MEAL OUT: The Blue Ball (Braunston)

The last weekend of our holiday saw us out with Lee and Su, and it was another new venue, this time in Braunston (not that one, obviously). Parking wasn't ideal, but I managed to park pretty close by, and the place was a nice old building with plenty of wood and beams. We were given a table in a private enclave which was quite cool actually, and allowed us to relax without being surrounded by old people or kids.
The service was a bit slow, but it didn't really matter and they did provide some complimentary warm rolls and butter (which was very nice). Rose and I both had the fillet steak, which was small but deceptively filling. For pud I had the sticky toffee pudding (very nice but not up to the standard of the Crowne Plaza last Monday unfortunately), while Rose had the chocolate mousse.
Overall I'd say it was a success and a good comeback from the disappointment of our last meal out in the area.

SHOPPING: Cheshire Oaks (Chester)

Arriving just after opening time we started down the far end of Cheshire Oaks (near the toilets) and made our way anti-clockwise, taking in The Works, Radley, Phase Eight, Lulu Guinness, TAG Heuer, Nike, Kurt Geiger among others.

For me of course, TAG was the main event, but in reality the selection of watches was rather dull. There were some massive discounts on some special edition Monacos, but they were still £5000+ and not that exciting really, certainly no match for the Monaco 24HRs with the Gulf stripes. That aside the only things that caught my eye were a Grand Carrera with some yellow highlights (Again £5000+) and the black cased Aquaracer that was reduced from £4000 to £1800 last time, which was now selling for £2400. Which is a goodly discount, but I'm still not sold on the cyclops.

Strangely I can only find photos of the watch with the cyclops on the left side of the face, which is a bit odd. Hmmm...

Still, between us secured a decent amount of stuff, I got a great deal on some Skechers trainers, a bargain at £29.99! 

A brace of Lindt bars... (sweet!)

Rose got a necklace to match her Swarovski Stardust bracelet.

Not to mention six books for £6 in The Works, a bundle of Thorntons bags, cosmetics, and some rather cool blue bowls from Denby (which were on a buy one get one free deal and already reduced at £9.80 each). So TAG rather let the side down, but we still had a good time and we left earlier than expected (which meant we got home before the rush hour).

We finished the day with a trip to Spudulike, which had gone up-market with plates and cutlery and everything, before starting the long journey home.

HOLIDAY: Crowne Plaza (Chester)

We had visited Chester a couple of times before, the last a flying visit simply to procure some Hotel Chocolat on our way to Cheshire Oaks. The time before that we found it singularly unsatisfactory, rather hard to understand why that was as this time it seemed perfectly satisfactory.

We decided to combine a trip to the seaside with a night away and a trip to Cheshire Oaks, which looked good on paper and turned out to be a superb plan. We drove from home to West Kirby (which is just to the left of Liverpool) and easily parked on the seafront. West Kirby was okay, its most notable feature is a bizarre path which separates the 'Lake Marina' from the sea, giving the distinct impression from the shore that people are walking on water. It's a very strange phenomenon, and a very windy one too when you get out on it.

Rose had scouted out a potential 'baked potato' outlet in the 'The Tee Room' which we finally located with a bit of help from Google and a couple of Morrisons' staff members. However, on arrival it was plainly closed, and a quick look at the sign on the door confirmed that it was to remain that way for the duration of said day.

Along the street we could see a pub sign, but after peering in the door and seeing the disgusting swirly carpet we decided this was not a place we wanted to spend any time at all. So we walked back the way we'd came and investigated what looked like a seafront ice cream parlour, but was in fact a restaurant.

It was rather nice inside, albeit the staff were dressed up like it was smart Halloween (black shirts, orange tie) and we ordered a couple of baked potatoes while staring longingly at the carrot cake in the fridge. Of course they didn't do anything normal like beans, so we both had ham with our baked spud, which was okay. Astonishingly they managed to serve the potato in what can only be described as the 'French' style. In other words luke warm. I don't know how long it takes for a baked potato to go cold on a warm day, but it must be quite a while...

After leaving there we walked both ways along the bizarre 'sea-path' before heading back to the car and into Chester (stopping on the way to buy cat litter at a Tesco we spotted). After checking into the Hotel we got into Chester about 4pm, which didn't leave us an awful lot of time to look around, but we just managed to scoot down to Boots, browse BHS and Pia and secure some treats from Hotel Chocolat. The latter being of utmost importance, obviously.

We headed back to the Hotel and Rose went to the gym and I had a swim in the 'oh what a surprise it doesn't look as big as in the pictures' pool. Fortunately there was only one other person in the pool so it was perfectly adequate and I completed an epic 80 lengths in just over half an hour.

Our room was quite nice, with a pointlessly huge bed. What is the purpose of the five feet gap in the middle? How is this 'luxurious' exactly? I mean we don't want a tiny double bed, but this always seems a bit unnecessary.

The room was nice enough, without blowing us away but the rest of the Hotel interior was very nice and after all, most of the time you spend in your room you are asleep. The guy who booked us in recommended booking direct in future as Booking.com often end up giving you a twin bedroom. This may (or may not) be true, but the fact is booking with them saved us somewhere between £100-150, and with all the space between us we might just as well have slept in separate beds!

The menu in the restaurant looked good but the cocktail list in the bar was rather paltry and uninspiring, so I hit on the idea of looking on my phone to see what other options we had in the area. I found a place called 'Barlounge' but I couldn't get the menu to load on my phone so I decided to go and check it out while Rose had a shower.

The menu was okay, but a bit pricey, while the cocktails looked promising. However, there was a nasty smell of booze pervading the lower floor and I couldn't see what the upstairs looked like, this combined with a previous experience of a Crowne Plaza restaurant convinced us that we should eat in the hotel and then maybe go out into the town for a drink after. And in fact, missing the turning on the way back I noticed a cocktail bar called 'Kuckoo' which having consulted their website back at the room had a bewildering array of drinks to choose from. 

We showered and dressed for dinner and then presented ourselves to the greeter (Amy: Welsh, hyperactive, sleep deprived and on a double shift) only to be told that there was a party of 40 Italians just seated and that we'd have to wait 45mins. So we settled in a corner of the very nice bar, only mildly annoyed by the live football on the screen. The time passed reasonably quickly and soon it was time for dinner!

We had previously eaten at the Marlowe Crowne Plaza and been very impressed (though not with the pudding selection on that occasion) so we figured this was a good bet and so it proved to be. We both had burger and fries (which were magnificent) and we both had sticky toffee pudding (which was huge and magnificent also!). Throughout our meal Amy kept us entertained and confirmed that Kuckoo was an excellent place to go.

By the end of our meal we were both stuffed to the gills and after a brief pause we strolled out of the hotel and around the corner to 'Kuckoo'. 

Well, it was completely awesome. The whole place was very cool and bathed in red light and the drinks were superb. For the first round I had a 'Kuckoo Kolada' and Rose had a 'Strawberry Mashtini', and then for the second round I had an 'Ultimate Lemon Meringue Pie' and Rose had a 'Rainbow Road'. The 'Kuckoo Kolada' was served in a coconut, with a slice of pineapple, a blackberry and a raspberry on the side, the 'Rainbow Road' was served with a rainbow made of glow sticks and the 'Ultimate Lemon Meringue Pie' was topped with melted marshmallows simulating the meringue topping. It was completely and utterly excellent and a fantastic place to spend an evening.

By the end of that we were feeling even fuller (and a bit drunk) so we headed back to the room and watched 'Eurotrash' on TV for half an hour before crashing out. We thought we might do the gym/pool again in the morning if we woke up early enough, but in the event we slept quite well and we wanted to get to Cheshire Oaks for 10am so we gave it a miss.

Breakfast was served by Amy (looking even more tired than the previous night) and was perfectly fine, with fresh fruit and All Bran available to those of us on the Slimming World diet, perhaps next time I will get to try the sausages?

GIG: AYRIA (Sheffield)

I saw Ayria in Sheffield with Rich in 2014, in the small room at the back of the Corporation, and it was brain meltingly hot. It was a fantastic show though, so with the weather being so hot, I had mixed feelings about returning to the same room...

And it was hot this time too, but not as hot, because there didn't seem to be quite as many people (although apparently it was sold out, so I'm guessing maybe that the people by the bar stayed there this time rather than trying to cram onto the dance floor?) and possibly also because the temperature dipped a bit (and in fact it rained) during the evening. In fact the drive up was pretty awful, due to some torrential rain around the Donington junction (pity the poor sods watching Black Sabbath - nothing to do with the rain, everything to do with Ozzy's voice) and at one point I was seriously wondering about pulling over (then again you can't really do that on a motorway!).

Still, we got there in the end and only had a short wait of about 20mins before the band came on. On the way to the merch booth we saw Tina from Resistanz (Silence... silence is my enemy) at the bar, complete with head full of pipes and buckles. I picked up the new CD and also Hearts for Bullets, Rose was after a T-Shirt but the logo on it looked a bit like a toilet door sign, so decided against it!

Ayria opened with 'Feed Her to the Wolves' (which pleased Rose no end, and got the night off to a good start) and then 'Hunger' (from Plastic Makes Perfect). The next two songs I didn't know at all, I'm not sure if they are off 'Debris' or 'Flicker', but thankfully after that I knew pretty much 

everything.

Jen and her band were very endearing and played with a lot of energy, and looked very happy to be playing live (even after a good week of playing similar places every night). Songs I remember include: Missed the Mark, Hunger, Underneath the Water, Feed Her to the Wolves, Six Seconds, Blue Alice, Games, The Gun Song, Bad List, Deconstruct Me, Sticks and Stones, Plastic Makes Perfect and Crash and Burn..

Despite the heat, it was a fantastic gig and second only to Faderhead (which I think its pretty safe to say is going to be Gig of the Year). It's strange how the first time I heard Plastic Dolls I thought it was utter shite (apart from the songs off the EP), I mean it was a HUGE disappointment, and now I think its easily Jen's best album.

MEAL OUT: Texas Steakhouse (Foxton)

Because we are going to Ayria on Saturday night and thus won't be able to go to Lisa's 50th birthday bash, Rose decided to take her out instead. So we went to the new Texas Steakhouse in Foxton. It's been a LONG time since we went to The Shoulder of Mutton and it's been radically revamped inside with lots of wood everywhere, just as you'd expect really!

The three of us ordered steaks (what else) and Rose and I remembered to ask for the salad WITHOUT dressing, which was good because it was very nice and pretty huge. Steaks were all good (not White Lion good, or Grey Goose good, but still good) and the chips were very nice and very plentiful.

The puddings were the real victors though. A selection of 6: Brownie, Fudge Cake, Caramel Apple Pie, Toffee Cheesecake, Vanilla Cheesecake and Cookie Dough and Ice Cream. Rose had the vanilla cheesecake (10/10), I had the cookie dough (foolishly thinking it would be the lowest calorie option) and Lisa had the Mudslide Brownie. Puddings were an unusually frugal £4, which is a steal considering how nice they were.

Also on the menu was the 80oz Burger challenge, eat it all (and sides) and it's free, otherwise it's £30.

GIG: Nachtmahr / Shiv-r (Swansea)

Last year Rose and I made the long journey to Cardiff to see Nachtmahr. This was when Rose was just starting to come around to the idea of Electronic Music, and I didn't really think she was going to enjoy it. However, I gave her a CD with some Nachtmahr songs on it and to my absolute surprise, she really liked it. It was a stunning gig, probably the best gig I had seen since 2004, and so, eager as I was to see Nachtmahr again, I was more than aware that this gig had a hell of a lot to live up to.

We left home about 1pm, and arrived at our hotel in Newport around 4pm. This gave us a little time to shower and chill before leaving for another drive to Bridgend and then on to Swansea. Doors were supposed to open at 7 and the show was supposed to be over by 10pm. On the way down we were suggesting that maybe we should have cancelled our hotel and driven home, as we could have got home by 2am, but on our way back to the hotel after the gig we were more than happy that we didn't have a four hour drive ahead of us.

On the website of the venue it says something like 'bringing music to this shitty city' and I'd have to agree it's not the most picturesque of places! After a long drawn out debate with the car park ticket machine we rocked up at the doors at 7:10 to find everyone standing outside (oh what a surprise). We were told the doors would open at 7:30 so we went and sat back in the car for a bit. It was quite warm outside already (when we got back in the car about 11pm it was 19.5deg!) and when we went back about 7:35pm everyone was still standing outside, including a woman wearing all sorts of layers of clothes. Another woman (who'd clearly been to the venue before) was warning her it was going to melting in there, and she wasn't wrong.

When we finally got inside, it was very, very warm indeed. And the closer you got to the stage, the warmer it got. We had a quick mooch around the merchandise stall (unlike most EBM bands, Nachtmahr does seem to provide a goodly selection of stuff for people to buy - I thought most bands live / survive off their merch sales these days so I don't know why other bands don't do the same, the merch at Resistanz was pitiful) and business was brisk! I saw several people with Nachtmahr armbands and shirts, sadly though there was no Shiv-r merch and the only CD available was 'Wax Wings Will Burn' (which I already bought ages ago). 

We got a drink and sat down for a bit until Pete appeared and the show was about to start. We approached the stage and felt the heat increase and... oh yes, I forgot to mention, an odd thing about The Scene is that it has windows in it... so the band comes on effectively in daylight. Who thought that was a good idea? I'm not too sure about the Arabian Nights theme either... but windows are a definite no-no.

If I remember correctly, Shiv-r kicked off with 'Asylum' from the latest album (Wax Wings Will Burn), and it was immediately apparent that adding a drummer to the ranks was a good idea. For me, coming from a Metal background, a drummer helps elevate a band above a kind of glorified karaoke. For some bands this is more of an issue than others, Nachtmahr don't seem to need a drummer, but when we saw Shiv-r with Aesthetic Perfection last year (Bristol Fleece) there was definitely something 'missing'. It was still good, but this was definitely better.

The drummer was hilarious actually, reminding us of one of those 'art rock' drummers you might see on a very old episode of 'The Old Grey Whistle Test' or possibly Away from Voivod after he's popped a few mushrooms... But still, very visually entertaining and with Pete giving it plenty and keyboardist adding some aggressive backing vocals and a further point of visual interest with his spray on latex sleeves, the band 'performance' was much improved from before.

Despite my attempts to catch up with the older material, there was still a few songs I didn't recognise. To be honest I would be happy with a setlist made up entirely of songs from 'WWWB' (plus 'Pharmaceutical Grade', obviously) and I'm more than happy to report that Monster, Wolves, and the thoroughly brilliant 'Eye of the Needle' all made an appearance. One thing I really liked though was that even though Shiv-r had a live drummer, they still sound like the album on stage. When we saw Grendel recently we were both disappointed that they seemingly re-invented themselves as a Metal band onstage, yes guitars and live drums add 'presence' and 'physicality' to the sound and performance but don't take it too far or it sounds like a Metal band covering an Electro band's songs.

We both really enjoyed Shiv-r and had we been feeling slightly less hot and I slightly less 'sore throated' we might have made more effort to talk to Pete when he was by the merch stand. We met him and his girlfriend at Euston station last year on the way to the SOS festival and they were both very nice, I hope he's remembered my 'advice' to include lots of harmony vocals on the new songs!

After the show we stood near the back, enjoying the breeze coming up the stairs and I enjoyed a few Strepsils while we waited for Nachtmahr to come on.

We had stood right at the front for Shiv-r, but by the time Nachtmahr were getting ready to go on the place had filled up quite a bit more. We positioned ourselves a few rows back, from the front and immediately found ourselves behind the 'Tallest Man in the World'. We moved to one side, but then we were in the way of the bar and eventually retreated to the back. The venue could easily have coped with the crowd (though I'm glad the other 300 tickets remained unsold!) if it wasn't for the stupid seating area in front of the merch stall. I mean fair enough, it's obviously a multi-purpose venue and bar, but this was a pain in the backside.

As I said at the start of this post, Nachtmahr's main obstacle tonight was the awesomeness of our last meeting. To be fair I think they were probably every bit as good as last time (though I did miss the other keyboard player with his hilarious 'Dream Boys' moves...) but one thing which was a disappointment for me was that the setlist almost completely ignored the last two albums ('Feindbild' & 'Veni, Vidi, Vici') with Nachtmahr seemingly falling into the 'Old Metal Band' trap of playing 3 or 4 new songs and then ignoring the last few in favour of 'classics'. That's okay for a band like Slayer because they haven't done anything of note since 1990, but the last three Nachtmahr albums have been easily their best as far as I am concerned, so that was a shame.

The show wasn't quite as slick as last time either, I don't know if that was the venue's fault or what, but Nachtmahr's projection video was barely visible most of the time, and it seemed to be being projected onto an old sheet, which didn't really help matters, and of course the other thing as I mentioned before was the windows, which detracted from the atmosphere somewhat, at least until it got properly dark.

Undoubtedly the Cardiff gig last year was in a better venue, but the crowd here were well into it. Speaking of the crowd, there were some sights to be seen here, not least the guy who looked like a future-punk Jim Broadbent in a bodystocking, complete with high heels!

Songs I can remember included: Kampfbereit, Tanz fur Mich, Boom Boom Boom, Can You Feel the Beat, I Hate Berlin (the only track from Feinbild), Katharsis, Tanzdiktator, Madchen in Uniform, El Chupacabra, Deus ex Machina... and that's about all I can remember. Like Shiv-r, my Nachtmahr listening tends to be focussed on the more recent material so I'm struggling a bit here.

Speaking of 'Madchen in Uniform', the lovely merch girl was in attendance again, but sadly she couldn't provide Rose with a small Nachtmahr hoodie in the design she wanted. I saw a really cool 'Can You Feel the Beat' T-Shirt on some guy, but they weren't for sale, and in the end it was a toss-up between a couple of shirts for me, I came down on the side of the one which looked a bit less, err... Nazi-ish!

After the show we headed back to the Hampton by Hilton in Newport for a drink in the bar (£7 for a glass of wine, I thought this was supposed to be a budget hotel!) and then hit the sack about 2am.

Though my review may sound unduly negative, it was a good show and I'm glad we went, it's just that the Cardiff show last year was truly outstanding and set the bar really, really high.