All Time Low Rock City 3/2/2011.

When I found out that ‘All Time Low’ was touring in the UK I was overly excited to say the least. They have been one of my favourite bands for a while now and to hear they were touring with ‘Young Guns’ was even better.

Queuing up for the gig went quite fast, as we all piled into rock city, it already smelt of vomit and overly sweaty men, the floor was sticky and room was full of All Time Low’s fan base, which all seemed to be of the age of 14. I felt out of place- I’m only 19 but I couldn’t help feel like the oldest person in the room, a baby sitter to all these youngsters. I needed a serious hit of cider to take my mind off these somewhat awful surroundings.
The gig started with a bang when Young Guns came on stage, this is the second time I’ve seen them and they never fail to impress! They were confident and had the audience eating out the palm of their hand. They pumped the crowd up with their catchy songs and set the bar high when they ended with their latest song ‘weight of the world’.

I was getting more and exited for ATL now after being hyped up by Young Guns, thinking they would come straight on after. They didn’t, a new band set up, ‘Yellowcard’ an American band I’ve not really heard much of their music before so I was open minded, but it was awful. Their crowd warming techniques were poor and songs were boring and pointless. They even made everyone to do a circle mosh pit, but I think the kids were too young to even know what one was and replied with blank stares. The only entertaining factor in this was Sean Mackin, a guy who played the violin in a rock band- with probably the oddest dancing for someone in a band to do, it was simply hilarious.

Finally Yellowcard departed and it was time for ATL! Opining with one of their newer songs Keep the Change, You Filthy Animal’ the crowd was buzzing, jumping everywhere with deafening squeals. Within 5 minutes, there were bras and pants on stage, Jack Barakat decided to keep them and hang them on his microphone stand, classy guy. But it gets worse, after every song there seems to be talk of ‘dicks’, ‘vagina’s’ and ‘blowjobs’ Alex even started a joke and said "One dick and one vagina..." jack then finished it by saying "...makes one Lady Gaga!" everyone least expected this and the crowd went wild!

The gig had everything from acoustic to comedy and ended with a massive encore from the fans singing ‘Dear Maria’ and ‘Weightless’ a perfect end to an eventful night.

Well, its been a longggg time since I last blogged which is really bad, but since February things have been to hectic to say the least...
Stacks and stacks of uni work, lots of shifts at the day job and well personal life has just been a mess, thank you conk. Oh and my laptop has refused to work, BUT from today I now have a sexy new Sony Vio laptop, so I WILL be blogging more often and hopefully doing some video blogs too :D

But anyway ttfn, ta ta for now.
peace and love, x

So it’s here again-Valentine’s day.

Where did Valentine’s Day even come from on the calendar? And is it just another Americanised holiday that is just a way to make you spend extreme amounts of money on your loved ones?
 
As a journalist I got curious and I thought I'd do a little research on the matter.
 
As it turns out, surprisingly it's not actually from America. but there are varying opinions as to the origin of Valentine's Day.
It is said that is as far back from the Roman era!
 
But there are so many story's from how it originated, such as:
 
St. Valentine, a Roman who died on February 14, 269 A.D., the same day that had been devoted to love lotteries
St. Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer's daughter, who had become his friend, and signed it "From Your Valentine".
 
-Other aspects of the story say that Saint Valentine served as a priest at the temple during the reign of Emperor Claudius. Claudius then had Valentine jailed for defying him. In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius set aside February 14 to honour St. Valentine.
 
I said earlier on that it was an. 'Americanised' holiday, no offence to Americans but most over extravagant holiday traditions do come from them (a).
 
I was right though! Esther Holland, from the United States, is given credit for sending the first valentine cards. And now days its gone full throttle with sending 'pearlised' Hallmark cards that seem to be advertised on our TV 3000 times a day. Getting slightly annoying of them now.
 
This Valentine’s Day I want you to think of one thing... Why does it have to be romantic just on the 14th of Feb? Surely if you love someone, every day should be Valentine’s Day!
 
But anyway, Happy Valentine’s day guys! peace and love :).

     Here's a really pretty red rose what my mum gave me
 (not for Valentine's, it was her anniversary)
but these beautiful glittery roses come in a lovely bunch and are ideal for Valentines Day :).
Bought from Tesco.







So after 30 years Hosni Mubarak has finally stepped down as president of Egypt. This happened after weeks of protests by demonstrators in Cairo and other cities.
 
At times over a million people took part in: street demonstrations, marches, rallies, acts of civil disobedience, riots, labour strikes, and violent clashes that began in Egypt on 25 January 2011.
 
These protests have been the largest demonstrations seen in Egypt since the 1977, and really do make you stop and think...
 
What would happen if this happened to England? I can't imagine to think that people would be freely thieving out your home, the army having to control masses amounts of people and making and carrying weapons to protect your family and businesses. It may seem surreal
because it's happening so many miles away... But think of how many people this would of hurt and how all of their lives will now dramatically change forever.
 
Here are some pictures that really capture the moment of when Mubarak tells the Egypt citizens he's stepping down, full of emotion and overwhelming joy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12433427
 
Peace and love guys.

Some protesters wept with joy.

 

all photos off the BBC News website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12433427 

A hectic week..

Without being over dramatic, this week has possibly been one of the worst for things breaking down on me.

Firstly, my car broke down on the A52 sending me into trauma, after waiting there for half an hour frantically ringing everyone I know, my Dad came to the rescue me. This episode now means I have to catch 2 buses to Uni, and sometimes 3 depending on what campus I’m at.

The second thing that broke, was my iPhone, the silent button broke so absolutely no ability to secretly text in lessons now… I rang apple and they said I had to restart it to its factory settings, so I did. My silent button still doesn’t work and all my music has deleted itself. EPIC FAIL!

Getting on the bus for the first time after driving for what seems years with no music on my phone was stressful to say the least; I can now clearly remember why I avoided them in the first place! So I waited to get on the bus to go home after a long Friday at uni, if anyone has ever been to Derby bus station you will know what I mean when I say it looks like an airport. Slightly depressing and cold because you know your not going on idyllic holiday.

So whilst I was waiting for the bus, (just wanting to be at home in bed) there’s an odd ‘chavy’ man who keeps talking to me complaining about how long he’s been waiting, its was one of those awkward moments where you have to string along a conversation with a person you have no interest in talking to…

I thought ‘Mr chav man’ would stop talking to me and I would be free of him when we got on the bus, but no. The bus came, I sat down and he sat in front of me and insisted on keep turning around and making pointless irrelevant comments, the point that drove me to shoving my headphones in as quickly as possible was when he turned round and said ‘Are you an Eskimo?’ Seriously this guy was weird!

I’ve never appreciated my car so much! And this week has shown me how lucky I truly am, even though my car might cost over £480 to fix, its so worth it!