Manchester 2006
After a couple of days off, which were mostly spent catching up on message board stuff, sleeping and showing my face at work for a change, it was off to Manchester on Saturday for gig number 4.
I got the bus there, which took 6 hours. I arrived in Manchester, to be greeted by rain. I knew I had ‘buy an umbrella’ on my pre-tour to do list for a reason. A very useful item to have during a UK tour in November. But I’d taken no notice of myself and decided not to bother getting one. The hotel I was staying at was only a short walk from the bus station, thankfully.
The hotel itself was a total dive. I guess you get what you pay for but I didn’t even feel safe in this place. The entrance was down a back alley for a start. There were notices all round the place, apologising for the inconvenience while they were ‘renovating’. It was just generally grotty. My room backed onto the same back alley the entrance was on and the window didn’t lock. I was really paranoid about someone somehow scaling the wall to the second floor and breaking into my room while I was asleep in bed.
I sat there for a bit feeling pretty miserable, about the room, the rain and the fact I was really tired. Then I decided, a bit of rain wasn’t going to stop me having fun, so I went out in search of somewhere that sold umbrellas. I eventually found one, but got soaked to the skin in the process, which kind of defeated the object!
After eventually drying off, me and my umbrella headed off for the short walk to the arena. I managed to find it without getting too lost, which is a miracle in itself as I have no sense of direction. I always get where I’m going eventually…I just go everywhere else first!
I met up with Michelle, who is one of my Live Journal friends, and her friend Shel. They were both lovely! We waited around there for a while, as Michelle had some stuff to sort out. None of us were particularly bothered about seeing The Noisettes, so we headed off to the pub for a drink and a chat. We stayed in there until around 9ish, then we went our separate ways to find our places in time for Muse.
I got another drink at the bar and made my way to my seat. My seat was in the upper tier, on the right hand side of the stage. It was SO high up! I had a fantastic view of the whole crowd. Someone on the message board was saying how at one point on Friday night, Matt had the house lights turned up, looked out at the crowd and mouthed the words ‘fuckin’ hell!’ It really did look quite spectacular from where I was sitting. I can only imagine what it must have been like from the stage!
I got chatting to the guy next to me who was at his first Muse concert. I didn’t get round to asking him what he thought but from the way he was drunkenly singing/shouting along towards the end, I’d say he enjoyed himself!
At around 9.15, the lights went down and it was show time! They played what has been my favourite set list so far this tour. They opened with Knights of Cydonia and closed with Take A Bow again. They played Showbiz for the first time on this tour and, something I really wasn’t expecting to hear, City Of Delusion. At Reading, it was the one song I REALLY wanted to hear but they didn’t play. At last I got to hear it. As if that wasn’t amazing enough, they played Citizen Erased!!
It was at that point, I really wished I was standing at the front. It was great to be able to see everything that was going on, but you just don’t get the same atmosphere up in the seats.
Because I had had a couple of drinks, the inevitable happened. I needed the loo halfway through. I decided Forced In would make a good toilet break. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but I decided I’d rather miss that than some of their other songs, like Bliss for instance. I’d forgotten that Forced In is not very long. I was making my way back, considering stopping off at the bar on the way, when I heard the intro to Bliss! Panic set in, as that is my absolute favourite song. I’ve never ran so fast in my life! Serves me right. I should have crossed my legs!
After the show I made my way outside. At least it wasn’t raining. I was thinking of waiting around to try and meet the band again. But when I got round there, there was quite a few people waiting. As it was cold and wet I thought the chances of meeting them were very slim so I gave it a miss.
So, I stopped off at the coffee shop and bought a coffee and croissant to take back to the hotel with me. I’m having Breakfast at 11pm now. My poor body!
I made my way back to the hotel. Manchester is quite a scarey place at night. Because the buildings are so high, the streets are very dark. So I ducked down my dark alley to my grotty room. But it really didn’t seem so bad at that point. I didn’t sleep much as it was the middle of the city centre on a Saturday night. Lots of drunk people shouting all night. But I didn’t even care about that. I was on a high after another amazing show, and I had it all to come again the next night!
I got the bus there, which took 6 hours. I arrived in Manchester, to be greeted by rain. I knew I had ‘buy an umbrella’ on my pre-tour to do list for a reason. A very useful item to have during a UK tour in November. But I’d taken no notice of myself and decided not to bother getting one. The hotel I was staying at was only a short walk from the bus station, thankfully.
The hotel itself was a total dive. I guess you get what you pay for but I didn’t even feel safe in this place. The entrance was down a back alley for a start. There were notices all round the place, apologising for the inconvenience while they were ‘renovating’. It was just generally grotty. My room backed onto the same back alley the entrance was on and the window didn’t lock. I was really paranoid about someone somehow scaling the wall to the second floor and breaking into my room while I was asleep in bed.
I sat there for a bit feeling pretty miserable, about the room, the rain and the fact I was really tired. Then I decided, a bit of rain wasn’t going to stop me having fun, so I went out in search of somewhere that sold umbrellas. I eventually found one, but got soaked to the skin in the process, which kind of defeated the object!
After eventually drying off, me and my umbrella headed off for the short walk to the arena. I managed to find it without getting too lost, which is a miracle in itself as I have no sense of direction. I always get where I’m going eventually…I just go everywhere else first!
I met up with Michelle, who is one of my Live Journal friends, and her friend Shel. They were both lovely! We waited around there for a while, as Michelle had some stuff to sort out. None of us were particularly bothered about seeing The Noisettes, so we headed off to the pub for a drink and a chat. We stayed in there until around 9ish, then we went our separate ways to find our places in time for Muse.
I got another drink at the bar and made my way to my seat. My seat was in the upper tier, on the right hand side of the stage. It was SO high up! I had a fantastic view of the whole crowd. Someone on the message board was saying how at one point on Friday night, Matt had the house lights turned up, looked out at the crowd and mouthed the words ‘fuckin’ hell!’ It really did look quite spectacular from where I was sitting. I can only imagine what it must have been like from the stage!
I got chatting to the guy next to me who was at his first Muse concert. I didn’t get round to asking him what he thought but from the way he was drunkenly singing/shouting along towards the end, I’d say he enjoyed himself!
At around 9.15, the lights went down and it was show time! They played what has been my favourite set list so far this tour. They opened with Knights of Cydonia and closed with Take A Bow again. They played Showbiz for the first time on this tour and, something I really wasn’t expecting to hear, City Of Delusion. At Reading, it was the one song I REALLY wanted to hear but they didn’t play. At last I got to hear it. As if that wasn’t amazing enough, they played Citizen Erased!!
It was at that point, I really wished I was standing at the front. It was great to be able to see everything that was going on, but you just don’t get the same atmosphere up in the seats.
Because I had had a couple of drinks, the inevitable happened. I needed the loo halfway through. I decided Forced In would make a good toilet break. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but I decided I’d rather miss that than some of their other songs, like Bliss for instance. I’d forgotten that Forced In is not very long. I was making my way back, considering stopping off at the bar on the way, when I heard the intro to Bliss! Panic set in, as that is my absolute favourite song. I’ve never ran so fast in my life! Serves me right. I should have crossed my legs!
After the show I made my way outside. At least it wasn’t raining. I was thinking of waiting around to try and meet the band again. But when I got round there, there was quite a few people waiting. As it was cold and wet I thought the chances of meeting them were very slim so I gave it a miss.
So, I stopped off at the coffee shop and bought a coffee and croissant to take back to the hotel with me. I’m having Breakfast at 11pm now. My poor body!
I made my way back to the hotel. Manchester is quite a scarey place at night. Because the buildings are so high, the streets are very dark. So I ducked down my dark alley to my grotty room. But it really didn’t seem so bad at that point. I didn’t sleep much as it was the middle of the city centre on a Saturday night. Lots of drunk people shouting all night. But I didn’t even care about that. I was on a high after another amazing show, and I had it all to come again the next night!
posted by Helen T On Tour at 11:32 AM
2 Comments:
I think I had my eyes on the crowd more than Muse! It looked amazing and mental. I can't get over how many bloody people are squished down on the floor and it's nice to watch them jumping around with their hands in the air. Ahhh, DARN SEATS. I don't think I'm brave enough to get right in there, though. HAHA.
Enjoy Birmingham and see you on Friday!
X
Your Muse tour sounds so much like mine!
When I was out for 10 days driving around I experienced so much of the same - trying to kinda live normally but eating at 1am and not being able to sleep except for an hour or two at a time only to awaken to matthew's face in my head and Bliss playing over and over. Instead of seedy hotels I was sleeping in my car though.
*sigh*
After seeing so many shows in such short succession it's hard to rate them. Funny, I can still keep them apart, like remember setlists, stage apparel, little bits of in between songs things, but it's hard to say 'that was the best show ever" - you know?
Here I am making my own journal entry in yours :)
if you wanna email me sometime and compare notes please do!!! you can catch me at larawineman@hotmail.com
Good luck at meeting the guys again. With determination it is possible!! And as a hint, Tom Kirk seemed really interested when i told him i was following the band around - he introduced me to matt and dom himself! so, don't be afraid to go and chat him up a bit :)
-lara
Post a Comment
<< Home