So, yesterday we headed down to Dorset (Bournmouth, specifically) to watch the Arrogant Worms. Unless you’re an avid watcher of the LJ ‘what music am I listening to’ thing, know me personally and thus have had it inflicted on you, or are Canadian, then you quite possibly haven’t heard of the Arrogant Worms. They are fantastic, okay, and you should get some stuff and listen and uh, yeah. I’m a bit tired right now, incidentally (yeah, yeah, shut up) for reasons that’ll become apparent.
So, we took the scenic route to Bournemouth, me, Chrissy and Lauren in the Mog and John, Kate and Nikki in the Honda, them leading, me following, Me, Nikki and Kate in my design of teeshirt, and with my little GPS going ‘WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU GOING?!’. The route TomTom 5 had was somewhat different to the route that TomTom 3 believed in, not aided by us traveling through ‘The Void’ for a while (new roads built since my GPS’s map data was created…). We stopped off in an exLittle Thief for lunch (better than a little thief) and finally rolled into Bournemouth around 1530. We mooched, making it to ‘ShakeAway’ (see Liz, I’ve tried them both now, and you’re right, it is better) – who do an absolutely stunning Strawberry Cheesecake / Oreo / Flake / Marshmallow milkshake that is just so unhealthy as to warrant an entire new foodgroup.
(I’m getting to the gig, okay?). Then we mooched, definately mooched, down to the seashore / beach (incidentally, what’s with Bournemouth; where’s the faded glory? British beach town == Faded glory. It was all ‘nice’ and ‘clean’ and ‘pleasant’. It’s not right); where John / Lauren / Chrissy headed down the pier and Kate / Nikki / Me went seashell hunting on the beach, Nikki discovered that she’d not brought a spare film for her camera and I discovered that my rechargable batteries were flat.
Woot.
So a quick run to a beachfront store and we headed up to the pub next to the club where they were performing. Me with a new pack of Duracell and Nikki with a roll of film. Pubsnacks, chatting to other Arrogant Worms fans, and generally chilling out. We nipped out to check, the doors were open at the club so we headed in and got the best table ever ever ever ever. We weren’t just close to the stage, we were virtually on it. Right in the centre. Rarrrrr.
Then they came out to do a soundcheck, complimented us on our teeshirts (or were they scared? It’s hard to say), we chatted to a nice lass from Canada (Halifax, Nova Scotia – see, I do have a memory) and I set my camera to pretend it had extremely fast film in it. We kicked back and relaxed, the room filled and Lauren and Chrissy arrived (having visited the oceanarium). Before the Arrogant Worms the were the front-people of a group called Djambo; who were excellent. Sadly they don’t make it over Brizzle way, but I shall be buying their CD.
Anyway, I’m not going to talk about them, ‘cos though they were very good it’s late and I need to get ready for work, and I shouldn’t be writing this now, I should be doing my dissertation. Ha.
So, then the Arrogant Worms came on. I’ve never seen them live (what with this being their first UK tour) and I have no words for how excellent they are live. I’m sure the small venue / intimate atmosphere helped, but they were wickedly funny, and the whole evening was spent laughing and doing Rippy the Alligator actions, and singing along with the Mounted Animal Nature Trail.
It was so good I squee’d. I don’t often Squee and bounce around like an overexhuberant 6 year old, but I did. I Arr’d and clapped and cheered and… just had a truly *awesome* time. Now, I know, I suck at writing up gigs, I suck at reviewing things, that’s because all the excitement and fun just washes over me and I want to say *IT WAS FUCKING EXCELLENT*. And that’s all I have to say, generally.
So I got their new CD (Beige) (I was wearing Beige, specially); I got the Christmas Turkey album too; got beige signed, took (blurry, very red tinted) photos of the gig and the band (discovered what my camera thinks of normal Alkaline batteries (not a lot; the ones that ended up working through the whole night, apart from brief breaks were the NiMH ones which said they were flat)), generally had an awesome time and then came out to find my car wouldn’t start. Half an hour later the AA came, bashed the startermotor (which’d stuck, which is what I thought, but I’d not considered bashing it) and we headed home – using Lauren navigation as for about 70% of the route my GPS was going ‘all the satellites are in a line. I cannot calculate my position. Damn them’.
All in all I had an *excellent* evening….
