Echoes of Flavio's Ghost Dreaming

UTI has come back, now on a second course of a different antibiotic and awaiting results from further tests. ION, Infest in Bradford was amazing. I'm glad I went but I suspect I still wasn't 100% recovered so that may have had a part in the coming back of the bug.

Infest was a blast.

It was a bit warm... halfway through the Nitzer Ebb set I, standing at the front to try and take pictures, felt I might faint and had to leave the room. Can't imagine how the performers could get through their very energetic set all jumping, etc on that stage which was even hotter. Overall, though, a very good week-end.

Now home, with a little bit of festival come-down...

Back from Infest. I don't think I'll be doing any sort of review of it. Just a few snapshots of things.

Halls: might have to revise the idea of staying in halls in the future. Apart from the slight inconvenience of carrying your own bedding (which is ok if you drive but not so if you go by train so I end up sleeping in a sleeping-bag) there was issue with the hot water supply (none in my building and my shower didn't work at all, hot or cold) and, even bigger, with the electronic fob keys. Mine failed just after the man from security had come to check the water situation and left. They had to summon the person in charge of the keys and room allocation, eventually I got a replacement key from her and.. that didn't work either. They assigned me to another room in a different building. At first the key didn't open that room either. This whole thing took most of Saturday afternoon. I can see why electronic keys are appealing to them (we have them in the building where I live here in KT) but I do feel that sometimes hi-tech is not necessarily the best solution.

Apart from that, it was an excellent week-end. Missed a lot of the bands on Saturday and a couple on Sunday but some of what I saw was excellent. Two bands that I didn't pay much attention to the first time round, with different reactions: I really loved Pop Will Eat Itself. I was reminded that I didn't care much for Atari Teenage Riot the first time round -well, from the sample I saw, I still don't. 3Teeth was an excellent headliner. And there was That German Band. The whole naked-on-stage thing struck me as a gimmick at first, but the whole act was very well put together, the music was good if a little bit commercial-sounding... I'm told (by a female friend who is a long standing fan of theirs) the whole substrate of the thing is that they simply hate men. I'm also told that their main constituency is 50 year old men, at which I replied at first 'that cannot .... wait, yes, I can see that'. There is an audience for that.

This time I didn't go to any after-parties and simply went to my room when the venue closed at 3 am -praying that the key fob would work and open my room. Social thing was fantastic with friends old and new and much, much laughter and mirth. Coming back to the real world wasn't that easy.

As I'm writing this, I'm finishing my morning espresso (only one these days) and making an arepa for breakfast, here back in the flavhaus. Infest was very good although these days I don't go to any of the after-parties. Shame that Project Pitchfork had had to cancel due to illness (really? a month and a half before the event, sounds a little like "sorry, we'll not be able to make it because we are going to be ill...") so VNV Nation substituted for them. That wasn't a bad thing; Ronan is a master of whipping up the crowd and managing it. One of the rare occasions in which I at some point stop being detached from it all looking from outside and find myself carried along, put your hands in the air, etc. I enjoyed Juno Reactor's set enormously, too; It was a kind of discovery in that although I even have a couple of tracks of theirs here I'd never really paid attention to them. The big revelation for me, though, was Legend, the Icelandic band. Or Leg-End as inevitably people were calling them. Talking to the front man later was very good too, find that somebody whose music you like is a really nice guy.

There were a few more musical discoveries and a few new people, caught up with a few good people I seldom seldom see, managed not to lock myself out of my room (that was, actually, a distinct possibility) and made it back to the train station in good time yesterday morning. All in all, a very good time at Infest. My right ear still is blocked, mind. I also haven't managed to get rid of the glitter. I suspect that stuff, once it falls on you, follows you to death.

Today, a couple of lessons (literally) and nothing more. Guitar practice and reading -currently, The Apocalypse Codex, one of Charlie Stross's funny geek sysadmin- demonological take-the-mickey-out-of-Lovecraft novels; before that, while on the train, 'Space', an enormous Stephen Baxter science-fiction book with a breath-taking perspective, extremely gloomy but interesting outlook about life in the galaxy at large and the Fermi paradox.. and cookie-cutter characters.

Still having a chuckle on kynon 's goth bingo sheet.

Of course, it is obligatory to remember that, as my ex-girlfriend used to say, whilst people watching is a fantastic pastime, you must bear in mind that you too are one of the exhibits....

Infest has been cancelled this year... shame. I like that festival a lot and, in spite of all the clichés about a-man-and-his-laptop bands, I find it on the whole far more interesting musically than others that might be better social gatherings.

ION it is a sunny morning and I’m out of here to have breakfast in a café somewhere..