return of the roughnecks

Placebo turned out to be great last week, and after the concert I made a cool new friend at the bus stop called Sinead aka love-cat on Tumblr! I wore my new leopard print coat with disco pants and a silvery top, and the support band was Toy who supported The Horrors both times I went to see them. They're really going up in the world, aren't they? Bo Ningen, who supported The Horrors in May last year, are supposed to be supporting The Cult sometime this year or the next. I don't remember when. But I can tell you that Bo Ningen are a great band!

Anyway, I am writing this on the train on my AwesomeNote app for me to paste into a blog post later. I'm coming back home from Manchester, because last night I went to see Chameleons Vox! My mum bought me the tickets as a Christmas present, and it was a great Christmas present!
So yesterday I woke up at about 11-ish and got ready to go out. My mum and I drove to Kings Norton train station to get the train to Birmingham New Street, where we got another train to Manchester Piccadilly station. A sudden influx of loud, raucous White Cishet Males getting on the train put a bit of a dampener on our journey, but they got off at Stockport and a sigh of relief could be heard from all over the world. At the train station I bought a chocolate bar and waited for a taxi with my mum. The taxi would drop me off at the Ritz, then take my mum to the Sportcity Travelodge.

When I got to the Ritz I put my coat and my copy of Script of the Bridge (which was in the bag I bought from the David a Bowie Is exhibition) in the cloakroom - which is all the way downstairs ugh - and the venue wasn't filled up yet so I copped a space at the barrier. What I find annoying about the bar at the Ritz is that they don't do straws, so when I was drinking my drink my black lipstick ended up being smudged at the corners and I looked like the Crow :/ The support band came on at 7:30pm. They were a two-piece acoustic guitar band called The Terrapins and I didn't really think much of them. I got complimented on my appearance quite a lot, which is funny because I probably would have blended right in if this was, say, 1983 or 1985.
Chameleons Vox came on at 8:30pm and they were amazing! The first song they played was Swamp Thing, which is probably one of their most well-known songs, but it wasn't until they played Looking Inwardly that the crowd really went mad. At one point a guy behind me was grabbing onto my shoulder AND MY HAIR, which really annoyed me. Do not put your hands into my precious hair that it takes me at least an hour to perfect!! He's lucky he went home without so much as a boot in the balls from yours truly. But anyway, Mark Burgess's voice has really held up well! Hearing songs like Second Skin, Here Today and Monkeyland live is an experience like no other. I would definitely go to see Chameleons Vox again, and I recommend it highly!




Just before the encore I quickly slipped out to pick up my record and my coat from the cloakroom and came back up just in time to hear the familiar opening chords of The Fan and the Bellows, which is one of the songs that was played in the encore. The others were Don't Fall (which is one of my favourite songs from Script of the Bridge) and another one I don't remember. After it all ended I went outside for a bit and talked to somebody I know from Only After Dark and Zombie Club who came up all the way from Birmingham as well, then I went back inside again. Mark Burgess was signing stuff by the merchandise stand! That's kind of why I took my record out of the cloakroom. I spent a good minute standing there like a Wally while people were having stuff signed and their photos taken with Mark Burgess, and I was still having a situation about being stood mere feet away from one of the most influential yet criminally underrated post-punk musicians of all time. Soon it was my turn and I forgot how to function like a normal human being! I got my Script of the Bridge vinyl out of the bag, blabbering some rubbish about a 'blast from the past', and Mark asked me if I wanted the front or the back signed, so I said the front. Then I took a photo with Mark on my phone and thanked him for the concert and told him it was the best Christmas present ever, and he said he was really glad and also he liked my deathhawk! Sorry that was a bit rushed, I'm still having a bit of a situation about it over 12 hours later!


I got a taxi to the Sportcity Travelodge to meet my mum, and I sat down with her at the hotel bar and we both had a JD and Coke each. I showed her my signed album and she recognised it as the one she'd gotten me for my birthday this year. The very same!
I woke up this morning at about 6 something with a lump in my throat and an empty tummy, so my mum said I could get dressed and see what time breakfast starts at the hotel. I had a bowl of Coco Pops to start off with, and then I had a second breakfast of scrambled eggs, beans, bacon and sausages. Everything got cold quickly except the sausages, but it was really nice!

When I felt filled-up enough I went back up to the hotel room I was sharing with my mum and had a lie down. Then we got a train to Piccadilly Station, where I bought a desperately needed new eyeliner, and another one to Birmingham New Street, which is the one I'm on now [at the time of writing]. It's calling at my destination soon!
Tomorrow I'm going to buy my sister a Christmas present and see if I can pick up a parcel from the Kings Norton post office.