GIG/SHOPPING: Aesthetic Perfection (Infest - Bradford)

Unlike last year, there was only one band we really wanted to see at Infest this year, and that was Sunday night headliner 'Aesthetic Perection'. It's kind of weird turning up to a gig at 10:30, but the usual motley crue of transvestites and cyber weirdos kept us entertained while we tried to ignore the terrible band that were on stage before AP.

AP were advertised to play from 11:15 til 12:30, but it was more like 11:20 to 12:20 - which was a bit of a swizz... but still, it was good. Not the best we've seen him, that show at the Ruby Lounge will be hard to beat. After the show we drove an hour back to Sheffield to stay at the Premier Inn for the night and then hit Meadowhall at 10am on the Monday morning.

MEAL OUT: The Windmill (Wymeswold)

Another new place to try, albeit this one is in the same chain as the Curzon Arms and the Langton Arms so the menu was somewhat familiar. Several things to choose from including burger, two steaks a pie and scampi in a basket. If I hadn't had scampi last week I probably would have had that, but instead I had steak. The steak was nice, the fries were okay - didn't really taste of much, and the pepper sauce was different. Rose had lamb, Su had chicken and Lee had ham, egg and massive chips! The egg looked really nice actually, made me wish I'd had a burger with an egg in it.

The place is very nice, albeit it's a little bit 'hipster', all the staff had beards, even the women, and I'm sure they could waffle on about the provenance of the meat for hours. I wanted to ask where the eggs came from, but I couldn't be bothered to listen to the reply, so I didn't bother. No doubt they are sustainably sourced from a local farmer who they barter with or some such nonsense.

Slight black mark when they brought a bottle of wine that wasn't quite cold enough, although they did replace it with a fresh one that was colder - so fair enough. Didn't really fancy any of the puds and the supermarket was closed on the way home so no cakes!

Robs New Van!

DAY OUT: Hatfield House (nr St Albans)

Leaving early, we arrived at Hatfield House at about 10:20 and set off into the park, getting completely lost in the process. It took a good while to do the full walk and it was pretty warm out there today - so by the time we eventually got back to the car we were in need of a rest and decided it was time for lunch!

Thankfully we had put the sheet over the windscreen before setting off, so the car wasn't too bad, and after lunch we headed back in to do the house and gardens. The house was pretty good, with lots of paintings and a decent number of rooms to view.

I think the first room you come to was probably the best though and I can't say that anything particularly stuck in the memory. After we'd completed the house we headed outside to the gardens, it was still rather too hot and the gardens weren't exactly amazing and the ones at the back of the house weren't even open to the public - what a con! I'm not sure I think it was worth £19 if I'm completely honest, especially as the fountain in front of the house wasn't working....

After an ice cream (£2.50 for a bloody Magnum!) we headed off to St Albans where we killed some time in TK Maxx and then went to the Slug and Lettuce for a drink. It was rather nice in there, and it was nice to rest our feet while we consumed a pint of Diet Coke each.

We didn't get to see much of St Albans, as we wanted to get off to Sandridge and make sure we got a table at The Queen's Head. When we first got there we weren't sure about it, so we wandered down the road to check out the Rose and Crown, but in the end we decided to trust the Trip Advisor ratings and ended up having a lovely Scampi and Chips before heading home. A couple of noteworthy things in that pub were the disabled lady at the bar with the Chihuauas (dressed up and completely adorable) and the soap dispensers in the toilets made from empty spirits bottles - you can't buy class like that!

GIG: Neonsol / Advance (Manchester) + Motorway Breakdown...

As usual we left it until the last minute and so a week before we were due to go to Manchester we finally started listening to Freakangel! But it was no good, at best they are a cut-price Combichrist, at worst they're just boring so we decided to save ourselves a very long walk and parked in the multi-storey car park around the corner from the venue even though it meant we'd have to leave the venue by 10:45pm.

Which sounded fine, after all the doors were open at 7pm and we assumed Advance would be off by 8:30pm, allowing a fifteen minute set change, Neonsol would be off by 10pm so we'd get to see a few songs from Freakangel at least - and that would probably be enough.

Except that Advance didn't come on until 8pm and played for just over an hour. That was a bit much, while their first album is good, the follow up EP was a bit ropey and the new songs sound better but still don't work that well live. Chuck in THREE covers (Madonna: Frozen, Mesh: How Long? and New Order: True Faith) and a few tiresome political comments and it was dragging by the end. At least we didn't have to listen to 'We Are the 45' and Tom ranting about Scottish independence. Have it mate, but don't come crawling back broke like you did last time! On the up side we did get the song recorded for the Resistanz 2015 soundtrack (Voice of Resistanz), which is pretty good.

That was my fourth time seeing Advance and they at least arrested the decline of getting worse every time I'd seen them, from a great start supporting Ayria where they surprised a lot of people, to a silly hat and technical problems at Resistanz, to an irritating set supporting Neonsol last year, this was at least an improvement.

But we really came to see Neonsol (3rd time for them) and they didn't disappoint. Starting with 'The Road to War' it was clear that the 'percussionist' (let's call him that) was struggling a bit to get into the groove, he was also a bit loud in the mix so his slightly mistimed clanging was all too easy to pick up on. But once he got it right he added some much needed visual stimulation (something Advance could well do with as well).

The stage was a bit overlit, and so a bit lacking in atmosphere, but Neonsol produced a pretty flawless set including most of their album and the Another Day ep. Nena looked pregnant, so I hope this won't slow the band down as they are already well overdue for a second album.

Neonsol went off at about 10:40pm which meant any chance of seeing even one Freakangel song was completely out of the window. And all went well until we got on the M6 and realised a junction was shut so we had to suffer an interminable diversion which put us back nearly half an hour. But that was only the start...

Approaching the turning for LFE services the car suddenly gave a judder and the engine light came on, I thought we had power still but the car went slower and slower and on reflection we might just have been coasting. Unfortunately we stopped on the hard shoulder about 200ft from the services and had to ring the breakdown company (who didn't answer for 15 minutes). So I decided we should walk to the services because even though it was 16deg it felt absolutely freezing and we were both shivering. I found a sheet in the back of the car which I gave to Rose to wrap herself in and we walked up to the services where we finally managed to contact Run Your Fleet.

As it happened they were already aware as Rose had used one of those emergency telephones and spoken to the operator and they have already contacted them. So we just had to wait another twenty minutes for the AA man to arrive, who then tootled around for a bit under the bonnet before towing us into the services and then tootled around a bit before deciding to tow us home.

That wasn't a pleasant experience at all, we thought we'd get recovered by a truck, but no we got towed with a short metal bar behind a transit which means you have to be in the car, steering and indicating / braking - although supposedly you don't need to brake as the bar is supposed to stop you: I still don't believe it.

We dropped off the car at our local garage and then the AA man (who was a dead ringer for Peter Cappaldi) dropped us off at home at about 3:45am. So all in all, it was an evening of highs and lows all round - but at least Neonsol were good!