Escape To The Future… with Bastille!

Bastille are my favourite band and I finally got a chance to see them perform live in AO Arena in Manchester. Taking pictures at concerts is… not ideal, shall we say, but I had a hunch about how their show would look like and had already planned to post about it here.

It turned out to be exactly what I expected.

Bastille released their latest album Give Me The Future in February, and this is also the title of their tour. The general theme of the album is, let’s escape to the future of our dreams, the good future. Very plug-yourself-into-virtual-reality type of thing. I was curious if they would incorporate that into their show–and they did.

Feeling like,

If this is life,

I’m choosing fiction
Distorted Light Beam

I think I scored myself quite a good seat for taking pics.

The band’s frontman, Dan Smith in the white hoodie.

In the middle of the night

I can dream away

Change what I like

And go back to the future again
Back To The Future

Close up on Dan. I tried to capture as many colours as possible.

I didn’t use zoom–in fact I never do with my smartphone, as the photos come out of low quality, instead I take the picture normally and then crop out the parts I don’t want, and that’s what I did throughout this concert. With the above image, I left in another fan’s phone screen in, I feel like it captures the whole vibe.

In my head, in my head,

I escape with you,

When my dreams run away,

Run away with you

Why would I stay awake?
Stay Awake

Hundreds of phone lights during the slower tempo Oblivion (from the album Bad Blood).

Creation of Adam: The Cyber Version, maybe?

Hollywood has painted us a fucked up fate

Say you’ll resurrect me as a young deep fake

Genius minds fix all our crimes

So we can have fun, yeah?

We’re living in a sci-fi fantasy

I’m sleeping with the robot next to me

Find planet B, that’s all we need

So we can have fun
Plug In…

Confetti for the masses. At the end, they invited the two supporting acts (singer/songwriter Jack Garratt and the band The Native) on the stage for the closing number, Shut Off The Lights.

Thank you and goodnight.

The worst thing about the concert was that it had to end.

My favourite song from the new album is Back To The Future. Here’s the lyric video–how many references can you recognise?

Bastille on Spotify.

Quoted lyrics were all written by Dan Smith.

International Women’s Day Post

Today is International Women’s Day and here is my International Women’s Day mixed content post.

The Photographs

A Book

A Statement in the City

An Epic Walk by the Ladies of Peaky Blinders

The Quotes

Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

There is a stubbornness about me that can never bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.
Jane Austen

A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.
Coco Chanel

Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.
Mae West

The Song

Gloomscapes #15

Time’s running when you’re having fun! For Number Fifteen in Gloomscapes, I offer you something I knew was going to be part of the series as soon as I learnt of its existence.

I’m talking about a line from a song called Thought Contagion by the brilliant Muse, of course:

muse thought contagion

It’s too late for a revolution
Brace for the final solution

From an interview published in NME magazine, Matt Bellamy got the idea for the song by watching American news: “well, that’s were the first part of the song came from really. It’s kinda like some strange bubble where they’re all living up Trump’s bum, basically… It gets inside your mind. I think that’s where the song came from really. You start walking round worrying about things that you wouldn’t normally think about and so the song came from that. How other people’s ideas can kinda take over your own if you’re not careful”

Says it all.

#KeepOnGloomin’

Random and Weird Phone Shots – Pedestrians Walk This Way

Sign at a building site near my workplace.

How many of you have got the song stuck in your head now?

This is how we should resolve conflicts–with music! When rock met rap, or, if you can’t stop a wall being built, do a Steven Tyler and tear a hole in it. That part where he sings through the hole while Run and DMC give him that look is never not funny.

Legends.

Bridge

Bridges are one my favourite things to photograph. In fact, they are one of my favourite things ever. Bridges are great, really. I even like the word bridge. It looks nice written down (or typed) and is easy to pronounce for a non-native English speaker.

I decided to go for this one for this week’s photo challenge.

The bridge is a Metrolink bridge in inner city Manchester. Not quite aesthetically pleasing, perhaps, but that’s the point. If it wasn’t for all that glorious sunshine, it would be a proper grim shot!

Inspiration for this photo came from a scene in The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. I’ve taken a few similar shots after reading the book.

I’ve also been listening to my mega 90s playlist, which of course features the Red Hot Chili Peppers song Under the Bridge; probably one of the most iconic tunes of the decade. The song deals with feelings of loneliness and past drug abuse.

Under the bridge downtown
Is where I drew some blood
Under the bridge downtown
I could not get enough
Under the bridge downtown
Forgot about my love
Under the bridge downtown
I gave my life away
lyrics by Anthony Kiedis

Speaking of music, a bridge is also a section of a song, but I have no idea what exactly it means. If you know, please do enlighten me in the comments.

Another bridge that comes to mind is captain’s bridge on a ship. Or better–a spaceship.

So that would be it regarding the bridge. Have a great week/month/year.

Bridge

Friend

IMG_1637copy — A cat, a mouse and an Amazon Fire TV Stick

I try to post pictures of my Pepper only when it’s appropriate–this is not a cat blog. At least I pretend I’m in charge. Of course, Pepper only looks at me like, are you kittin’ me? Any cat owner knows we don’t boss them, they boss us.

So, you know how cats do this thing when they suddenly, without warning, go berserk and run round like crazy for no reason. Apparently it’s to do with them conserving too much energy, which they need to burn. (Tough I personally prefer the more interesting theory of cats chasing ghosts or aliens.) Pepper likes to do this on weekend or Bank Holiday mornings when I sleep late and chill in bed. She shoots from one end to the other (I live in a tiny flat) then stops at my bed and frantically attacks the bedstead with her claws. It could be described as something like this: wobb wobb wobb whoosh d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-r chachadada bang hooo and I realised, hey, it sounds like a dubstep song!

I love this tune. It also features one of my favourite artists–Dizzee Rascal. Enjoy!

Bonus – did you know there is a Wikipedia entry titled Cats and The Internet? Well, now you do.

Friend

Shine

img_1194copy

Arnside, Cumbria, North West England.

Also, this song.

Shine