Salutations from the ghetto nation

As my friend Monica put it, "I've been in London all week".

In spirit :)

We actually stayed less than 24 hours in London, but what a fabulous experience it was...


It was my first flight with WizzAir, and, despite the uninspired name, it wasn't a bad experience at all. We left an hour late though, which makes them responsible with shortening my vacation with one hour :)



But we were travelling with just our small backpacks, so we didn't have to wait for our luggage. We were the first ones to exit the airport. And we found our bus in about 10 seconds.


No, it wasn't this one, but it was just as fun to ride in it through the countryside from Luton to London. Beautiful scenery, it actually made me think I was watching the Hallmark Channel :)


Of course, once in London we had to "check" the major touristic spots and "touristy" pics had to be taken... This is me in a typical London hot spot. No point in asking for direction there, no one was a native :))


I've been told London agrees with me... I think the glow was closely related to the forthcoming gig :)


...or the beer...


Speaking of the gig, I could not believe that after 15 years of being a fan, I finally got the chance to be at an arm's length from the Warrior Soul mastermind.


I have to admit I heard some unflattering reviews pointing out too much "sex, drugs and rock n' roll" and I was somehow worried. I didn't want my first ever concert with this band to be just a noisy, hectic and uncoordinated event.


I don't know what it was, but it was magic. I loved the crowd. They were die hard fans, the kind of that remember the lyrics even when the band doesn't (no pun intended). They were so in tune with everything. And Kory did what he does best. He rock and rolled. He was ironical. He entertained. Don't take my word for it, see for yourselves:

Warrior Soul performing "Love Destruction" in London, at the Purple Turtle, on October 22, 2007.


I know it looks like I'm interviewing the man, but you know me, I talk all the time... I think I was telling him how happy I was to finally make it to one of his gigs.

Kory: "Why didn't you come before?"
Me: "Because I lived in an ex-communist country and I needed too many visas to travel"
Kory: "Don't feel bad, I *still* live in a communist country"

And this is Kory Clarke in a nutshell for all of you (who don't know him like I do)
:))


Typical fan photo. But it *really* made my day. After all, it had been my birthday just 3 days earlier... Kory was exactly the way I imagined him to be: vehement on stage and quite laid back off stage. He has that sadness in his eyes that comes maybe when you talk and nobody pays attention to what you're saying. If I am too cryptic for you, listen to the man's records.


Last minutes in London. I didn't have time to explore much this time, I was "a girl on a mission". My mission: "Kory Clarke". Well, mission accomplished :) Thanx again to Stevo's dad who introduced me to an icon of my teenage years.


Short recap: catch flight, find bus, track down the man with the tickets, have a beer, find the venue, enjoy the opening acts (sorry I didn't cover them, they really kicked butt), scream my lungs out during the Warrior Soul concert, have a beer, have a chat, hug Kory, catch bus, catch flight back. Time to sleep now.



P.S. If any Warrior Soul fans land on this page (unlikely as it may seem), you might also be interested in the youtube group available here:
http://www.youtube.com/group/warriorsoul

or in the flickr group:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/warriorsoul/

You can join and add your content to both of them.



P.P.S. As for the quiz, it will be back shortly. This week, as I haven't posted anything, everybody who ever entered the competition wins 30 points.

Let's say I feel very generous for some reason :)

London calling

Just browsing I found this by accident. Imagine my surprise knowing they have been disbanded for quite some time now.

I did some hard thinking (for about 2 minutes) and decided to go. In fact I was halfway through planning my journey without discussing it with my mom. Then it hit me: if I'm going, she's going to kill me; if I'm not going, I'm going to kill myself...

Well...

It's going to be short. And painful, I'm sure. Leaving Monday at 11.30 am, arriving at 12.45 pm local time.

Have a coffee.
Hang around.
Visit things.
Have another coffee.
Piss brits off with American accent.
See THE concert.
Have a beer.
Have a coffee.
Look around.
Find a bus.

Plane leaves at 8.30 am the next day. Oh, shit. Wisdom does not come with age :)) THANK GOD.

Thanx to Octi for buying the tickets in advance

Lack of enthusiasm

Or maybe lack of money... or maybe one triggers the other, and so on.

I wanted to go to



and it actually seemed like a good idea. Then not being paid for 3 months, I found it a bit silly to pay so much money to see a lot of bands I had nothing in common with.

I wanted to see Kasabian, but I only kicked myself in the butt and attended the very last day. I figured Alice Cooper deserves a bit of an effort, after all the good times he provided us with in highschool. Like so many others, I wanted to see him perform the hits *I* grew up with, especially that there are so many good tracks on "Trash"/"Stoopid"/"Brutal Planet".

Although a totally different thing than what I wanted, Alice Cooper's show was a professional display of a long and successful career. He had a story, he had the stage and he had the twist - which I'm sure everyone knows.

But, after an hour of crappy hip hop [and here I'd just like to put a bullet into the smartass who thought Wu Tang Clan had any business opening for Alice Coper or Marilyn Manson] I wanted something to take the pain away. Ok, I got a show, but I didn't get the fun.



Although not my first option for the night, I actually turned to Manson to "save" us all from boredom... I was growling "bring the freak" but the freak failed to create any atmosphere whatsoever. He didn't communicate with the crowd, and he wasn't in the mood to "work" with the audience. He had some tracks that could have unleashed the energy of those people, but he did not exploit the situation. I actually saw people yawning...



And nobody even tried to get an "encore", which is lamer than lame...

Money well spent

I have to say hello to all the regular prowlers of this blog, and to explain why there hasn't been any contest for three days now.

I went to



an event I was much looking forward because of one of the bands that was featured on the poster. No points this time, but you have by the end of this post to figure out who :)

The location of "Lacul Morii" was good and bad in the same time, good, cause it is an isolated island in the middle of the lake, and people can make as much noise as they want without disturbing the "local wildlife" as I call it. Bad, because the access road was about 2 kilometers long, distance one had to walk in a scorching sun. I even called my best friend to ask her if that was the road to hell. ["Drumul oaselor" mai precis].

No wonder one felt an uncontrolable urge to buy coke once arrived in the premises. From left to right, yours turly, Bach and Anita.



The festival began around noon and continued long into the night. I only got there in time to catch BACKYARD BABIES, some rockers we used to watch back in the glorious days of Headbangers' Ball. Here's a picture,



and here's a video:



Amazingly, all the punk looking attenders seemed placidly quiet.



We then moved closer to the stage to have fun listening to THE RASMUS. Good show, slight change in the audience, although a smashing majority seemed crippled by boredom.



Nothing of such kind could be said about us, after all we had a nice warm-up listening to AC/DC between shows, and already had major fun disecting the lyrics. "I'm not afraid in New Yourk City" - "He's probably the only one not afraid in New York City." - "Yeah, he's probably the one causing havoc in NYC, that's why." - "Yeah, it's good being on top of the food chain".



So when THE RASMUS came on stage, we were already fired up and ready to go. Of course, we couldn't help remixing lyrics, so after the glorious end of their show with "In the shadows" - what else,



we kept on going with "I've been jumping, I've been screaming" and so on.

However, the highlight of Saturday night was THE PRODIGY. They were here before, but this was my first time to see them perform live. Quite responsible for the demise of the rock community back in 1994, when every metal head shifted to techno and industrial, these guys kicked ass. The crowd went wild and they didn't stop for 2 hours. As my best friend likely put it, "UNLEASH HEEEEEEELL"... No wonder they said they wanted us to wake up the next day with a fucking headache. I was more worried about a fucking muscle ache...

Sunday I arrived even later, just in time to catch ILL NINO who made a strong impression. Mixing latin beats with sheer metal, not to mention a strong sense of humour, these guys ROCKED.



I'm so ashamed about the Romanian public who most of the time just sits there and nods. They surely deserved the "Are you fucking tired or sumtin'" remarks.


And now, to my personal highlight of the evening, THE CULT. Not exactly metal, but truly entertaining. I don't know why they were lined-up after Ill Nino, as the music couldn't be more clashing... I was very extatic, as they played all their hits and 2 new tracks. I jumped and danced "like it was... umm... 1999"... and me and my best friend were probably looked at as people usually look at swedish movies without subtitles :P Nearby a man in his 40's was screaming his lungs out for IAN and BILLY. If you never heard of them, don't feel bad, neither did the rest of the audience. BUT if you ever listened to the "Gone in 60 seconds" original soundtrack, you might have come across "Painted on my heart", a mind haunting ballad from The Cult.



[And now, shameless copy/paste from an older article I wrote about the band:]

Well, I’ve discovered them in 1993, when I recorded "Wild Flower" from MTV’s "Headbanger’s Ball". I loved their wild energy and the way this band performed on stage. Honestly, I couldn’t sit down while watching this video. Back then I thought it was a new album, but in fact "Electric" was released in 1987. I began collecting their albums and also found out they have been around for quite a while, initially as "The Southern Death Cult", then as "The Death Cult". I have these albums as well, although they are quite hard to come by these days. Success finally came after shortening their name to "The Cult" and recording their 1985 effort – "Love".

As a long time follower of their career, I noticed their style evolving from the garage days, Sisters of Mercy like tracks to more mature songs, with a distinctive sound of their own, a catchy line, a sensual, unmistakable voice, and the charismatic presence of their front man, Ian Astbury.

If you want an album to get acquainted with a great band, you should definitely get your hands on "Pure Cult", a collection of their most popular songs. There was a time when I would play it every day, from start to finish. That time lasted very long, and for someone who gets easily bored, that should say something.

[Shameless copy/paste ends here.]

Ah, the reason we don't have any pictures from the magnificent second day of the fest, is that the camera's memory card was left in the laptop...

Aftermath

As you already know from my previous post, I went to



for a 3 days festival held in Sibiu.


I lodged in here



waking up every morning to this incredible view:



I tried to see as much as possible of the city



and here's the proof :)



We loved the architecture



but we loved checking out guys more :)))



As always, the best looking ones were on stage...



We ate sweets



painted the town tongue red



visited Bruckenthal



took pictures



and tried getting lost in the woods.



At the very last minute we found a nice shop and wasted all our savings there.



I practically forced Gabi into buying this incredible dress.

She liked it so much she couldn't stand still.

I wanna go back...

...

If you see my boss, tell him he owes me money.

Countdown to extinction

Well, hopefully not...

In less than 6 hours I'm leaving for Sibiu, to attend the Artmania Festival. I still have to wash my hair, pack my bags and do all the things a girl does and usually goes unnoticed... My bus leaves at 6.30 am and I hope to make it there alive and in one piece. Romanian drivers have a nasty rep and bus drivers speed a little too much.

Oh, well, if everything goes well I'll be back Monday, to post the answers to the first 2 quizes. So hurry up and provide your inputs.

I'm trying to post now the content for the weekend quizes, so that your hunger for rock music videos does not trigger some nasty side effects. I'll have a beer for you.

Cheers