Thursday 23 October 2008

Fall Out But Don't Fall Over Boy


Thats  a Mosh Pit

I'd had a pretty laid back day tbh hanging about in car parks! But by the time I got home Rosie was bouncing off the walls, and I can still kind of get this, remembering my initial excitement at seeing SLF. But not age 12. The question is how old is she going to be before she gets cynical and tired of the split the crowd in two and lets have the third encore stuff. I'd barely finished my tea and Rosie and her pal were in the back of the car earphones on doing the whole sing a long song stuff.


Oh the joys of the road to Damascus on a Sunday (its so should have been the road to Domestos...wasted gag).  Nightmare slow but we got to take photos and talk about guitar bands, Fall Out Boy, Arctic Monkey s and Cobra Starship are mint, the rest are rubbish..At least that’s what I heard from the back seat. I may have heard a comment of 'they sound just like busted' but I'm sure that was Rosie stirring it. Future tips for parents...if you want to keep two almost teenage girls entertained for an entire journey pass them the digital camera and challenge them to take a picture of the ugliest person they see in another car.....genius even if I say so myself.

Which reminds me of more not so genius stuff, I'm not the best at looking after important stuff and really never pass me your keys to look after, 2 passports, bunches of tickets and credit cards all in the last few years. Although I did get back into the UK on a library ticket once, actually I also had to answer the tricky 'where do you live' question. Still Butch and Sundance would have been proud. And so back in time to Saturday morning.

'have you got the tickets for tomorrow dad?'

'no don't worry I'll find them when I get back from the walk'

later

'have you got the tickets for tomorrow dad?'

me having looked for them already

'no I think you had them' always good to blame a 12 year old...they just can't be trusted and also it’s never good to blame your wife at this point. We all went into the 'deny everything Baldric' mode and having ripped the house apart we were ticketless. SO I phoned Seetickets ready to give them a great sob story about how little broken hearted Rosie would cry for months having saved for years to see the band'

'Yeah no worries mate pick em up at Box Office'. Either it was brilliant marketing and they do this every once in a while to impress, or they really have got a last minute ' for the numpties' process sorted. I was bloody impressed and saved to boot.

Back to the car, more technical shenanigans as Rosie discovers you can put the headphone in your mouth and still hear the music. They were both doing this, when I pointed out that the headphones had been in my ears not an hour before.........euuuuuaaaghhh and screaming noises from the back seat.

The NEC Arena is much smaller than the MEN and we had ideal seats and no queues for the bar so happiness was setting in. And then I heard the third very similar sounding grunting noise NO bloody Ramstein (apologise to both anon Germans) but how many times do you need to scream Du Hast Nicht. I also managed to persuade the kids that the bloke with the big backpack on was smuggling in small people....or maybe selling beer.




And so on to the Fall Out Boy fan base, if the word eclectic were ever to be used correctly it would be here. Now I don’t have an ist in me (ok maybe Welshist for a laugh) and I really like the lets go family thing to gigs but really there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed. I think that the 38 ish year old bloke in front of us probably didn’t need his 59 year old mum to look after him. Although she did protect him by shushing Rosie’s pal for singing along to loudly later during a famous chorus. And then she handed him a pair of binoculars and before I get accused of having a go at impaired people of any sort...he seemed as not impaired as most people do. Jesus its tough being PC.

Part of the reason for the diversity of audience is marketing. Now I like a bit of marketing and the people behind Fall Out Boy are awesome at it. They have an under 11's exclusive club called 'Overcast kids' its like an EMO recruitment drive. Once joined they send you stuff on every birthday so that by the age of 9 you are completely hooked. Oh and the new album can be bought on CD in 5 different formats ranging from your standard CD at £8.99 through to £110 which includes signed T Shirts, photo's, and loads of kit. And count the different T Shirts for sale at the tour stand  ....11 designs...just brilliant. Mind you it still doesn’t excuse the middle aged bloke wearing a Fall Out Boy beanie hat. So I settled down next to the bloke from The Exploited and his 6 year old Overcast thing, (Dead Cities indeed) listening to the unerring sound of German Thrash Metal, could life get any better?

The warm up turn came on, they were rubbish only one person clapped afterwards and as Harry Hill once said, 'it’s a bit embarrassing when you are the only person that claps. Particularly after sex'.

The second turn came on and were singularly forgetful but for the brilliant song intro

'This ones about making your bed and lying in it, its called 'make your bed and lie in it' maybe being the only one to laugh isn’t good either. I got a stern look from laughing boys mum for that one. 

Oh and slight confession here about shushing, mainly cos Andy will be sure to tell the world anyway. I was caught sushing at V Festival this year but he was in row 3 and going on a bit. I nearly outdid myself at the NEC though by very very almost asking the girls behind us to take their feet off the chairs in a 'would you do that at home voice'. Fortunately I remembered I was rock n roll just in time.



And finally to the band, they are really really good, top tunes, pretty boy bassist for the girls who does splendid twisty jumps. Almost in the Nani Man Utd standards. They have good chorus's, great guitar bits and they organise mosh pit circles and fights which are great to watch from the safety of the seats. They set off the best bottle fight I've seen in my life at Leeds Festival a few years ago, me and Rosie were fortunately just on the egde of the main event but it was bloody hilarious. More good bottle clips from Youtube


Whats fantastic  about the Biz clip is he wins the audience over


Craig go back and click on the link just above you'll like it





A show of hands?

A Best of Fall Out Boy CD would be an excellent addition to any record collection and that's pretty much what they played tonight. 1 hour 15 minutes later all the good songs played we went home happy oh except for the woman in front, who turned out to be the girlfriend not the mother...heck the moustache would have fooled anyone.





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