WE THE KINGS plus VERSAEMERGE, ALL FORGOTTEN and I SEE STARS

Friday February 11th 2011
WE THE KINGS plus VERSAEMERGE, ALL FORGOTTEN and I SEE STARS
Manchester Academy 3

The evening started off extremely well due to the fact that we got to the venue without being sent via Glasgow by my Satnav...mainly because I ditched it in favour of the one on my phone, which was a very good move indeed.  My Satnav will be appearing on Ebay tomorrow!  We even got there before the doors opened, which is unheard of on a school night.

Given the choice of sitting in my nice, warm, dry (if rather dirty) car and queueing up in the cold drizzle, we naturally chose the latter, and what an experience that was!  Our gig wasn't the only event on at the Manchester Academies...there were another 4 bands on at Club Academy, and in Academy 1 were Murderdolls supported by Black Veil Brides.  The hundreds of people queueing outside for that were certainly dressed for the occasion - I was very impressed.

We eventually found our queue and plonked ourselves on the end of it ... that's what happens in queues kids!  Further up the queue was a young woman dressed as a pumpkin ... no really ... no idea what that was about unless all her clothes had met with some terrible disaster, but there she was - and she managed to get right in the middle at the front too.

So we got inside and had to go all the way upstairs, but not normal stairs of course, a wobbly metal spiral staircase.  Not my most graceful moment I must say.  I began to feel a little left out as I looked around as every other person was wearing Converse trainers ... oh apart from the girl wearing spats!

I said to Aimee that I really should carry a notepad and pen to help remember interesting details of my events for this very blog.  She shook her head in that slow, disappointed way and told me I really shouldn't.  She's probably right to be fair.  However I have joined the 21st century and acquired an iPhone, so I surreptitiously entered notes on that.  Mind you, if I lost my phone at any point and someone read my notes, they would probably think I'm a bit mental!

We went into our little room with its tiny stage and steamed down the left hand side to the front ... it wasn't busy at that point so we didn't upset anyone.  First to come on were US band I See Stars.  Six young men from Michigan squeezed onto the smallest stage I think I've seen, and they were really good.  As usual the divine Aimee filmed for most of the evening so you can see 3minutes 27seconds of these chaps here >>>Aimee's Videography along with videos of the other bands.  They were very happy to be there and very appreciative of the audience ... I liked them a lot ... even the fella that was screaming a lot (Oh sorry ... he was on 'unclean' vocals!)

Next up were All Forgotten from the South East of England - which may explain why the lead singer sounded a bit like Jason Statham and the bassist looked a bit like Joe Swash.  Aimee disagrees with me on that though, saying that at my age everyone looks the same ... which is a bit true!  Very good again, not quite as much screaming this time apart from in the crowd, but very nice chaps who really seemed to enjoy themselves and thanked everyone for coming, including the other 3 bands.  The lead singer also borrowed Miss Pumpkin's hat and wore it for a bit, which was nice.  Although I really liked all the support bands All Forgotten were my favourites ... I've already found them on Facebook.  I'm so 'with it'!  I even overlooked the fact that the singer thought we were somewhere else ... ahem.

I must admit noticing that both of the first 2 lead singers were wearing very tight trousers ... probably skinny jeans ... which are favoured by Aled Phillips of Kids in Glass Houses quite a lot.  I'm so glad I'm not a teenager now with all these good looking young men strutting their stuff in their skinny jeans - it wasn't like that in my day - well if it was I missed it!

Then came VersaEmerge, a 3 piece alternative rock band from America.  The lead singer was a very attractive lady with extremely interesting hair.  It was almost as if she'd gone to the hairdressers and asked for a pixie crop but then changed her mind half way through ... fabulous!  So on our side (her right) it was very short but then she had it long on the other side and hanging down in a plait.  She was very lovely and tried to convince us all that Manchester was her very favourite place to be ... she's from Florida so I wasn't entirely convinced, but it was nice of her to say it anyway.  I will definitely be getting some VersaEmerge on my iTunes.  She was most impressed by the energy of her audience (she obviously couldn't see me leaning against the cage-like structure by the side of the stage).  The bassist Devin Ingelido came up with the quote of the night when he shouted (several times) 'You guys like cheesecake?'.  Random!

And finally We The Kings bounded onto the stage to the loudest screams of the night, although by this time I was mostly deaf so it didn't matter much to me.  Rocking it for redheads everywhere, Travis Clark is one of the smiliest men ever and he told us more of his life than was actually necessary, but we like a good anecdote.  I do like it when the band interact with the audience and have a proper chinwag (not to mention a roadie that looked like Mr. T).
Everybody was bouncing and waving their arms about manically through the entire set - it was great to see.  I'm sure at this point poor Aimee's camera arm was aching quite a lot but she recorded it all anyway >>Aimee's Videography.  The highlight for me was Check Yes Juliet right at the end, but it was all brilliant all the way through.  In short I loved it!  We had seen them before supporting You Me At 6 last March and they were great then, but it was a bigger venue so I didn't appreciate them quite as much.  I would definitely see them again - they made me smile a lot.

That's it for today.  Not long to wait for our next gig as we're back at the Academy on Sunday February 13th to see Feeder.  I have wanted to see them for so long and now I'm finally getting the chance!
TTFN x