We got to the venue about an hour and a half early. I got photos of myself with Hunter and Adam, and was so occupied in talking to them / was so excited that I totally forgot to ask for Hunter’s autograph!! doh! I got Adam’s though. Then I got to talk to Davey and gave him a picture of an angel gravestone that Steve and I had painted. Davey told all the little groupies to shut up and then said to me “let me see, let me see, I have to look at it!” then opened our envelope and crouched there in utter silence, admiring it, and after a while he said “…..wow, this is amazing! Did you really do this? Thank you so much, it’s brilliant” and then he signed my Son of Sam CD and All Hallows EP. I had my photo taken with him and you could tell he was glad to meet some real English fans, instead of newly-manufactured groupies created by Kerrang. I’d enclosed a short letter with the painting and he said he’d read it later. He also said he’d never seen my Son of Sam t-shirt anywhere before, and I replied that that’s because I’d made it myself! He was really impressed! I then left him to his groupies… I didn’t really want to, but I didn’t really want to hang around him either or people might have thought I was an obsessive as well. Can’t be havin that now can we…???!!
The only person I didn’t get to meet or talk to was Jade.
The gig itself was amazing. We went straight to the front when we got in (after buying t-shirts) and AKO were really, really good, as always. The Davey fanatics had a whip and handcuffs with them (!). Stamping Ground weren’t really my cup of tea and Adam, the lead singer, sat on my head! (he apologised profusely after the show!!)
AFI’s pumpkins were cool. I was right at centre-front for the whole of AFI’s set and got very, very squashed. We took a camera each so we got 2 films worth of photos. Davey has so much energy and we even sang into the microphone at one stage. I noticed he directed Cruise Control at the little groupie girls, which was hilarious because they knew none of the words (probably didn’t get what he was saying either). It was so blatantly obvious that they were just flapping their mouths around like fish to all the older songs!!! Not that I have anything against fans who’ve only recently got into the band – but why pretend to sing along when you don’t know the words? If you’re one of these people – you know there’s no need to be embarrassed about not knowing the music. All you need to do is enjoy the music and show you appreciate it.
Tomorrow I’d like to get in front again, but what I really want to do is have a chat to Jade and Hunter once more, and really enjoy the gig instead of getting squashed. Tonight everyone was surfing over me and I nearly broke my nose at one point!! I’ve also got a long linear bruise stretching from one side of my hips to the other. Serves me right for being so short. Think it might be payback time tomorrow! Hehehe.
Newport was really good, but I still think that the Bristol Fleece was better. TJ's had a weird stage (very narrow) and a rather low ceiling (sculpted like the roof of a cave), which made surfing and diving really awkward. At least there weren't too many annoying groupies there, just one stupid girl with “Davey I love you” written across her forehead in eyeliner. Again, she was one of those girls who didn’t even know the lyrics…
Anyway, I got to meet Jade in the end and got his autograph. I talked to him briefly, but he was quite shy and in a bit of a rush to change his guitar string. Davey had shown him the picture we did and he said it was really good.
I got to talk to Hunter again outside the show for quite a while, about the night before and what he thought of Bristol. He went for a walk in Bristol before the show (and the next morning) and I told him he’d gone completely the wrong way, into the shitty bit of town rather than the more interesting parts such as Arnos Vale cemetery. He seemed a bit peeved…! He also told me that they'll be over again next year. Hope the groupies haven’t put them off!
The gig was so good. I sat at the back at first with some friends – Toby, Matt, Laura, and a new friend called Mark.
Toby said he was talking to Davey after the gig and Davey said "I met this girl who was wearing a home-made Son of Sam t-shirt and it was really cool, I was really touched by that"... That was me!!!!! Cool!
Anyway, we got to the front-right of the stage. It was so intense and kids couldn’t stay off the stage. Hunter remarked that maybe people shouldn’t get onstage if they didn’t know how to get off. I think the ceiling made it a bit difficult. Davey even got kicked in the face by a crowd surfer, which was pretty nasty, but he carried on singing. He’s tough! We talked to Fritch briefly, and he's really cool. I wish we could have talked to him more, but when we weren’t talking to other people we were trying to get to the front before AFI came on. It was strange because when I was waiting to talk to Fritch and get some badges I saw loads of kids go up to him and buy the Art Of Drowning album. Makes me wonder how many people at the show had heard of them before that night!!! Good that they turned up though, good to see people going along to gigs to check bands out that they haven’t heard before.
The band finished their set at 1pm and we missed the last train home from Newport and had to get the one at 5.15am!! We had to spend the night in Newport, but it was worth it!
I really did have the best weekend of my life. It was so different to seeing them with the Offspring. Smaller venues are so much better. I would have gone to see them in 1997 when they came over, and to the other gigs they did in the UK prior to the Offspring tour, but being stuck in North Wales for most of my life, and then up in the shithole that is Durham, it’s kinda hard to get to gigs. ‘Specially when you’re a poor student like me! Anyway, I got to meet them all and it may my day… well, my lifetime in fact. Both gigs were amazing and AFI are breathtaking live. Really energetic, beautiful, and mesmerising… even if you are being squashed and trying to protect your internal organs from being killed-off… I met some pretty cool people too, but also got my share of really awful people… but I guess you’ve got to expect that once a band gets really big. Especially when Kerrang gets their teeth into them…!