Tuesday 22 July 2014

My Sonisphere and snakepit experience

It was my 15th weekend festival, but my first time at Sonisphere. As a seasoned Download and Leeds goer I've grown used to knowing my way around and where the best places are to pitch. Usually it's the slightly quieter fields we go for, shattering the peace with our cock n balls balloon modelling and the shit celebrities shouting game. That's the kind of stuff that kicks off when my best friend Steve comes along anyway, because he's a troublemaker like that...

Being on unfamiliar territory was weird, but Sonisphere quickly became my favourite festival. It's spacious, it's clean and there's little queuing for anything, particularly getting into the arena which Download and Leeds manage to balls up every year. Anyway, let's get on with the gloating... sorry, I mean the fun stuff.

Metallica
Let's start at the end. Sunday headliners, Metallica, were the main reason we opted for Sonisphere over Download this year, but our excitement about the show increased tenfold when we discovered we'd be watching their set from... THE SNAKEPIT. Yeah, that's right. We're a pair of lucky bastards.

As part of the By Request tour we had the opportunity to vote for the setlist. In the end most people voted for the songs they usually play anyway, so it was pretty much a greatest hits set. For me, there were two main songs I wanted to see on that list, 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' and 'Whiskey in the Jar'. I got both.

 The pit wristbands. We're going in...

This is our arrival in the snakepit, which is reserved solely for around 100 Metallica fan club members. We are about third/fourth row from the front. The chances of us weeing ourselves with excitement are off the scale right now. As you can see Dan has gone into James Hetfield man-crush stalker mode and I can't believe this is actually happening.

It was actually quite weird getting into the pit, as we had to walk along the front between the barrier and the stage, with everyone at the front narrowing their eyes at us as we did so. I can't really blame them, they'd probably spent eight hours or more on there, desperate to get a good spot for Metallica. Probably desperate for a piss too.

The rest of the snakepit.

The main crowd is out there somewhere, but weirdly we can't see or hear them from where we are. That is until they start raining bottles down on us. That's jealousy for you.

HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT.

We've both seen Metallica many times over the years, but it's always been from quite a distance, so it was weird to suddenly be able to make eye contact with them.

I'm sure for about the first five minutes I just stood there with my gob open.

The arse of Hetfield

The people you can see at the side of the stage are also Met Club members who won the chance to watch the band from there.

Mid-set selfie.
What we're thinking at this moment: 
'AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!'

I've never known a two-hour set to go by so quickly. We were having so much fun that we hadn't even noticed that it'd got dark. The band stayed on stage long after they'd finished playing, as they always do, throwing plectrums, fist bumping and the like. The flag they're holding up was thrown on stage by a dude who was stood just behind us.

By far the highlight of the set was 'Whiskey in the Jar'. Like us, everyone else had probably waited forever to see it live too, so the whole snakepit went mental, even singing along with the riffs. I suffered the next day though with a pretty severe bangover.

James Hetfield's plectrum. He threw it into the pit and it landed on Dan's foot. I believe my words of congratulations went something like this: 'You are the jammiest cunt I know.' I later took it back once I bagged my own plectrum! It landed next to my foot and as the girl next to me reached down to get it I stood on it. All is fair in love and snakepit warfare. At least I didn't punch anyone in the face trying to grab one, which the guy in front of me actually did. In his defence it was accidental, but his victim was not impressed.

We also bought a Metallica frisbee. Just because.


Other awesome things that happened 

Dancing to Chas n Dave in the rain while wearing a bin bag as a coat. They had a circle pit going and a crowd surfing rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit... It was amazing.

Getting on the barrier for Kerbdog and The Bronx*, then seeing how mental the tent went for both of them.
*I think I can hear myself screaming at the start of this video.

Feeling 18 again while watching Hundred Reasons perform their debut album 'Ideas above Our Station' in its entirety. I used to go and see that band a LOT when I was in my teens.

Listening to the bunch of 18 year olds that were camped next to us plan which bands they were going to watch on the Saturday: 'Hundred Reasons are playing today. Whoever they are.' HAHAHA.

The boy from the same camp who talked about finding a 'vinyl shop' in the shopping village. HAHAHA. Oh God...

The World War I dogfight, including Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson. 
Here we are joining in.

The guy who was off his face on pills dancing to Slayer like they were the kind of act you'd get at Creamfields.


Blaas of Glory, the amazing marching band that trooped around the arena every day playing metal covers.

Seeing Black Dogs get a wall of death going at 1.30pm. That's basically 6am in festival land.

Living off cheese and marmite toasties from the Tea & Toast stall.

Smuggling gin tins into the arena every day without getting caught *smug face*.

Sunshine.

Some dude asking Dan if I was his daughter. HAHAHA. He wasn't impressed, but I'm still laughing about it now...

We had sunshine, we had Metallica, I think as first Sonisphere experiences go it was a winner.

Sunday 13 July 2014

A surprise trip to Westeros: Day Two

After all the fun, excitement and extreme nerdiness of day one of Dan's 30th birthday surprise, it was time to chill out and take in a bit of Northern Ireland's gorgeous countryside on a Game of Thrones film locations tour. I'd booked us on a tour with McComb's, because I'd seen some great reviews and heard that they also transport the cast members, so I thought there might be a chance to get some inside gossip. Not that I would know what the hell they were talking about...

The map below, which was at the Game of Thrones exhibition we attended the day before, shows some of the locations around the north coast that we'd be visiting on our coach trip. You can also plan your own tour as details of the locations are on Discover Northern Ireland, although obviously you don't get the insider info.


Shortly after leaving Belfast we reached the first filming location. We really weren't allowed to stop for a gawp and it's not officially part of the tour, due to some legal restrictions, but we were able to do a drive by as it's visible from the road...


This is the exterior set of Castle Black, which has been built on the side of a quarry. Not a great photo I know, but we just had to get a quick snap as the bus went past. However, you can see where they've painted the wall white to create, y'know, The Wall. I'm not sure of its exact location, but it's on the way to Larne, which we discovered was the home town of a hero pigeon called Paddy who is commemorated with a plaque next to the harbour. We also learnt that there are no wild snakes in Ireland.

Next on the list was a stop off at Cushendun Caves, County Antrim, which played the part of the Stormlands. Apparently the locals of this village prefer to keep goats as pets, rather than dogs or cats. There's even a statue to commemorate one that had to be put down during the foot and mouth outbreak. Yeah, we could certainly tell we were out in the sticks.

Top right and bottom left are the cave where the Red Witch gives birth to the Shadow Assassin. Top left and bottom right is where she comes ashore in the boat with Davos Seaworthy.

We had thought about posing for photos as the Red Witch giving birth, because we embrace any opportunity to be silly, but the ground was really wet and muddy, so it was out of the question. Despite it being a nice day it was also freezing once we got in the cave and occasionally you'd get drips of water from the ceiling land on your head or down your neck. I really have no idea how the actress managed to do that scene naked. Our guide informed us that the drips actually caused problems during the filming of that scene, so someone had to be on hand with a towel to keep wiping the ceiling.



This was another drive by shot and is a lovely bit of greenery that appeared in the very first episode. This location was used for the scene where Ned Stark beheads a deserter of the Night's Watch.


Then it was on to the Iron Islands, home of Theon Greyjoy, which looks a lot cleaner and prettier than it appears in Game of Thrones and is really Ballintoy Harbour, County Antrim. The wee building you see is a little shop and cafe in real life, but to make it look the part for the series they pulled some tiles off the roof and pulled the guttering down.

The harbour, top left, featured in the scenes where Theon arrives back in the Iron Islands and also when he leaves to attack Winterfell on his ship... Sea Bitch.

The beach, bottom left, is where Theon is christened when he returns to the Iron Islands and is located up the hill slightly from the harbour. Our guide did offer to chuck water over anyone wanting to be christened, but we all decline. Apparently only one crazy fan has ever said yes to the offer.

Here's Dan at Renly Baratheon's camp from season two, which in real life is actually a... Any guesses? A National Trust car park! I know, the glamour.

In case you're not sure what one of those looks like, here's a shot of it with some buses...



So this is actually located in Larrybane, Carrick-a-Rede, County Antrim, and serves as the car park for the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, which is one of the area's main attractions. The rope bridge, measuring 20 metres and located 30 metres above the sea, was originally constructed by fishermen so they could get from the tiny island of Carrick-a-Rede to the mainland. Thankfully, there wasn't enough time for our bus party to cross the bridge, which was lucky since I'm not good with heights and hadn't brought any spare pants with me.






Obligatory tourist snap.
This is what the view opposite the car park looks like.

This is the King's Road, which features in season one when Arya escapes from King's Landing. It looks beautiful in the day time, but I imagine it looks pretty spooky at night or when it's foggy.

These beech trees are really know as The Dark Hedges and are also in County Antrim. They were planted by the wealthy Stuart family and are about 400 years old. Our guide informed us that the lady of the family wanted to create a fairytale entrance to their estate, which would look beautiful during the day, but sinister come nightfall.

We bumped into Joffrey and Tyrion while we were there...

I thought this teeny tiny shop was cute. It's next to a lovely village pub we stopped at for lunch called the Fullerton Arms in Ballintoy. I went all Irish and had a beef and Guinness pie.

So after soaking up a bit more scenery on the way back, and a stop off at the Giant's Causeway (more on that later), that was it for the tour and the nerdiness. I really can't praise the tour company enough for the trip, our guide really knew his stuff, to the point where he was offering season five spoilers/location details to those who wanted them, and he was good fun. At some of the locations he even got his iPad out to show us scenes where the locations appeared, which was great for me as I had no idea what we were looking at!

It was a long day though. Having left at 9am, we arrived back in Belfast about 6pm and because I was unwell for the entire trip with a stinking cold we headed back to the hotel for a Lemsip. I know, rock 'n' roll right?