The Boat Trip and Friday at the Underworld

Thursday dawned and I was back on my training course (TCP/IP Network Admin if anyone actually cares :-) again and pleasingly, didn't have much of a hangover at all. That night was a company meeting which I attended because this one was a bit more special than usual. They'd actually hired a boat for a cruise on the Thames for the whole evening with free food and drink and a disco. The evening was fairly enjoyable in parts and the free Bud was certainly! However, I felt really isolated for a lot of it. The disco wasn't my scene and the dancing certainly wasn't. I also got quite miserable about a particular thing late in the evening which certainly didn't help. However, I rescued something from the night by going outside to watch the buildings go by as we sailed down the river. There's a lot of things I don't like about London but at night it can amaze and astound you. That night it was truly beautiful. After docking I had a final drink and then walked to Charing Cross to catch a train home (via Burger King of course! :-)

Friday was the last day of my course which meant that I was out of there by about 1.30pm. I went home from there and hung out for a bit, then wandered up to the World's End to meet Lloyd and Nij for Hot Water Music. They'd been on the rest of the UK leg of the tour so I was eager to catch up with what had been happening. Inside I didn't see anyone I knew so I wandered up to the (surprisingly quiet) bar and got myself a pint of Lowenbrau. It was then that I spotted Jason (Black, bass player) nearby but I decided to sit outside on the step with my pint and my newspaper in the lovely sunshine. After about ten minutes I spotted Lloyd and Nij crossing the road and said hello. Nij seemed jealous of my Scuttle shirt (shoulda been there mate!) and said that he'd had an excellent week. I'm sure Lloyd will be able to tell you lots more about that when he writes his summary of the past couple of weeks :-) Nij then went off to Victoria to meet Steph and Lloyd and I got more drinks and caught up on the events of the previous few days. In summary, Lloyd had had a great time at some fantastic shows. Glasgow was an especially mad one as it was one of those "the floor is the stage" shows and Nij was going mad down at the front. Leeds had been another memorable one for Lloyd purely because of the 2 for 1 drinks special down at Break For The Border!

It was funny to see Chris from Hot Water Music again as the first time he came up to us in the pub that night he said hi to Nick, Steve and Lloyd but not to me. It wasn't until a few minutes later when I took off my baseball cap that he came over again and said hi. Apparently he couldn't tell it was me with my ridiculous goatee :-) Nevermind! Chris showed us what he'd bought - some new steel-toed boots and some cool records including a Billy Bragg box-set. Several more pints of Lowenbrau were consumed and everyone chatted for a while. Chris told me how when he first meets someone that he'll say things to them just to see what their reaction is. That's when he makes his mind up about whether he wants to be friends. Interesting idea and it seems to work for him but I don't think that I could do that. I mean, I like the guy a lot but that's a pretty intimidating thing and surely you don't want to push people away instantly. Anyway, at about 8.15pm (I think) we went downstairs into the Underworld to watch The Tone only to find that we'd missed the first few songs of their set. The remainder was hugely enjoyable though and included some new stuff. They're a fun band and they didn't come across at all cocky this time around.

Discount were second on and were really fucking great. It just seemed like the last time I saw them - Ryan was wearing his Padres t-shirt and Todd was wearing that blue shirt that says something like "Walk for someone you love" and Alison was dancing around - that gig is a bit of a haze though as I don't recall her quite as passionately into it as I've seen her before. Still it was a great set that was well appreciated by the crowd. Speaking of which there were a couple of people there who kept asking "why do you have to break up now?". Ryan was like "I don't know. I don't know!" (yeah right :-) and Alison was "we're not going to talk about this now".

Hot Water Music were last up and were as amazing as every other time. You just have to see some of the songs that they played, "The Bitter End", "Turnstile", "Better Sense", "Just Don't Say You Lost It" to know that it couldn't possibly be any less than fantastic. There were a few dicks in the crowd going completely silly, namely Nij, Mates and myself but it was a vibrant, sing-a-long crowd all the way. At the last song Chuck invited Chris to sing Turnstile to which Chris responded "yeah, I'm gonna sing fucking Turnstile!" and put his guitar down. He then turned into David Yow of Jesus Lizard and went completely fucking mad and then dived headfirst into the crowd. I managed to get one of his legs wrapped around me, thus inspecting his new boots some more, and then he was propelled away and on to the ground never to be seen again. What a great show :-)

For some reason I went outside straight after they'd finished instead of hanging around to chat to people. I don't know why the hell I did that! Oh well. I went to the tube, encountered a fucking rude woman at the top of the escalator then went down and found Steve on the platform. Cool! :-) I remember feeling self-conscious on the tube because I was pretty much dripping with sweat afterwards and can't have smelled like the freshest person in the world!