.

Again, Richie talked after this song. He switched his guitar for an acoustic, and said it meant one of three things. It could mean they were going to play ‘Lazy Bones’ (a few people cheered) ‘Oh Where ‘O My Beero’ (well he called it ‘Beero’ – quite a few people cheered for this one, including me, because I do like ‘Beero’ – but I’d figured out what the third option would be and I wanted that one so I cheered quite quietly) or ‘Magdalen Street’. This got the loudest cheer, I think because we all knew they were going to play it no matter what we cheered for. They did.

I’d vowed to myself that this show, I was going to concentrate more on enjoying myself than taking loads of pictures and videos. I’d decided to take a few decent pictures, make one whole-song video and leave it at that. ‘Magdalen Street’ was this song. I’d filmed from right at the end of the previous song to make sure I got it all in, which meant I also got the guitar swap. It was so cool – I adore the song, partially because it’s about me (haha – Charlotte the Harlot eat you heart out) but also because it’s a good song. I loved their performance of it, especially as it was my first time seeing it live. I’d been disappointed when they hadn’t done it at Airbourne.

To make use of the guitar, they played another acoustic song – ‘Lazy Bones’. This song’s quite slow and calm, which was all right. Nice. It wasn’t amazing but it was fine. I can’t actually remember much about it.

After this, Richie switched guitars to a white Gibson Explorer, saying it was time for some “f*cking heavy metal!” I expected ‘Defend or Die’ but they played ‘Knight of the Living Dead’, which I actually like better so I didn’t mind at all. I thought there might be a mosh pit or something when the song goes all fast, but there wasn’t, and I was glad – for me, mosh pits are pretty pointless, because they make it hard to concentrate on the music itself. I only go in them when I don’t know the song that’s being played. ‘Knight of the Living Dead’ is another one with fun f-words in it. Hooray for obscene gestures!

Right at the beginning of the next song, Richie got us all singing the chorus, so of course we all knew what it was right away:

“Hey – this is the start of something
Whoa – we’re on our way
This is the start of something
We don’t care what they say
We’ll do it our way.”

What a pretty song. It’s all right. Not one of my favourites but good live, it’s very singable.

The next one was ‘I’m With the Band’. I like that one a lot. There’s a line in it that goes ‘it’s been a while since my clothes were clean but I/I kinda like it that way’. The dirty egg changed this to ‘since my c*ck was clean’. What a sicko! An amusing sicko, though. And he came in the crowd! Not near us, unfortunately, but still it’s always cool when people do that. You know that if and when they get really famous, they will become far too important.

When he got back on-stage, he started butt kissing – the butt in question being his own. He basically said that the next song would be the last, unless we cheered loud enough when they went off. We didn’t need to be told, but we could hardly tell him that. And so into ‘Defend or Die’, again with the Explorer. Much headbanging was participated in by all, but no mosh pits again … I used to not like this song. That changed though. I do now. It was brilliant live.

Once that was done, they went off, knowing full bloody well they’d be straight back on again, the smarmy gits. Not that I minded – I wanted more. I wanted ‘Beero’, for crying out loud! So, along with everyone else, I yelled “Stone Gods! Stone Gods!” etc. and, lo and behold, they returned! And leapt right into ‘Burn the Witch’, the song I’d thought they’d open with. So I enjoyed it all the more after anticipating it for the whole show. There’s something about it live that makes it incredibly awesome – you know, one of those songs that you always imagine being played live even when you’re just listening to it on the album? It has a lot of soloing and stuff at the end. Lots more headbanging! And fast bits that might have induced a mosh pit or two, but, again, didn’t. I’m actually listening now and reliving it. It was mint.

They tried something a bit different next. Richie said the next song was a tribute to someone from around here – my mind immediately went “Jonna!” Alas, it wasn’t Brian Johnson. It wasn’t anyone good. It was Cheryl bloody Tweedy – Richie refused to call her Cheryl Cole. It seemed weird, as rockers generally hate reality TV, as demonstrated by Hate Gallery (as I found out later the first support band were called). Stone Gods played a rocked-up version of Girls Aloud’s shitey song ‘Something Kinda Ooh’ which, needless to say, was better than the original. I filmed a bit of it. It was funny, despite my hatred of Cheryl, Girls Aloud, all girl bands, reality TV and that stupid song.

Then there was one last song. Yep! ‘Oh Where ‘O My Beero’! I was well happy. It’s a brilliant song. All singalongy, And it’s about beer and stuff. A real drinking song. I really enjoyed the final song of the night, even though it’s always a bit sad.

We cheered them as they left the stage. They’d done a great gig. I thought they’d played the album in its entirety – I realised later, though, that they’d missed two songs. There’s one called ‘Wasting Time’ and another called ‘Where You Coming From’ that I don’t think they did. If I didn’t notice, though, I can’t have missed them that much.

‘More Than a Feeling’ came on over the sound system, one of my favourite songs of all time. Because I’d been exposed to so much loud noise, it sounded all fuzzy and kind of sharp, so I was probably singing along all wrong.

Now to get out/find Ellan. She texted me: ‘at end meet at tshirts’. That made sense. We started to slowly shuffle our way out. We followed a lad with a Maiden shirt. It was one of those (unofficial, I think – tut tut!) ones with the band on the back – I therefore spent the whole time sort of cooing over Bruce.

The t-shirt stall was busy. Very busy. And we still had to buy stuff. As I was passing the table, someone said “Airbourne!” loudly to me. I looked up and saw the drummer from Black Spiders. Yes – the evil one! The band were there with their single and mailing list. I got chatting to them and they were actually really nice. One of them asked me if I’d seen them supporting Airbourne and the drummer told him that was only in Europe. Haha. I decided I’d buy their album. It was just beside them, with another guy. I bought it off him and asked one of the Black Spiders if they’d sign it.

It wasn’t their album. Crap! It was the other support band’s! Hate Gallery’s! And I’d just asked Black Spiders to sign it! I tried to explain my mistake but I don’t know if it got through. I was so embarrassed ... I think they thought that I’d thought they were Hate Gallery when in reality I’d just thought that Hate Gallery’s album was theirs. I signed their mailing list, though, so I could see when their actual album came out.

Hate Gallery were signing, but it was really busy and I couldn’t be bothered to wait. We moved towards the shirts where we could see Ellan waiting at the top of the stairs.

Steph and I gave Amy money to buy shirts with. They were cool shirts too – the Stone Gods logo in gold over a picture of playing cards and stuff with the dates on the back. I was glad they still had our sizes.

We met Ellan and headed off downstairs and outside, where we met Dad. We walked from the Academy to the car somewhat subdued. We passed the bin where I’d left my hobo food – it was still there. Hungry and very, very thirsty, Steph and I were very tempted to snatch it back, but neither of us are quite that low. We left it. And sort of regretted it once we were in the car. Amy luckily found an abandoned bottle of unopened water in one of the compartmenty type things in there, and we all shared it – we felt very after-giggy. Ellan filled us in about where she’d been, including her nice Dan view. Amy and I tried to find consolation (we were sad the show was over, of course) in the fact that our next gig was in a month’s time. Apart from that, though, we were so shattered we barely talked.

It was the usual routine – getting all snuggly and warm before getting a taste of the cold when we dropped Steph and Ellan off, then having to practically submerge ourselves in cold air when we arrived home. I had a drink and went to bed pretty much straight away, after laying out my t-shirt for later wear.

Overall, it was a good show. I couldn’t fault it. But it was the other things that ruined it, so the night itself could’ve been better, I think.

My diary entry for that day read something like this:

’21 Saturday STONE GODS
I’m currently listening to the ‘Harry Potter’ soundtrack to stop the ringing in my ears. Today was rather awesome! We went into town where we got talking to a woman about Airbourne and other bands. Then we went to see Charlotte and Courtney, who were watching Brompton girls play. THEN, after a couple of hours of other stuff, Amy, Ellan, Steph and me were on the train to NEWCASTLE! We had a few hours there before retiring to the Academy for Stone Gods. It was a great show, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t feel completely satisfied. Maybe because some loser FAINTED on us.’

I know that it’s wrong to compare Stone Gods to Hot Leg. It’s unfair. But I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I prefer Stone Gods’ music – however, to be honest, I enjoyed Hot Leg’s show much more.
Notes

-The next day I got diarrhoea. The guinea pigs were fine. (TMI, maybe? You should know me by now!)

-I saw the tour ad later in an old issue of Kerrang! and, ues, Hate Gallery WERE listed as support. I'm just unobservant.

-I finished the first draft of this on Wednesady, 15th April - as usual, it took me too long.

-I don't think I mentioned that Richie didn't suit his talking voice. It's really high pitched and posh.

-Due to the nature of text on here, anything that was originally in italics is written like 'this' or THIS depending on its context. It really annoys me, though!

-Those lyrics are Stone Gods', not mine. Obviously.

Hot Leg, Newcastle

It is now two minutes to three on Monday, 9th March (end of final draft - five minutes past two on Wednesday, 25th March) and I get the feeling this gig log is going to be hard. So I’ll just get straight on with the damn thing before I go off to work early and do the time I lost last Friday.

OK, so I woke up to Chickens and felt my usual nervous butterflies. However, I am getting used to them now, so I got up in pretty good time and got ready. I’d planned my clothes, of course, to save time later – I wore coloured/grey stripy socks, matching black (slightly slutty, but I’d liked the bra) underwear, my Criminal Damage jeans with the stars, my Trooper shirt and eventually my AC/DC denim jacket. I hadn’t planned on that, but it was too warm for a bigger one and too cold for none at all. I had £50.02 in cash in one of the little button-up pockets so that I didn’t forget to bring money that night.

Amy and I listened to Stone Gods for a bit, as Hot Leg had been in my alarm clock. Until, of course, we decided that that was silly, and I brought Red Light Fever downstairs. We listened to it about two and a half times before she, and I, set off to school. Nana told us to have a nice night – Cocktails had been on Scuzz the night before and we’d told her we were going to see the band who were playing it. She told me I had to ‘scream and shout’. Good advice indeed!

I put on my boxing boots and set off. It was a fresh, sunny day – proper spring weather – when I started walking to school, making sure I had a bit of a listen to hot Leg on the way. But it was weird. I met Beth and Grace as usual, then we walked on to Laura’s and nothing felt different. I did talk a bit about the show to remind them I was going, though that was about it.

The excitement built a bit when Steph arrived at Laura’s. This would be the first show I went to with friends, and not just family (although, of course, Amy was going too).

I ticked off my last day of the Hot Leg countdown in my academic diary in form. Grace told me how many days it was until John Barrowman – she’s extremely excited.

First lesson was French. We talked a bit about football and French footballers before we very briefly started on music. Mrs Kiernan set us some vocab, and when I got out my diary to write it in Laura saw what was written there.

“Oh, is Hot Leg tonight?” she asked me. Or something like that, anyway. Of course, I responded in the affirmative.

Next came Media, the lesson I share with Steph. We got a bit of a chance to talk gig excitement, but most of the lesson was taken up with watching the last part of the last episode of Life on Mars. Even though the ending sort of breaks the golden rule of English: ‘Never end by saying “I woke up and it was all a dream”’, I still thought it was pretty clever. I want to watch more of it now. I especially like the cool 70s soundtrack!

At break, we went to meet everyone else. I’d seen Ellan briefly earlier, but only to wave stupidly at. Her, Steph and I had a bit of a hyper discussion. We sorted the details of what would be happening later, i.e. Dad would pick them up at around six-ish. I told them to bring as little stuff as possible, and a jacket they could easily wrap around their waists. Of course, we’d be standing – my first time! I’d been to Richmond Live where I stood, but outside. But it was going to be Ellan and Steph’s first Academy gig altogether – and their first real gig that they were both actually counting (Ellan had seen Busted, and Steph Christina Aguilera. I think they were both pretty embarrassed…)

During break, Tom asked me if I’d help him with the underskirt of the wedding dress he was making. Steph and I had a free next, so we both went to meet him at the Textiles room. On the way there I passed Matt, who asked me if I could make it to his gig. Even though I still wasn’t sure, I felt so rock ‘n’ roll! (Note – his gig was last Saturday (14th March) and I didn’t go. I had nobody to go with!)

Helping Tom involved holding a huge circle of netting for about half an hour while he pinned it. I would never have the patience. He is amazing. However, Steph and I did get rather bored. I took a few pictures of Tom and his work, then we listened to some tunes on my phone. The latter died down quickly, though, because Tom and I hardly have the same taste.

The dummy he was working on was insanely skinny. This led to a big thing about proper measurements, and we all ended up measuring ourselves. Tom and Steph have the same sized waist. Mine is the widest. Wow.

Eventually, we left him to get on with his dress alone, and we went to Becky’s where she was watching Torchwood with Beth and Chloë. Bleurgh – Torchwood. I’d brought my mp3 player and my speakers in case I got chance to force Hot Leg upon everyone, but no such luck. Torchwood continued on into lunchtime. Grace and Becky even tried to name all of the episodes without looking. Losers.

I always have two frees on Fridays due to a clash in my timetable. I spent the second free on a computer upstairs in the Resource Centre. I listened to quite a lot of Samson while I did some Ethics work (comparing Jeremy Bentham with John Stuart Mill) and English work (a speech opposing reality TV).

I actually had English last. It wasn’t a coursework lesson, though. In fact, it was just a daft, and extremely easy, one. Sarah and I had to make a poster about demonstrative pronouns. These are pronouns such as ‘this’ or ‘those’ which determine something already known by the speaker and listener(s). Erm. Yeah. I did tell Sarah about the gig, briefly. And she told me to have a good time as we left.

So that was college. Off to do an hour and a half of work!

I arrived just after half three (so, in the signing-in book, half three) and got straight on with my jobs (I usually eat, go to the toilet, do whatever, to kill time). It’s incredible what a bit of pressure can do. I managed to finish everything, except for a couple of sets of desks, that I would usually do in two hours and a half. I left before Ralph even arrived. So it surprised me when he drove up behind me on Helmsley Way to ask what I had and hadn’t done! He sounded as surprised as I had been when I said I’d managed to do almost everything.

Finally, home time. The excitement was really starting to build up. I ran to my room and stuck my phone on charge to give it a bit of extra juice, then changed into my black and purple Raven vest top.

Amy and I ate tea together; chicken, chips and beans. Quick, easy food that I really enjoyed as I hadn’t had it for absolutely ages. However, I couldn’t finish it. Damn nervous butterflies! I’m so stupid. I always get them, even though there’s nothing to be nervous about. I’m not the one performing!

Dad was all dressed up smart because while we were at the show he and Charlotte were going to find somewhere nice to eat. I did a last quick freshen up – this involved wetting my hair and blow drying it as big and curly as it would go, brushing my teeth, applying deodorant and covering myself in Anna Sui’s Dolly Girl Bonjour L’Amour perfume. I love perfume. It smells good.

At about five to six I put on my Iron Maiden Vans and we set off, tickets in hand. Well – as soon as I got in the car, I put them in one of the side pockets. I brought my water bottle again, but I had an extra one as Dad had brought another one each for me and Amy. I got drinking straight away – I didn’t want to risk being dehydrated! The last thing I wanted to do was get in there and pass out.

First, we picked Charlotte up. Dad went in the house to get her while Amy and I waited, slightly impatiently. She wasn’t long, though, and we drove the two long minutes to Ellan’s house, where she was watching for us out of her window. She had her hair down and she was wearing her leather jacket, and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen her so excited. I noticed she was wearing perfume, something I wouldn’t have expected of her, but decided not to mention it in case I was wrong.

We set off back to our side of town so we could grab Steph and get going. On the way there, Charlotte and Ellan said hi and got a bit better acquainted, as they’d never met before.

Because I couldn’t stop smelling perfume, I eventually asked Ellan what it was when we were almost at Steph’s. I think she said it was Fantasy by Britney Spears. I’m no Britney fan, but her perfumes are gorgeous.

I had to run into Steph’s house to get her. She was still in the bathroom – according to her mum, she’d been debating what to wear all night. So I yelled down the hall: “It’s not a beauty pageant!” She emerged in the end, and we went back to the car. She, like me, had a very noticeable camera-shaped bulge in one of her pockets, but I told her not to worry about it.

Back in the car, Amy had found a tin of beans that Dad had forgotten to bring inside for tea a couple of days ago. These beans provided a running joke for the whole journey.

We were well and truly on our way! Whoop! No denying the excitement now. As soon as we hit the main road, Amy made Charlotte put Red Light Fever on. We didn’t turn it up to eleven, though, because we were all talking so much. About really random, daft stuff – strange things that had happened at the Hugh Cornwell show Dad and Charlotte had seen the night before, like Dad standing up at the end when hardly anyone else would. Charlotte also told us about her niece’s ‘Hacca Macca’ (High School Musical) obsession. A lot of the time, Steph and Ellan couldn’t stop laughing, which was a nice way to break the ice.

Because Red Light Fever is quite a short album, we played it through once and a bit. I think we arrived in Newcastle at about twenty past seven. It was obviously dark, and we could see the lights of the city.

Dad was a bit wary of parking in the college car park – there was someone in there, and he looked quite official. We decided against it in the end, just in case we weren’t meant to park there. Instead, Charlotte showed Dad the side road where she parked for Kylie, and we went down there.

It was quite chilly outside. I temporarily forgot that my sister was in the back, and had to go and let her out. Once I had done this, we set off walking. It really was cold, adding to my amounting nerves. Why do I always get nervous? It gets kind of annoying!

We talked Hot Leg all the way there – of course. It was only around a ten minute walk, but it felt way longer. I was so cold and excited that I just wanted to arrive.

And arrive we did! To a quiet, empty road. I’d been expecting quite a long queue, or at least a few people waiting around outside, but there were only security dudes. The reason for this will become obvious in a minute, but back then, I couldn’t figure it out.

After a few words of warning, Dad and Charlotte let us go. We went to the dude outside, who directed us to the dude in the foyer, who took our tickets (he actually ripped off the rippy bits this time!) and directed us upstairs. I guess I didn’t really realise what he meant just then – I was more psyched that we’d successfully sneaked Amy into a gig – but as we went up the stairs, it all started to add up. The lack of people, the going up – we weren’t going to the Academy. We were going to Academy 2.

When I did realise, my excitement just about doubled. I’d never been in there before, but I knew it was considerably smaller, meaning a much more intimate show. What an awesome added bonus.

The t-shirt stall was just outside the final staircase up to the stage. Because we’d arrived about half an hour after doors, The Crave were already on, and we could hear them really clearly. I desperately wanted to go in. However, Amy and Steph both went to the toilet, so we had to wait. Ellan and I examined the shirts, deciding which ones we were going to get. I wanted one with the tour dates on it, but the only one of these had long sleeves. Plus, I noticed a misprint – instead of ‘March 4th’ it said ‘March 4nd’. Which was quiet cool, but that’s the kind of thing that would really start to annoy me after a while.

When Amy and Steph emerged, we all bought t-shirts so we could be sure we’d get the ones we wanted, and we’d avoid any rush after the show. I wanted a black one with the Hot Leg logo in orange, but they were sold out in my size, so I got a similar one with the logo as a white outline. Amy and Steph both got the yellow shirt with an orange logo, and Ellan got the grey one with the band carved into Mount Rushmore.

Finally, time to go in! One last flight of stairs and that was it. We were met by the venue and it was awesome. It was basically a club, with the stage at the other end. There was a bar on one side and a small balcony with a few stools on the other. I did a bit of research later and found out the capacity of the place is four hundred. Sure beats the two thousand we’d expected. No matter where we were, the sound and view were both really good … except for tall people! Honestly, why are rockers so tall? I thought I was until I went there. The majority of people towered above me.

The Crave were in full flow. Steph, I think, took a liking to them immediately – two of them had dreadlocks. However, I didn’t want to settle for a view from the back, so we began the quest to move forward, sneaking into whatever gaps we could. It wasn’t easy with four of us, especially through all the tall people, but eventually, thanks to Steph’s brainwave of following a rather large woman with beer, we arrived as far forward as we were ever going to get – the second row. We’d never get on the barrier, but we’d still done pretty well. And just in time to catch the end of the last song! Steph, the smallest of us, remarked that at least she saw them a bit.

When The Crave left the stage, we took a look at our surroundings. Steph was wedged between the people on the barrier and a little staircase, with Ellan next to her, and Amy and I were right at the foot of the stairs. Awkward positioning, awesome view. Totally worth it. I took my jacket off and tied it round my waist, then stuffed my new shirt up my top, out the way. You’d think it would be really hot in there with all those people, but the air conditioning was immense.

The music playing was annoying. It didn’t sound rocky in any way, shape or form, and I didn’t know any of it so I couldn’t sing along happily. It did make me want Hot Leg to come on even more, though.

A few dudes came on to do various sound checky bits and pieces, provoking rowdy chants of “Hot Leg! Hot Leg!” from us every now and then. This went on for a few songs.

Then, this one song came on that was considerably louder than the rest. I still didn’t know it but, like the Rolling Stones guy in Twickenham, I could feel it in my ribs. Surely, they had to be on soon.

Indeed they did. At the end of the song, the lights went down, and we all started yelling. That was it! I’d been counting down the days since mid-January and it was finally here.

The band came on. From the right-hand side as we were looking at them; all of them had their quirks, but Justin Hawkins! Wow. I could hardly believe that we were seeing him so close up. He was wearing black and green zebra striped trousers and a black jacket over a blue vest. His Hot Leg hair is well better than his old hair – shorter and bleached blonde. It suits his face more. He still looks ugly, but not as ugly. He was wearing tons of dark eye make-up, too. And black nail varnish.

They launched straight into Ashamed. I had expected them to open with Chickens, because it’s the first one on the album, but I didn’t mind because I love both songs equally. I got out my camera and took loads of pictures and a video. This was my first show with a working, non-phone camera so I went slightly insane.

The song was good, despite the lack of Beverlei Brown who features on the album. That’s probably a good thing, though – her voice kinds of drives me crazy. And Justin is perfectly capable of hitting immensely high notes by himself. It was amazing. He clearly has no balls. Maybe.

I think Justin said something here, but nothing major, otherwise I would’ve remembered it. The next song was introduced (and, apparently, played for us): I’ve Met Jesus. I guess they were playing it near the start to get it out the way, as it’s one of the ones that everyone knows really well, and would sort the posers from the real fans!

During this song, someone threw a beer on-stage. At the end, Justin addressed him: “Whoever threw that beer, you’ve ruined his best shirt now!” (The stuff went all over the drum kit and the drummer). He then proceeded to call the guy the ‘c word’. I managed to video this, and it’s up on YouTube. Just search something like ‘Hot Leg I’ve Met Jesus live Newcastle’ and it’ll come up.

Right, this is where it gets difficult, because try as I might I can neither remember nor find the set list. So instead, the next load of stuff will just be whatever I’m thinking about, probably in no particular order. Set-wise, all I can remember is that they played the album, plus other songs from the next album, apparently. See, I told you it was going to be hard!

They played a few songs that we knew all together first. Actually, I think it was the best part of Red Light Fever, almost all of it, before they started with new album stuff. It went something like Prima Donna, Whichever Way You Wanna Give It, Gay in the 80s, Trojan Guitar, Chickens, You Can’t Hurt Me Any More, ballady type songs including Kissing in the Wind, some other songs, Cocktails, and the encore, which was made entirely of new album stuff. I thought that was a shame – I mean, it was interesting to hear what might be coming from the band, but you couldn’t really get involved like you could with the others.

Justin dedicated a few of the songs to various people, too. One guy at the other side of the crowd yelled “I love you!” loud enough for pretty much everyone to hear and Justin said “I love you too – who are you?” To which the guy gave his name, and he repeated “I love you too, tell you what, this one’s for you,” and they played another new song.

There were two women right behind us who got a song dedicated in this way as well. They were stood on the stairs – one of the official women had moved them off earlier but they’d sneaked their way back on again. They were so annoying … clearly more Justin Hawkins’ groupies than Hot Leg fans, always shrieking and yelling annoying things. At one point Justin talked about the end of the ‘erection section’ (a little bit of the concert dedicated to ballads) and they were shouting “eROCKtion!” He said “What?” And they did it again, to which he replied, “Oh, erocktion¸ I see what you’ve done, you’ve taken the vowel and changed it …” I managed to get this on video, too, and because they were behind me Justin’s looking right in my direction, “You’re two big Leg fans over there, tell you what, this one’s for you!” The women whooped irritatingly as the band started up their song.

The final dedicated song was to a seven-year-old boy whose birthday it was. Justin got us all singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him, and said what he’d most like for his birthday was to see us all jumping up and down to the next song. We obliged happily. In my case it wasn’t easy, because whenever I jumped up I smacked my knee into the banister, but it was still fun. We could feel the floor moving beneath our feet.

One of the new songs had a bit of audience participation in it. The words? Woah … huh! Justin sang them to us, and we sang them back. Only it turned out we were supposed to sing with him, not after him. We only caught on after he explained it to us, and even then loads of people continued to do it wrong. On purpose, I think, after a while. It went on for absolutely ages. It was funny, though.

Costumeness next! During the main set, Justin took his jacket off, leaving him in the blue vest. It’s loads like one Amy has, actually. For the encore, he got changed into a white football strip, exposing most of his tattoos. The shorts were extremely short! He kept putting his leg up on the monitors or the barrier, to much stroking. I didn’t get to touch him, unfortunately. There were opportunities aplenty, but I was often inches away due to the stupid barrier people. He stripped his shirt off, too, revealing an arm tattoo continuing onto his chest, and one on his stomach that carried on below his shorts. I kind of wanted to see what it was, but I didn’t want to see what else was under there …

I took tons of pictures and quite a few videos. Our view enabled awesome pictures, especially when the band members came right up to us. Justin did this a couple of times on my videos, which was lucky. Even though I have some really incredible photos, they still don’t do justice to the position we had. Almost everything about it was amazing, better than any show I’d ever been to.

I think that’s everything about the show that I can remember right now. Which sucks, but I can’t do anything about that. All I can say is it was a brilliant concert. The only thing I could fault about the show itself was the fact that they played tons of new stuff. It’s not as good when you can’t get properly involved. Oh well. I thoroughly enjoyed myself anyway. The closeness, the fun-ness, the music … it was all fantastic. I think Justin actually talked to my sister and me when we made mosh hands at him. I love intimate gigs!

It’s always a bummer when the band go off for real after the encore and the lights come on. We had a shouty discussion over the ringing in our ears and the music – it seemed everyone else had loved it too, which was good. I know Steph really likes stuff like this, but you can hardly tell because she’s pretty quiet and doesn’t get hugely involved. It was nice to see she’d had a good time, as had Amy and Ellan.

And now to get four hundred people down one little staircase … always fun. We hung around at the back of the crowd for a bit, not overly keen on the prospect of being crushed. Then the people hanging around (including us) got yelled at to move, when we couldn’t, because the exit was basically a giant scrum. Eventually, though, we got through, and arrived back down at the t-shirt stall, where we decided to buy some more stuff. Ellan and Steph had both really liked The Crave, so they bought their album. I’d thought they were all right, but a bit soft for my taste, so I didn’t bother. I did buy Hot Leg’s I’ve Met Jesus single on vinyl, because it was signed and £2. Also, I love LPs and EPs. Steph, however, is in love with them. She bought the single and Red Light Fever on red vinyl.

Slowly, we moved along. The Crave were standing and signing their album. We tried to get Steph to go up to them but she wouldn’t, so I approached one of the dreadlock guys and said “Excuse me, my friends are losers and won’t come and see you themselves, will you please sign their albums?” Before I’d finished my sentence they went up – I don’t know if they were saving themselves, or me, from embarrassment. Probably me…

Steph and Ellan’s albums found their way around the band. Steph told me later that Ellan had said to her “You don’t look very excited,” and she’d replied “I’m inwardly excited,” and one of the guys had said “Cool.” She was really pleased.

One of the yellow official guys told Amy and me to get moving if we weren’t doing anything, so we told him we were waiting for our friends, and when they were finished, we went downstairs and outside. The last ones out! Dad and Charlotte were waiting for us at the other side of the road. We crossed over to them and launched into excited chatter about the concert. This continued all the way to the car – every single detail, all the highlights, everything. Charlotte said she’d seen a bloke with a drumstick come out, and she bet that we’d almost got it. Sure enough, we had been this close – I’d felt it against my hand, but another bloke behind me had caught it. Unlucky.

As soon as we hit the road I drank some more water, and realised just how tired I was. Talking became much more of an effort. Instead, I listened – Dad and Charlotte had eaten at an Italian restaurant and their service had been unusually fast. Later on down the road, Charlotte told us (in great detail) about the time when Jessie had done a two tone turd when she was looking after her. I think Ellan was mildly revolted – Steph was laughing her head off.

Just when I was getting warm and comfortable, we pulled off the main road and started our way back to Steph’s house. I gave everyone their tickets.

At Steph’s I had to get out to let her out. It was awful – I was so warm and tired that the cold air was a shock to my system. I couldn’t wait to get back in.

After we’d said goodbye to Steph it was on to Ellan’s house. We dropped her off, watched her into the house, then went to Charlotte’s. Dad took her inside while Amy and I waited in the car for a couple of minutes. I was dreading the cold air again.

Eventually, though, we had to face it. We pulled up home, I got all my stuff together and got out. It was freezing, my lips were dry and sore, my mouth was thirsty, my head was fuzzy, my ears were ringing and I was shattered. But these were all signs of a fantastic night.

I was so proud of my pictures that I put my memory card in the digital photo frame to have a look at for a bit; tired as I was, I didn’t want to let the day slip away. Not just yet. I had a drink, ate a biscuit, and sat up with Amy for a few minutes. We’d got in on the stroke of midnight so there was no more Friday Rock Show to listen to.

When I gave in to tiredness, we both went upstairs to bed, where my ears really started to ring. I laid my shirt out for the next morning, changed into my pyjamas, and got into bed. All I could hear was ringing. I don’t know how you spell the noise that makes.

Before I could actually go to sleep, though, I had to write in my diary:

‘Hot Leg were immense¸ I kind of hadn’t registered that on the ticket it said ‘Academy 2’ so I was expecting to see them at the main stage. We had better luck – Academy 2 is basically a club. I was this close to touching Justin Hawkins on several occasions! I would’ve been able to if it wasn’t for those complete losers on the barrier who barely moved throughout. Poos. It was a good show though, we managed to push our way to the second row which wasn’t bad at all. It was a pretty normal day, so I’ll continue with more Hot Leg-ness. We got Amy in no problem so I relaxed a bit then. Only complaints I have are 1. annoying crowd and 2. too much ‘next album’ stuff!’

Finally – sleep! I was very happy though.

I needed loads of sleep. I only got about eight hours, probably just under, where I’d been hoping for about ten because on the Saturday night I was going to the cinema to see Slumdog Millionaire, then sleeping at Beth’s, for her birthday party. Naturally I wore my Hot Leg shirt. I printed out some of my best pictures, put them in my album, and brought them with me. Steph, Ellan and I were in Hot Leg mode all night. It was awesome. And the legacy continued – I blew up my two favourite pictures of Justin in Boots on the Sunday, then printed off copies for all four of us. On the Tuesday, Ellan, Steph and I all wore our shirts to college.

Big things do come in small packages. Hot Leg’s show was more than proof.


Notes

- I don’t think I mentioned that Justin came in the crowd. Well, he did – and I discovered my camera had no space left on the memory card. I therefore ended up with two rubbish pictures on my phone.

- I rang Rich during I’ve Met Jesus. He was very jealous I got to go.

- As you might have guessed from the diary entry, the tickets did say Academy 2, so not noticing was my own fault.

- At Beth’s house, Steph told me that on the back of The Crave’s album, they thanked Bruce Dickinson.