tears on tape

I've just gotten back from the HIM concert in Wolverhampton and it was absolutely amazingly mind-blowing! I will write up an account now before I go to bed~

At about ten past four - maybe later - I left the house to catch a bus to New Street Station, where I bought a small tea of Cadbury's Buttons and chocolate Frijj, seeing as I'd forgotten to eat again before I went out. I got on a train to Liverpool that was stopping at Wolverhampton on the way, which made its usual stops in Smethwick. When the train pulled in to Wolverhampton station I began to make my way towards the venue, getting there at about quarter to six.
Not long afterward I found out the concert had been moved from the Civic to the Wulfrun, which was fine by me. I went to queue up outside for about an hour and a bit, which was quite annoying because it was so windy and rainy. At 6:50, the doors opened and everyone went inside, and I managed to get a space a row away from the front! I literally did not move for the entire night.
I was a bit skeeved out by the lanky-ass boys around me with their hands around their girlfriends' waists from behind, and I'm pretty sure one boy was dry-humping his girlfriend at one point. It was really quite off-putting. But there was a cool girl next to me who had a massive Polaroid camera in her bag, and she said she'd got it off eBay for £30! We exchanged Tumblr URLs, and I've just found out her name's Yasmin!
The support act was a band called Caspian from Massachusetts. Their set was entirely instrumental and quite shoegazey, somewhat in a similar vein to 65daysofstatic, and they went down really well! Their music was a sort of heavy brand of shoegaze, and two words that came into my head while I was watching them were 'post-rock'. I knew literally nothing about them until tonight, but I'm so glad that I finally do!
HIM came on at about 9:15-ish. They used Unleash the Red, one of the instrumental interludes from Tears on Tape, as an intro, then opened with All Lips Go Blue, and in that moment I remembered why I love them so much! They were on top form and Ville Valo was very engaging and smiley throughout the whole night. They also played songs like Join Me In Death, Buried Alive By Love, Passion's Killing Floor and Soul on Fire! At one point someone threw a thong on stage, and Ville hung it up on his microphone stand. For the encore they played Sleepwalking Past Hope, which is a 10-minute experimental opus from their 2007 album Venus Doom. I slipped out near towards the end to see if I could try and meet Ville Valo, but after a few minutes of waiting I decided to make my way home.
On my way to the train station I dropped in at the Numa Bar, which is a Gary Numan themed bar opposite the Civic Hall. I ordered a Mixed Fruit Kopparberg which I drank within a matter of seconds as I was very thirsty, then quickly left to get either a taxi or the train back home. Luckily enough, I was just in time to get the last train back to Birmingham, which was at 11:21! When I arrived back in Birmingham, I got a taxi from the station to my house, and here I am now, writing all this up.

I think that tonight has been a very successful and enjoyable night, despite all previous worries. My next concert is Gary Numan at the same venue in a month's time, so I think it might be time to start playing his new album ad nauseam! Well, not really nauseam - you can never get nauseam of Gary Numan!

Besides from HIM I've also been listening to Purity Ring's album Shrines, and various music from the anime franchise Neon Genesis Evangelion.