Archive for January, 2006

What can I say? They did a hell of a gig! I’ve always been a fan of ska music, but these guys rocked harder than any other band of that style that I’ve ever seen. They had a superb way with the crowd, and we were all skanking the night away.

Me and Caley got there about 15 minutes before the doors opened, and there was already a huge queue to get in. So, we went over to where Will and co. were standing, and not far from Caley’s brother Luke, who I met for the first time. I think I passed the first test with him, he didn’t growl at me as I was warned might happen, so things must be going well on that front. Getting in was nice and smooth, no frisking or time wasted checking the tickets over, and we were straight downstairs (me, Caley and Dodge) to the cloakroom.

Next stop: bar. Unfortunately, none of us had a (fake) ID on us, so we went over to where there was already a pretty big crowd built up around the stage, and met Luke again. It couldn’t have been more than 2 minutes before the first band (Fandangle) were on, who absolutely rocked. They were much of a muchness to Reel Big Fish, but much less well-known, as they don’t seem to have an album out yet. They certainly got the crowd going: near-full pints were going everywhere even in the first song they played.

After Fandangle, I managed to get Becci to pull Dodge in exchange for writing on my whiteboard shirt. It didn’t last long, 30 seconds in the middle of the crowd and it got rubbed off. Oh well!

The second band on (after a visit to the bar for much-needed drink) were Zebrahead, who were a lot heavier than Fandangle, but still had a ska feel to their music, with a one-man brass section as well as an off-beat bounce. The only difference was they had solid guitar riffs and short rap sections (dare I say it, reminiscent of Linkin Park). They were damned good!

After a pretty long wait, Reel Big Fish were on, and although me and Caley started off pretty near the front, once the crowd got going we got slowly pushed towards the back, but it didn’t matter - the music was still brilliant (happy, despite the number of emo kids in the crowd). Farrar ended up giving me a shirt which I thought was Dodge’s, so I held onto it, turns out it wasn’t. If anybody lost a greeny-grey shirt last night, I gave it to the people behind the bar (sorry)! was.

The rest of the gig, however, was superb, and I spent most of the remaining time skanking with some pro skankers near the back, and generally looking like a tit, but having a good time. All in all, a great night!

It doesn’t matter what music you like, ska will always make you happy, so if you haven’t already, I urge you to buy these albums - they kick the ass!

After much doodling in my beloved Fireworks, I’ve come up with a preliminary design, loosely based on my existing skin to save me some time. This is the result of me wanting to make my site my own, rather than using things that other people have made. The only exception to this rule is WordPress, as I think it is an absolutely fantastic platform to work on, and its support for developers means I can hack it to pieces.

I’m looking for a little bit of feedback on the new design, click the thumbnail to see it fullsized. Any comments on the design, let them be heard, whether good or bad!

Update: Design implemented.

I have 5! For those of you out of the loop, Microsoft have decided to entirely re-brand their range of web services from ‘MSN’ to ‘Windows Live’. With this, comes the release of Windows Live Messenger 8.0, the version that is currently entering the public (limited) beta stages. At the moment, access to the beta is invitation-based, similar to the technique employed by GMail when it was first opened to the public. I have 5 of these invites, which I will be giving out to people who comment here with a good reason why I should do so.

Otherwise, I’ll donate them to mess.be.

All invitations gone! Keep your eyes trained on the mess.be, where they have invite giveaways every day.