everything else

Right! Despite the way it may seem, I've actually been doing more than just breaking my computer in new and intriguing ways. On Saturday I went out to the Sabbat gig at Rock City, via a short detour to the Tap and Tumbler, a pub which has exactly the same patrons as it did 6 years ago, except all visibly older and fatter. While waiting for the band to come on, I saw distorted_rage doing some bizarre dancing, which I won't ask about, and chatted to edenapocalypse for the first time.

As predicted, when the band entered the stage their guitarist-turned-legendary-producer Andy Sneap went to the side with all the expensive amplifiers and kit, the other guitarist Simon Jones using a simple amp setup with a single noise reduction pedal by comparison. Mr Sneap seemed a little surprised at it being so busy, mouthing a silent "fucking hell" when he surveyed the crowd. And it's good to see Martin Walkyier back performing again, though I still get the impression that none of the others care half as much about his pagan-themed lyrics as he does. Not being a massive fan of the band I can't really say much about them, except that as a lesson in thrash metal they put Evile (the band I saw the other night) to shame, with better lyrics, better songs, and a better performance. There's a better review here, and the likes of bedlamborn who can't see the band on this tour may want to take note that Sabbat are possibly playing the Bloodstock Open Air festival here next summer, if they haven't split up again by then. They're doing some European festivals too, which may be more convenient in some cases.

After that, I stayed around for the club night a bit, fielding the "who was that band?" questions all my student friends posed. l0stxstar amused and impressed me by being Very Metal compared to her Supposedly Metal friends - at one point did you say "I can't believe they don't know Carcass?!", Laura? Keep educating them. ;) Saw spazzhammer and complained about needing to install 20 libraries just to start and stop Unix services, mainly because he said something about not mentioning computer issues on a night out. Got home at 2:20am, slept, all was good.

Sunday was mainly a day of continued computer unfux0ring - Kubuntu was installed and works very smoothly, except for the things mentioned previously. I had just about prepared a disk diagnostic cd to test my dodgy drives before it was time to go out again - this time to the gig organised by ogly. I had no idea when to get there (there was no time on the flyer, silly), so ended up arriving at a fashionably late 9pm. I'd missed 2 bands, apparently, but there were 2 more. True to form, it eventually transpired that the band I would have liked the most was the band I just missed. But anyway... the first I saw was the pleasantly-named Satanic Angel, if I'm not mistaken. Their first song sounded dire, because they'd utterly failed to get the guitars in tune. Ouch. After a few adjustments, the second song was better, and when they changed guitars entirely it sounded almost good. The main problem with this band was that they seem to be a technical death metal act without any technical bits. Sure, they have 7-string guitars and expensive effects boxes (including electronic tuners - no excuses, guys), but not much they played sounded unusually demanding. Probably better on record than live. The next and last band were - I believe - Diamanthian, who seemed a little bit tighter than their predecessors, certainly without any sound issues. It seemed like quite aggressive death metal, which is not really my thing, but they're probably good at what they do. Looks like ogly did a pretty good job with the promotion, since a fair few people turned out, such as jen_whitewave + rock-star boyfriend, _arnamentia_ and Reena (who I don't see for ages, and then twice in 2 days),  rlucas666, Alex and Erika, spazzhammer,  necrogrrrl_jill, filthgrinder (finally spotted somewhere other than Bradford!), and more. Ick, another lj-user tag and this'll turn into a yourapocalypse post. Ahh, too late.

Now, apart from work, I think I stay in until Friday, and decide whether to go home at all for Christmas or not.