Echoes of Flavio's Ghost Dreaming

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.

Almost gone.

The holiday week-end was made of many parts, most good and two rather bad. I suppose it may have started with the Gothsluts meet on Thursday at the Wenlock Arms in Hoxton. On the Friday, there were birthday drinks for deathboy at Aces and Eights in Tufnell Park. Scott was quite late, but there were other people I know there. Didn't stay that long, either; the basement was very busy and apart from the birthday boy I didn't know anybody. So I left to go to the Negative Creep in Finsbury Park.

On getting into the lift in Tufnell Park station I find myself with four or five very drunk young men and a young female. They're playing a bit rough amongst themselves and being noisy and one of them points at me, "Oi, you, Ozzy Osbourne, Gene Simmonds! How long is your tongue, f**? Show us yer tongue!" Any response, including no response, would have been wrong but replying with a 'F*ck you' was in all probability particularly bad. One of them wanted to fight and again it didn't help when I said they of course could beat me up, being a third of my age as I am 61. "Yer f*ing lying!', one said. I should have said thanks, I s'pose. At all this the whole show is moving towards the platforms and I'm getting worried that they are so out of it and so hyper that they might even throw me on to the tracks (somebody said as much). Most of them move away a bit but one remains "you wanna fight, you wanna fight", which of course I didn't. The whole incident lasted about five minutes but felt much longer.

Negative Creep was quite good. I spent the time mostly relating the incident, I think I was still a bit shaken.

The day after there were several birthday BBQ;s. I could only go to one so.. toss a coin. Went to Viki's BBQ in New Cross. It rained a lot. It was all good nonetheless. Later I managed to go to Invocation (good catch up with robot_mel and beluosus ) and on the way home I changed my mind and ended up at the Slimelight for a bit. Sunday brought yet another birthday BBQ, as well as a neighbour knocking on my door first thing in the morning: "Flavio, sorry to bring bad news; somebody's smashed a window in your car..."

AS I said, many parts; most good, some not so good.

Hm. Lots of cancellations today. Summer might be a bit  quiet, work-wise.

A little later I should be be at the Old Thameside Inn pub in London Bridge.

Tomorrow, dentist's appointment. Eek.

In the meantime, of course, the world outside collapses in a heap of civil and uncivil  wars, environmental disasters, autocratic governments getting their way and democratic governments not being very democratic at all.  I think I need that pint...
(.. not sure I can have it yet; just finished a course of antibiotics....)
 

Ok, so i have rather eclectic bad tastes:

tickets arriving today for Roger Waters playing Dark Side of the Moon in Hyde Park, had arrived a few days ago for Ministry here up the road at the Forum. Also waiting for confirmation for the accommodation for Infest, although I don't seem to recognise any of the bands apart from Front Line Assembly and Autoclav.

So, the summer is beginning to take some shape. I only need to win the lottery now.. (er, there's a tiny little catch with this, though...)