GIG: Possessed (Manchester)

 

38 years after the release of the epic 'Seven Churches' debut I finally got to see American Death Metal pioneers 'Possessed'. In the meantime the band split and reformed with only one original member (vocalist Jeff Beccera). In the late 80s Jeff was shot and ended up in a wheelchair, which proved a bit of a problem at the Bread Shed since the stage is very low indeed. I barely saw Jeff more than a couple of times throughout the whole gig, 

I arrived at about 9pm, having found the Square Circle NCP Car Park reasonably easily and took up a position near the front of the stage, hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of Jeff now and again. Well as soon as Possessed burst into 'No More Room in Hell' the children started moshing and I quickly turned and made my exit (but not before I'd given one of them a buck with my shoulder and elbow).

Slightly annoyed I settled a bit further to the left and a bit further back, but I still couldn't really see anything and was still in constant danger of being knocked over. I looked over my shoulder to see lots of people standing behind the mixing desk. Sometimes this can be a good wheeze, so I gave it a shot but it didn't really give a much better view and the sound was so quiet once you stepped away from the main arena.

While I was back here I witnessed a girl in tears being carried out by two guys, clearly a victim of some overzealous moshing... there was a very tall security guard (probably the only person in the venue who could actually see Jeff Beccera) who was doing a very good job of stepping in when the moshing got out of hand, although he was hilariously overdressed in a nice white shirt. Looked my like a waiter than security!

Reluctantly I worked my way back to side I was before and just accepted that this was probably as good as it was going to get. The sound was pretty shit, I could barely hear most of the guitar solos, however I think this was largely due to where I was standing (in front of the 'rhythm' guitarist). Watching videos on YouTube the solos were clearly being played and all in all the band were playing the songs a lot better than they sounded in situ.

The setlist was pretty good and they included five songs from the awesome debut: Fallen Angel, Burning in Hell, Exorcist, Pentagram and the slightly throwaway 'Death Metal' (which I always thought was the weakest track on the album).

Merch was unfortunately too-festooned with upside down crosses and skulls for a 53 year old gentleman like myself, I think I'll hold out for a slightly more subtle 'Seven Churches' shirt....

The journey home was reasonable, considering I had to go all the way on the M6 as the A50 was partly closed. I left about 10:50 and got home at about 1:40am so not too bad really, considering I stopped at a services near Birmingham too.

Can't say I'd rush back to the Bread Shed for anything likely to be busy, although to be fair having a singer in a wheelchair isn't something they usually have to contend with. 

DAY OUT: Shrewsbury Art Trail

 

We visited Shrewsbury many years ago, at least we think we did - because absolutely nothing looked remotely familiar! We were drawn there by the 'Arts Trail' which included a few Dali / Dali-inspired statues, most of which were to be found in the Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery.

There were also other artworks on display such as the preserved wood above and the Damien Hirst below... 

We then had a look in the window of the jewellers opposite and saw the new blue Solargraph, which wasn't exciting enough to venture inside to try it on. And then we set off in search of the 'Quarry', a park with a garden/lake in the middle where another statue was to be found. Well, we got lost and backtracked and eventually made our way to the castle instead which had another Dali sculpture.

This was the best of the lot, but the castle itself didn't look that exciting so we headed off to try and find the park again. We got there eventually and the gardens were very nice indeed!

This last statue was a bit underwhelming though, it didn't help that we thought we were looking for a Dali and it turned out to be this statue (Poise & Elegance) by Jacob Chandler. Which is okay, but we'd already seen a smaller version of it at the museum, and it was still a bit small to be putting it in a garden like this.

We headed back into town and tried to look around the shopping centre but the place was a maze and we couldn't even work out how to get back to the car park, so (hot and frustrated) we ended up going back out and walking round the block. 

Our next stop was the 'Windmill Inn' which was a few miles outside of Shrewsbury (in the opposite direction to home, not that it mattered) and that was quite nice. We had Scampi and Chips and shared a delicious Biscoff Cheesecake. When we ordered we were told we might have to wait half an hour, but the food turned up in about ten minutes - in the meantime we were brought cutlery by the most precise waitress ever, who placed each item of tableware with millimetre precision, bless her.

We had a mind to visit the IronBridge Sculpture park which was not too far away, but is it was were going to arrive about 3:10pm and place shuts at 4:00pm, and with 100 sculptures to look at it seemed like it wasn't worth it, much better to come back another day and do it properly.

LEGO: Nottingham Brick Fest 2023

With our newly acquired interest in Lego it seemed like a good idea to visit a 'Brick Fest' event in the not too distant town of Nottingham. After a bit of a struggle to find the entrance we stumbled across it and trundled around the wholly inadequate carp ark looking for a space. We eventually found one, though it was a bloody tight squeeze and we only got the space because the person who was trying to get into it in front of us gave up.

We went in and the main hall was basically a glorified market, with boxes and boxes of Lego everywhere... about 50% of it Star Wars themed. No joke, one stall had at least 4 different Millenium Falcon sets.

While it was interesting to look around, we really wanted to see the displays and for that we had to go and find the other rooms dotted around the school yard. Some of them were good, but I think I had unrealistic expectations of what would be there. I kinda thought there would be some large scale stuff the like of which you might see at an official Lego park or on Lego Masters, but clearly what was on show was built by private individuals and when you consider the cost of the bricks probably even these quite small builds cost hundreds if not thousands of pounds to make.