Evanescence – Manchester Apollo

Evanescence seem to have swan-dived into 2003, for some reason. The music fits in with the general “nu-metal” style of bands like Linkin Park et al, only with female vocals. I’ve enjoyed the album over the last six months, so I was interested to see how they did on their first (to my knowledge) appearance in Manchester.

First, of course, we had to get through the support acts. First on the list were Apartment 26, who were OK, but nothing special. Second were Finger Eleven, who were much better. I haven’t yet worked out if they were serious or taking the piss though – the guitarist has definitely taken on the excesses of guitar-godism, although at least he provided some comedy moments while attempting to apparently kill himself with his own guitar strap.

Evanescence themselves though were bloody good. They appeared to have managed to fit an entire arena-level stage set into the Apollo – god only knows how. It was impressive. The sound quality was exceptional – with some very impressive bass lines that still rattled joints at the back of the venue. I think they played pretty much the entire album, as well as a couple of tracks I hadn’t heard before.

Some wanker was braying about how when he saw them somewhere else they’d got twice the people on stage, proper string section blah blah frigging blah, and yes OK, you could tell that the strings etc. were sampled on this occasion. But to my mind it was still a good concert – and it’s pointless comparing seeing them on a huge stage in front of 50,000+ people to a small 3,000-4,000ish venue like the Apollo. Vagaries like stage size and so on also play a part.

For myself, I’d go and see them again happily – but only once they’ve released another album, and built up some more material. All the same, well worth seeing, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Upromise

I don’t know why, but in the last couple of days I’ve suddenly started getting a shedload of spam from some bunch called Upromise. It’s bloody annoying, yank-centric, and has now been added to my spam filter.

Seven Days

This time next week, I’ll be 32. Not that the age bothers me – it doesn’t – but it’s the precursor to the thought process that’s been going on. This time last year I’d been broadcasting it around the net, Mike was wearing a special shirt as part of the “shirt off my back” project, and I was being about as unsublte as it’s possible to be, short of coshing someone round ther head with a breezeblock.

This year is slightly different – I’m not going out of my way to publicise it, but nor am I going far out of my way to tell all about it either. It’s one of those things – I want to see who remembers it of their own accord. Needless to say, in a state of cynicism, I’m not expecting much.

So there we go. A fairly memorable date, particularly for people in the UK, and I’ll be interested to see who’s got it in their memories.

Well, it pays the rent

Oops – I knew there was something I’d forgotten to do. I need £450 in my pocket by the end of the day, so I can pay my rent on time. No worries – I’ve got the money in the bank account. Bollocks, I forgot the cheque book – that means I’ll have to use the cashpoint. Arse-wit. Still, not to worry, I’ve got the cashpoint card with me, so all’s well. Ah look, there’s a machine, and it’s even one owned by my own brand of banking fuck-heads.

You have £xxx.xx in your account. You can take out £450 today Excellent, that’s what I need, so that’s what I’ll ask for.
Your request cannot be fulfilled. This machine can only dispense a maximum of £400.00. Please retrieve your card.
So why the fuck do you say I can have more than that, you piece of everloving monkey spunk? Not even an “Is this OK?” option – just bang, can’t give you the cash you requested so fuck off, tonto. Luckily there’s no queue behind me, so I feed the card back in, go through the bullshit about what I can take out, and get £400 instead. No problem.

Off to the next one. Available cash : £50. Fine, I’ll have that too. No problem. So now I’ve got the rent to pay – hope the office is open by the time I get there tonight.

Equality for All

I must admit, today’s news that an umbrella ‘Equality for All’ body may be formed by the government comes as no surprise whatsoever.

About two years ago, I worked on a contract for the Equal Opportunities Commission, and also got involved with stuff for Disability Rights Commission and Commision for Racial Equality. It always struck me as slightly bizarre that there should be three organisations, all with their own little fiefdom of responsibility for some form of non-discrimination. Three seperate teams of people, three call-centres, and none of them would deal with the problems of another commission – so for example a black woman facing harrassment at work would have to deal with two completely different organisations in order to deal with both issues.

It makes a load more sense to put all of these commissions under one roof – and also hopefully expand into other areas of discrimination – even though Committee for Equality and Human Rights is a bit of a wanky title for such an organisation…

Down

Why is it that people assume that I’m capable of telepathically connecting with remote sites, and ascertaining any problems on a minimum of information?

By the way, the intranet webmail appears to have been down for the last three days. Any ideas?

Frankly, no. It’s been working for me. An extra dose of clarity with regard to “down” might help, some kind of idea of symptoms. If I could work properly and trouble-shoot from that level of information, i wouldn’t be doing this, I’d be winning the fucking lottery every week.

Ill

Ah, the sensuous splat of snot-laden tissue in metal bin. The hacking wrack of a decent lumpy cough. The voice that could double for “sexy Nadia” on 0898 thingummy whatsit. The throat that feels like I’ve been gargling with razor-blades and following it with a dollop of Scotch. The head that feels like someone’s repeatedly hit it with a sack.

It must be a cold, and it must be a good ‘un.