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12 Oct 2009

Act your age, not your shoe size.


Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.
In a effort to post a least once a week, this weeks instalment falls upon my birthday, yay for me or something. Like many women my age, I am 28 years old, no really, that is how old I am now. Some advice I received, once long ago, is running round my head at the moment, it is rather deep so take a moment whilst you read it:
"Act your age, not your shoe size"
Shockingly profound isn't it? But as I have rather large feet*, I think acting in relation to ones shoe size, wouldn't actually be that bad, in fact I positively recommend it.

*Not freakishly large feet by the way, don't haunt me with clown music (you know who you are).

As my birthday fell upon a Monday this year (worse day ever!), I decided to go out over the weekend to celebrate instead. What to do now that I am past the drink so much, puke, drink some more stage of my life? Go to my first ever proper gig of course! In the last few years I have developed a new love for music, gone are the complacent days of just flipping on Radio 1 (popular station in UK land). For those that write reviews on music and gig, may I give you three mugs of Kudos? Because holy shit is it hard to write about music! I have tried unsuccessfully to describe how much I like or dislike certain music, trying to put some passion into it, but failing miserably. So I have come up with a really technical scale of musical wonderment chart, which I will probably never use again...

The Claire Scale of Musical Wonderment
1. Hallowed three thumbs up of awesomeness (Similar to wet my pants awesomeness)
2. Ohhhhh awesomeness
3. Pretty awesome
4. Hmmm (The hmmm of pondering)
5. Meh
6. Holy shit! How fucking awful (similar to 'My ears, my ears, arghhhhhhhhh')

Even though I am British, I still love the word awesome, there are other words that may be more eargasmic, but  I am sticking with awesome. Just thought I would mention that, after having a discussion about the word awesome with someone else and not really relevant to this, but hey this is my stream of nonsense after all.

So whom did I see? 
I saw Bat for Lashes and Yeasayer at the Liverpool O2 academy, which is a smallish venue. Yeasayer where the supporting act, but in my opinion they got the 'Hallowed three thumbs up of awesomeness' and should have played for much longer! Hardly anyone was watching them either, which was shocking, as they were such a treat. Bat for Lashes were only slightly below them with a 'ohhhhh awesomeness' rating, not sure what it was, but they didn't connect with me as much as Yeasayer. It could be because some absolute morons decided to edge they way through the crowd and stand right in front of me, forcing me to tap them on the shoulder and utter moooooooove in a some what snarl. I know its a gig and standing room only, but if you are keen, then get there bloody earlier and position yourself in a cool spot, no need to act like a tool. Anyhoo it took a while for me to avert my laser eye beam stare from the back of their heads and back onto Bat for Lashes, after some musical meditation all was well once more. I loved the small venue feel to the place, as it definitely added a more intimate vibe, both bands are well versed in playing at festivals, so you know they can perform on a larger scale too. It wasn't hard to imagine being a sunny field dancing bare foot whilst listening to their tunes. So now I am hooked even more on those two bands and now live gigs! Slap me with a wet haddock for leaving it so long to go to a gig! I know this gig review has blown you away...... (come back).

Bat for Lashes - Daniel

Yeasayer - Tightrope

If you are musically inclined and on Last.fm, then check out of my profile.

Now for the rest of my birthday I will be doing...... Not much

Update: Mucho thanks for birthday wishes

Look what TJ doodled for me:

I hate the gal for being so talented, but was touched that she took time out to doodle this for me.

23 comments:

  1. Happy Birthday, Claire. You're awesome!! ;)

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  2. Happy Birthday Claire!

    Now that you've discovered live music you'll keep going back for more. My recommendations for truly awesome live bands (if you like their music) are Muse and Kasabian.

    Helen (@nelehtaylor)

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  3. Happy birthday Claire! I particularly liked 'eargasmic'.

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  4. Hey!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! May you have a WHOLE LOT OF THEM and get REALLY OLD, but also be happy during that time and not some angry old lady who collects cats. :)

    Glad the concert was awesomeriffic!

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  5. Do as my bother does...celebrate birth MONTH. That way everyone has the opportunity to fit in time with you to commemorate your birthday!

    Happy Birthday!
    :-)

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  6. Glad you had a great time and hope you keep having lots and lots of birthdays.

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  7. You had me at "statistics show that the people with the most birthdays tend to live the longest..."

    Happy birthday! You get a new follower! (And if you ask really nicely, I'll make you an MS paint drawing of a unicorn. For Free.)

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  8. Claire! It's your birthday! You're also from on October and I didn't even know this :|!!

    I wish you a very happy merry berry birthday!
    Ciao Xxx

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  9. hope you enjoyed your day!!!!!

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  10. Happy birthday Claire! I'm glad you did something fun for yourself. Hey, its a rite of passage to have tools misbehave at gigs, all part of the experience. As is laser death staring at said tools. Gotta be done. :D

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  11. Happy Birthday! Glad you got out to a great gig, Yeasayer are fantastic! I was high on Bat for Lashes when I first saw Natasha's act a couple years ago on London Live, but with the new album I'm a little less so, but she's still better than ok in my book. Enjoy the rest of your birthday week! xx

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  12. Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
    I love you
    Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
    May your dreams come true
    When you blow out the candles
    One will stay aglow
    It's the love light in your heart
    Where 'er you go.

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  13. Belated birthday wishes for you :) Hope you had a great day! Xxx

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  14. Happy Day After Your Birthday! Were I not in the middle of some sort of vacation I would have popped by sooner to leave a timely greeting but alas no such luck!

    I can't believe it took you so long to go to a live gig - Amanda has been to many and even though I enjoy them myself, I don't enjoy the whole "I can't hear" afterward!

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  15. Ok now I know 3 people born on Oct 12 and you are all great lovers of life.

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  16. Happy Birthday! Found you in the discussion boards today and I thought I might enjoy your blog and I have. And I think we have some similar outlooks. Bravo!

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  17. Happy Birthday!

    THE GUYS

    ps TJ sent us over to say hey. Enjoy!

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  18. Thought of an improvement on your quote. At least once a week, act as if your shoe size were your age.

    We all need to regularly let our children out to play. It looks to me as if your inner child gets lots and lots of playtime, and that is a good thing.

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  19. Happy birthday, darling! Shoe size never looked so good :))))

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  20. I already wished you a happy birthday, but I'll do it again! xoxoxo

    Is that a bra on your head?

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  21. Oh gig etiquette is lousy these days, it's always been rowdy at the front but once upon a time peeps diddn't leave it till the last minute to come and stand in front of the shortest person in the venue while wearing a tall hat and balancing an over excited woman on their shoulders. Best way to sort them out is start a mosh, that sorts the sheep from the goats. Anyway happy extreme un birthday, why shouldn't you be congratulated on completely random dates for being born?

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