I made a note to jog my memory about this gig trip. Nice place, shame about the queue and entry. I'll come back to that in chronological order, in a bit.
The secondborn, her bloke and myself had a decent drive down through some tedious roadworks, past a nasty-looking accident on the other side of the M42 and into some countryside which I'm sure was lovely but couldn't see it for the sun in my eyes. Followed the sat-nav into Cardiff, to the hotel which was actually right across the road from the arena entrance, with a car park, very convenient. Also convenient was the shopping centre, with restaurants all clustered at the end nearest the arena, so once we'd checked in we went to find food. We ended up in Ruby Tuesday, where I had ribs and they had burgers and a selection from the impressive though slightly pretentiously-named 'garden bar.' And then I had a night in a hotel room all to myself. Luxury! Except I had raging toothache, argh, so I did my best to cope until dosing myself up enough to sleep.
And so to the queue... I rocked up about half 9, with a fairly substantial queue already for that time of day. The guy by himself at the end of the line said hello, and did I mind that there would be 5 more people joining him later. How much later? Oh, one of them about 10, and the rest about 1. OK that's not so bad, I think, and settled down to spending the day attempting to keep warm. A group of 3 girls arrived not long afterwards, and the queue was gradually growing steadily until my two partners-in-gigging arrived at about quarter to 11, by which time Kamil was getting understandably antsy about his friend not being there yet, or answering her phone... I left them and went to find a cooked breakfast. There's a John Lewis looming over the road so I tried there first. Excellent choice, once I found the restaurant on the 3rd floor, past the wonderful jellyfish display for the haberdashery section. They even do redbush tea.
The afternoon passed with taking queueing shifts with daughter no. 2, playing Cheat, aka Bullshit, with the other queue-ers, shooting off for a shower to warm up, learning a lesson at Spud-U-Like (only get the chilli con carne if you really, really like kidney beans), and getting increasingly irritated at the teenage girls further up the queue, being drunk and extremely obnoxious, and the entire lack of marshalling. I get the anticipation, the slight mob culture, but the getting rat-arsed to the point of vomiting? Er why?! I just don't see the point. If I'm paying for gig tickets, it's because I want to watch bands and listen to music. If I want to get drunk, I can do that anywhere, without wasting that money... We didn't see any marshalls around the queue until I'd gone to put stuff in the car about 5.20, when everyone moved up, and then one came round with bin-bags at 5.40 saying if all the rubbish wasn't cleared up they weren't opening the doors. Infuriating. How about actually doing some stewarding before 20 minutes to doors? How about checking that people weren't queue-jumping, making yourself familiar with people, coming round with bin-bags, collecting blankets to donate to the homeless and needy (Nottingham Arena please stand up!) and just generally looking after people? You know, stewarding.
And then... and then!! A couple of minutes before doors, they ask people at the front to move back because they can't move the barriers unless they have space. Argh! Because obviously people will willingly move back. NOT! And why didn't they set the barriers up so they could move them? Oh and it gets better. Finally they sort the barriers, the queue starts moving, well after the O2 priority queue*, and then they say "males go this way, girls down that side." And now I say 'ER WHAT?!' What they mean is "There is a bag check. If you don't have a bag, go this way. If you do, queue here." But no, they said "males go this way" and actually insist on it. It's bizarre. Why assume that none of the men/boys have bags? Why assume that all the women/girls do? And then... AND THEN the actual bag-check queue is ridiculously badly organised! I can't even describe what a total Charlie Foxtrot the entry procedure was. And by the time we got in, despite being in the queue from 9.30am-ish, the barrier was completely full. To say we were a bit pissed off with the management, and the louts in front of us, was an understatement.
*I hadn't realised that there might be an O2 priority queue, as it's not an O2 venue, so I didn't bring my O2 phone, and wouldn't've had the same queueing and entry clusterfuck experience. But there again, also, we wouldn't have had the sunshine on our queue that helped the day be more pleasant than it might have been. Swings and roundabouts, but I think I just need to take that phone with me to every single gig ever now.
So now we're inside, the backdrop screen and instruments set up for one of my favourite bands, Walk The Moon, who do brilliant indie pop/rock and are so much fun, so my anticipation started to overcome the annoyance, but I'd forgotten to bring my glow-in-the-dark facepaint, which made me sad, but other people were sharing and sporting it so at least there was some representation for the guys, which was definitely appreciated by them. Chatted a bit with people around us, including a slightly sleazy-seeming bloke who was making a big thing of 'looking after' a short girl in front of him, but seemed mostly OK and she clearly had the measure of him. He was wearing a leather jacket. When the music started, he became really, really annoying, constantly had his phone up for video and pictures, which fair enough I like to take pics and vids too, but when I do it I try to keep my elbows to myself and I only have one hand on my camera or phone most of the time. This guy, nooooo, this guy had to have both hands on his phone, and he had to stick his elbows out All. The. Time. Kept worming his slippery-jacketed arm between me and the daughter, who was in front of me, kept sticking his elbows right over her head. At one point I ended up behind him, and he was leaning backwards into me every time he lifted his phone up. In the end, partway through You Me At Six' set, I just gave up on trying to stand my ground and actually stay near Aby, and just let myself drift away from the middle a bit until I had a spot with less obnoxious company.
The actual gig? The bands were all as I expected, having seen them all a few times already. Walk The Moon were fun and bouncy and cute, Eli on guitar being more showman-ish than I remember from before but it was a couple of years ago when I last saw them. They played 6 songs, 3 from their eponymous first album, but not "I Can Lift A Car" with its lovely, lovely audience participation, two from the current album Talking Is Hard, including the much-heavier Up 2 U which I expected given that the main acts are both pop-punk and quite a bit more rock-sounding than WTM's usual indie-pop-rock sound, and the single Shut Up And Dance, and a cover of The Killers' All These Things I've Done. I would have much preferred them to do another of their own tracks, either from the albums or the Tightrope EP.
All Time Low were up to their usual standard of fun pop-punk, running around the stage, and pubescent-boy-level sexual jokes. There was a marked lack of bras on Jack's mic stand though. I had taken a pair of pants to throw on stage but then realised that they had England flags plastered all over them and we were in Wales, so I decided against trying to lob them on-stage.
You Me At Six I find musically superior to ATL, and they've come a long way as performers too since my gig-buddy daughter and I saw them supporting Paramore back in 2009. This time they were a little bit flat compared to last year in Nottingham, but really only because frontman Josh had broken his ankle! It could also have been because of how irritated I was with the chap in the leather jacket. I do love a good bit of pyro and confetti-cannon though!
We were disappointed with the merch selection and came away without buying anything, this is very unusual for us. If I'm buying a t-shirt at a gig, I like to have the dates on the back, and I'm not that into photos of the band on a t-shirt. There were a couple with decent designs but no mention of it being a tour shirt, and no WTM merch left at all by the time we got to the stand at the end of the gig. We left by the wrong door to see if Walk The Moon were hanging around in the lobby, so I couldn't see if Kevin remembered me as the slightly crazy bass-obsessive that he spoke to at Shepherd's Bush and Manchester and Leeds...
A late night wander to the 24hr service McDonalds led me to the hatch-service Spar next door, where it took me far too long to get a couple of cans of Lilt. We have long-since determined that the best post-gig drinks are lemon Fanta and Lilt, the citrus and sugar hit just perfect for recovery purposes. And then back to the hotel, with its strange pink decor and teddy-bear-fleece curtains in the rooms. They were decorating the common areas while we were there so it's likely that the rooms aren't pink by now, but wow... Breakfast at John Lewis again, before collecting the car from the hotel car park and heading down to Mermaid Quay for a Dr Who and Torchwood geek-out and homage. The shrine to Ianto Jones is astonishingly moving, and regularly maintained and contributed to, and the whole thing added a poignant end to our visit to Cardiff. I'd like to come again, but when the weather's warmer, as nowhere is at its best when it's freezing cold and grey! Driving home took us to the Westmorland Farms-owned Gloucester Services (it has a pig on the sign! How could I not?) where we took an inordinate amount of time to look round the shop and choose food for the rest of the journey, which thankfully was without incident.
To sum up: Cardiff seems alright, the Motorpoint Arena is very convenient for queueing for gigs, the queue marshalling was rubbish, the bands were as good as expected, there's always someone who has to fuck it up for everyone else, I need to remember to charge my camera and my spare O2 phone before Royal Blood on Saturday.
I really should add some photos and video to this, huh?
The afternoon passed with taking queueing shifts with daughter no. 2, playing Cheat, aka Bullshit, with the other queue-ers, shooting off for a shower to warm up, learning a lesson at Spud-U-Like (only get the chilli con carne if you really, really like kidney beans), and getting increasingly irritated at the teenage girls further up the queue, being drunk and extremely obnoxious, and the entire lack of marshalling. I get the anticipation, the slight mob culture, but the getting rat-arsed to the point of vomiting? Er why?! I just don't see the point. If I'm paying for gig tickets, it's because I want to watch bands and listen to music. If I want to get drunk, I can do that anywhere, without wasting that money... We didn't see any marshalls around the queue until I'd gone to put stuff in the car about 5.20, when everyone moved up, and then one came round with bin-bags at 5.40 saying if all the rubbish wasn't cleared up they weren't opening the doors. Infuriating. How about actually doing some stewarding before 20 minutes to doors? How about checking that people weren't queue-jumping, making yourself familiar with people, coming round with bin-bags, collecting blankets to donate to the homeless and needy (Nottingham Arena please stand up!) and just generally looking after people? You know, stewarding.
And then... and then!! A couple of minutes before doors, they ask people at the front to move back because they can't move the barriers unless they have space. Argh! Because obviously people will willingly move back. NOT! And why didn't they set the barriers up so they could move them? Oh and it gets better. Finally they sort the barriers, the queue starts moving, well after the O2 priority queue*, and then they say "males go this way, girls down that side." And now I say 'ER WHAT?!' What they mean is "There is a bag check. If you don't have a bag, go this way. If you do, queue here." But no, they said "males go this way" and actually insist on it. It's bizarre. Why assume that none of the men/boys have bags? Why assume that all the women/girls do? And then... AND THEN the actual bag-check queue is ridiculously badly organised! I can't even describe what a total Charlie Foxtrot the entry procedure was. And by the time we got in, despite being in the queue from 9.30am-ish, the barrier was completely full. To say we were a bit pissed off with the management, and the louts in front of us, was an understatement.
*I hadn't realised that there might be an O2 priority queue, as it's not an O2 venue, so I didn't bring my O2 phone, and wouldn't've had the same queueing and entry clusterfuck experience. But there again, also, we wouldn't have had the sunshine on our queue that helped the day be more pleasant than it might have been. Swings and roundabouts, but I think I just need to take that phone with me to every single gig ever now.
So now we're inside, the backdrop screen and instruments set up for one of my favourite bands, Walk The Moon, who do brilliant indie pop/rock and are so much fun, so my anticipation started to overcome the annoyance, but I'd forgotten to bring my glow-in-the-dark facepaint, which made me sad, but other people were sharing and sporting it so at least there was some representation for the guys, which was definitely appreciated by them. Chatted a bit with people around us, including a slightly sleazy-seeming bloke who was making a big thing of 'looking after' a short girl in front of him, but seemed mostly OK and she clearly had the measure of him. He was wearing a leather jacket. When the music started, he became really, really annoying, constantly had his phone up for video and pictures, which fair enough I like to take pics and vids too, but when I do it I try to keep my elbows to myself and I only have one hand on my camera or phone most of the time. This guy, nooooo, this guy had to have both hands on his phone, and he had to stick his elbows out All. The. Time. Kept worming his slippery-jacketed arm between me and the daughter, who was in front of me, kept sticking his elbows right over her head. At one point I ended up behind him, and he was leaning backwards into me every time he lifted his phone up. In the end, partway through You Me At Six' set, I just gave up on trying to stand my ground and actually stay near Aby, and just let myself drift away from the middle a bit until I had a spot with less obnoxious company.
The actual gig? The bands were all as I expected, having seen them all a few times already. Walk The Moon were fun and bouncy and cute, Eli on guitar being more showman-ish than I remember from before but it was a couple of years ago when I last saw them. They played 6 songs, 3 from their eponymous first album, but not "I Can Lift A Car" with its lovely, lovely audience participation, two from the current album Talking Is Hard, including the much-heavier Up 2 U which I expected given that the main acts are both pop-punk and quite a bit more rock-sounding than WTM's usual indie-pop-rock sound, and the single Shut Up And Dance, and a cover of The Killers' All These Things I've Done. I would have much preferred them to do another of their own tracks, either from the albums or the Tightrope EP.
All Time Low were up to their usual standard of fun pop-punk, running around the stage, and pubescent-boy-level sexual jokes. There was a marked lack of bras on Jack's mic stand though. I had taken a pair of pants to throw on stage but then realised that they had England flags plastered all over them and we were in Wales, so I decided against trying to lob them on-stage.
You Me At Six I find musically superior to ATL, and they've come a long way as performers too since my gig-buddy daughter and I saw them supporting Paramore back in 2009. This time they were a little bit flat compared to last year in Nottingham, but really only because frontman Josh had broken his ankle! It could also have been because of how irritated I was with the chap in the leather jacket. I do love a good bit of pyro and confetti-cannon though!
We were disappointed with the merch selection and came away without buying anything, this is very unusual for us. If I'm buying a t-shirt at a gig, I like to have the dates on the back, and I'm not that into photos of the band on a t-shirt. There were a couple with decent designs but no mention of it being a tour shirt, and no WTM merch left at all by the time we got to the stand at the end of the gig. We left by the wrong door to see if Walk The Moon were hanging around in the lobby, so I couldn't see if Kevin remembered me as the slightly crazy bass-obsessive that he spoke to at Shepherd's Bush and Manchester and Leeds...
A late night wander to the 24hr service McDonalds led me to the hatch-service Spar next door, where it took me far too long to get a couple of cans of Lilt. We have long-since determined that the best post-gig drinks are lemon Fanta and Lilt, the citrus and sugar hit just perfect for recovery purposes. And then back to the hotel, with its strange pink decor and teddy-bear-fleece curtains in the rooms. They were decorating the common areas while we were there so it's likely that the rooms aren't pink by now, but wow... Breakfast at John Lewis again, before collecting the car from the hotel car park and heading down to Mermaid Quay for a Dr Who and Torchwood geek-out and homage. The shrine to Ianto Jones is astonishingly moving, and regularly maintained and contributed to, and the whole thing added a poignant end to our visit to Cardiff. I'd like to come again, but when the weather's warmer, as nowhere is at its best when it's freezing cold and grey! Driving home took us to the Westmorland Farms-owned Gloucester Services (it has a pig on the sign! How could I not?) where we took an inordinate amount of time to look round the shop and choose food for the rest of the journey, which thankfully was without incident.
To sum up: Cardiff seems alright, the Motorpoint Arena is very convenient for queueing for gigs, the queue marshalling was rubbish, the bands were as good as expected, there's always someone who has to fuck it up for everyone else, I need to remember to charge my camera and my spare O2 phone before Royal Blood on Saturday.
I really should add some photos and video to this, huh?
