Lovebox & Co....

If we never knew pain, then we'd never know pleasure, right? Well this weekend was certainly a testament to that. Well a watered down version I guess...

A Highlights & Lowlifes is in order I'm thinking;

• Death Cab for Cutie were AMAZING. So so good! I had to pay fifty friggin pounds for the ticket, in all my last minute glory, but it was so worth it. Another fly in the ointment was that we had seating tickets! I have never sat for a gig in my life. Before they went on I was a stitch huffy, looking down at all those lucky people grooving away, BUT oddly enough when Death Cab came on it didn't matter. And it was nice not having to crane my neck to see them as per usual. Their whole set was totally dynamic (word of the weekend), but the most amazing songs were "When Soul Meets Body", "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" and "The Sound Of Settling". They must have gotten my little psychic message, they saved the best to last. "Transatlanticism" had me in tears, it was so beautiful! Little geek that I am, but I promise that when live music moves you like that, It's such a good feeling.

• Friday was a nice little decoration on our weekend, we did the typical London Shopping thing, including the massive massive Topshop. Made us feel like such little country bumpkins! It was a very eye opening experience. Also had some really good Mohitos somewhere.

• Ah Saturday. Well, we had to get a lot of buses, mainly because we kept getting off in at the wrong place, and when we finally got to Victoria Park we were at totally the wrong end! It was very frustrating. Also, we went in the wrong direction and wound up having to walk around the entire arena to get to the entrance, it was during this insanely long walk that we came up with "The Frozen Grape Situation". Let's journey down my sister & I's V deranged train of thought! As we could hear the music but not see any form of entrance it totally reminded me of something Id learned years and years ago in some random lesson at school. Basically it was a Greek myth about a man who had "sinned", so he was placed in a pool of water under a fruit tree, and every time he would bend down to get a drink, the pool would dry up, and when he would reach up to eat something the fruit would shrivel up and die. Tada, we have a grape situation! The "Frozen" part was added on as we were v v cold. Anyway, we got there in the end and wound up being early! Was very strange, we even managed to get to the front of the queue, which meant we were exploited by every loser wielding a camera, made to shout "Lovebox" and dance around excitedly etc etc.

• Interesting parts of the day- schmoozing along to backstage, Okay the SMALL backstage, but still pretty exciting! We met an artist called Leon Jean Marie and his band, really cool guys and great to chat with! Their set was great, what with them all jumping about in a red and black whirl. Watching Laura Viers was a really nice part, she is a very talented lady who also gave me her pick after her set! Officially my Lucky Pick. We also went backstage to meet Johnny Foreigner after their set, two new security guards seemed to have grown since we last had been there so the best we could do was beckon the singer, Alexei over, who turned out to be a really sweet guy. After that we moseyed along to the main stage to watch Groove Armada, who of course were great, I See You Baby got me really nostalgic for the days of dancing on the kitchen table to my Now 44 tapes (interspersed with the Vengaboys obviously). 

• Sunday wasn't as good, had a bit of a lazy day as there wasn't really any bands that we had to see. Before Lovebox we had to check out Portabello Road, very eclectic and cool! I clutched to my bag for dear life though. We met some very interesting artists, they were a bit tweaked out but otherwise lovely. Made it in for Hayseed Dixie, who were unsurprisingly amazing, but used exactly the same stage banter as at Glastonbury. That's their call I guess, banjo skills win! 

• TOTAL annoyances- Steward CUT MY WRIST BAND OFF, apparently that's whats "done" at Lovebox. As I am the Bag Lady's answer to hoarding wristbands, this did not go down well with me. We scotch taped it, NOT a good idea! fell off the next day which put me in a total panic, scouring the streets of London and the like. Gorgeously it was found on my kitchen floor after we got back. Not bad! Back to annoyances, my Laptop speakers are broked! major major annoyance.

On a softer note, an email I sent myself a year ago wound up in my inbox! Was a very tender moment. I'd completely forgotten about it, yet there I was, rambling on about how worried I was about exam results and getting into University! I just wanted to reach into the mists of time and give myself a hug! Email capsules are so genius, if nothing else it guarantees you a good day a year from now...