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.