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Bloodywood, Cabincon And Spiders
Jul. 28th, 2019 04:39 pmI worked from home on Friday as we needed to be away pretty swiftly. Stray had booked tickets to see Bloodywood, a heavy metal band from New Delhi who combines crunching guitars with traditional Indian music. I had only heard of them about three weeks ago, but having trawled through their back catalogue on Spotify, I was quickly hooked and they soon became one of my favourite bands. They only have about ten songs as far as I could tell, but they are bangers, so I was very much looking forward to the gig.
The drive over was pretty straightforward, with us arriving at Stray's place for exactly 6:30pm. He already had dinner cooked - chicken in a cheesy sauce - and with Jinx already there, we were soon fed and ready to go. We decided to book an Uber to save time, with our driver being perhaps the worst taxi driver in existance. To be fair to him, this was only his third day on the job, but he did manage to run two red lights and get completely lost around a housing estate, not to mention his continual riding of the clutch. Anyway, we did eventually get to the venue just outside Deansgate station, where Patter was waiting for us dressed as if he was going on a sailing weekend.
We went inside and was delighted to see a pretty full house for a largely unknown band in the UK. We grabbed some fizzy beers and sat in the beer garden, which was essentially a bit of decking by the side of a pavement with three huge trees in it. Still, it was a good place to socialise before the band started and we also popped in and out to hear the support acts play too. Before Bloodywood went on, we decided to grab t-shirts and more beer, before heading over to the quietest part of the venue which was just in front of the cloakroom by the side of the stage. This impaired the view only slightly, but the acoustics at the gig were extraordinary, so it didn't really matter. Plus once Bloodywood started with Machi Bhasad (Expect a Riot), the whole place went into pandamonium. The energy of the show was exceptional, indeed it was one of the most energetic I had ever been at, and while there were a few technical issues (the bassist's guitar strap had to be tied with masking tape towards the end), the banter between the crowd and the band was strong too. An Indian version of Smells Like Teen Spirit was welcomed warmly, particularly from me due to my love of Nirvana, while Ari Ari was another highlight. Some of the songs were in Hindi, which made singing along somewhat tricky although I tried my best and probably annoyed everyone. Still, it was a rammed show which ended as it started on Machi Bhasad, which was a huge highlight. The guy who screamed 'Fuck Brexit' was also fantastic, as were the messages of tolerance and acceptance from the band themselves.
We decided to hang around after the gig, purchasing another pint of fizzy at the bar. This enabled us to talk to some of the local metalheads in the beer garden as well as the band themselves, who chilled outside after the gig. It was great chatting with them about their history and roots, and how they thought of their first ever UK tour. They also invited me to New Delhi in the end, which I warned them is something I would take them up on. I guess I impressed them on their knowledge of Lucknow. Anywho, aside from dropping the rest of my pint near them, I didn't embarrass myself too much, although I was six pints in by this stage and incredibly dehydrated, what with the room being exceptionally hot after all the blistering weather we had been having.
After this, we wanted to go to the new Brewdog Outpost bar down Oxford Road, so we headed off shortly before midnight. I would have happily stayed longer chatting to the band, but time was getting tight and we did want to get our 54th Brewdog bar stamp. It was about twenty minutes' walk, with the only interesting thing being Wolfie saving Patter from stumbling into the path of a bus. We soon made it to Brewdog though and got a few drinks from this cavernous pub, albeit one which seemed somewhat out of the way from the city centre. I hear this is student area and there is a Five Guys next door so maybe it will work for them, but it did seem an odd place to put it. Still, it is huge and is an Outpost too where they brew their own beer, so I am sure it will be popular, even if it wasn't too busy when we were there. We did get to meet another metalhead though, who had been at another gig but who was interested in Bloodywood. We told her about them and also about Damnation in early November, so we may be seeing her again.
We were feeling quite rough by this point, with Patter and Jinx pretty much already gone, so we piled into taxis, with Patter heading home and us heading back to Stray's. Once there, Jinx and Wolfie effectively collapsed while Stray cracked open an 11% Omnipollo beer he had been saving for some months which was tasty but pretty much the last thing we needed. We then pretty much headed to bed, waking up disorientated in the middle of the night needing a pee before sleeping in until pretty much noon, which was a bit of a problem as we had to head over to Cabincon in Scarborough. I was expecting Stray to come wake us but he never did, so we just had to take the initiative and leave, saying goodbye to our friends on the way out. This also meant that we had to source our own breakfast, with a trip to McDonald's in order. The quarter pounder was nice enough but the fries there are hideous these days - I remember when they were salty greasy flakes of unctuousness, now they are just chewy bland rubbery husks.
The rain was pretty bad and it only got worse as we drove across the M62, becoming torrential. This meant we had to adjust our speed accordingly. Also, we realised that in our hurry to leave on the Friday, we hadn't packed our coats so we thought it wise to swing by home to pick them up. All of this, as well as a diversion in Scarborough itself due to a road closure and some ancillary congestion further back down the route meant that we arrived at Cabincon about two hours later than we had intended. Still, at least we got there and our tardiness meant for cheap parking, which was something. We saw Hazard's crew leave from the One Stop so tagged along with them, finding a group of about twenty furs hanging outside the familiar two-storey coloured cabins. Alas we had missed most of the fursuiting fun, and indeed some of the food as well, but pizzas were coming later in the day and we got to graze on crisps and cakes and the like. Ultimately though it was just a chilled afternoon, enabling us to speak with a number of furs far more in-depth than is usually possible. I had great chats with Ferret and his partner, Windsor and Sval, while it was great seeing furs like Ninji and Raymond, whom we don't get chance to see much. Oracle and Adia, alas, had to leave pretty much as soon as we had arrived, with most of the furs getting down there for 11am. I wish we could have come down earlier but we completely misjudged the traffic. Anyway, we did get to spend a good four hours by the seaside and the weather was nowhere near as grizzly as we had expected, with the rain largely holding off for much of the day. The final half hour was arguably my favourite as we ended up watching some friends play cricket on the beach and provided the match commentary, which was a really neat way to end the day. I also came up with Captain Scarborough there too, a rare stroke of sober genius from me. Indeed, it was great feeling I didn't have to perform in front of people, which is what my social anxiety often forces me to do, while I wasn't drinking at all here which made a nice change from how I usually approach furry events. It was a great afternoon and my only regret was we didn't arrive earlier.
Most people headed off around 8pm, which is when we decided to go too. I grabbed my cabincon badge and headed off with Wolfie, with Hull our next destination for Spiders. We hadn't eaten much during the day, just nibbles really, so we decided to look for a restaurant en route. We didn't really fancy a second McDonald's in a day, so we were relieved to spot an open fish and chip shop just outside of Hull. It closed at 10pm, twenty minutes after our time of arrival, so we ordered the small fish and chips and ate them in the car as the restaurant portion of the place was closing. Even though this was small, the servings were actually quite huge, meaning we felt somewhat bloated after we had eaten it. This was to cause problems later at Spiders as the beer we were drinking just made this worse, to the point that we only had a pint and a half before the discomfort became too much. Anyway, as we were running late, Ki Saro and Nordu were already down at the club and I told Stray and Jinx that they might as well join them. This gave us half an hour chill time in the Cornmill Hotel, our lodgings for the night, before we headed out to the club too. We were told to get a taxi there but Hull hath no Uber and the two taxi companies that the hotel called were busy until 1am. This meant we chanced it through some rather ropey neighbourhoods of disused buildings, light industrial units and the shittest nightclubs you will ever see. Aside from one man screaming 'fuck' and 'cunt' to random demons, we were largely unscathed, although we did stick on the main road.
Spiders was a little hit and miss for me if I was being honest, largely because of the heat. It was swelteringly hot inside, so we decided to sit in the beer garden, where you couldn't really hear the music. The beers were cheap at £1.80 a pint and the conversation as good as ever - and people watching, particularly seeing the duo in the shark costumes - was always a highlight but I was in the mood for some tunes. There were also some memes within the group which Wolfie and I didn't really feel part of, which made me feel a little left out in all honesty. We did eventually go inside and get a couple of songs in, but again it was so hot that most people just wanted to escape to the relative coolness of the beer garden. This meant we missed a lot of the songs, but we did get to dance to a couple, so it wasn't all bad. Ki Saro was trying to get us to drink some foul looking flavoured shot things in plastic test tubes, which my stomach couldn't counternance, and indeed one of the reasons why I wanted to dance was because standing up put far less pressure on it. We decided to apply for membership, a three-week process apparently, so we'll see how that goes while in the end we decided to leave slightly early due to our stomach troubles. This was a shame but we stuck it out until half an hour before closing and really I wasn't feeling it too much - perhaps we had overdone it by doing Manchester, Scarborough and Hull all within the same day. I don't think many of us were. On the way home, we decided to walk again as we were now a quartet (me, Wolfie, Stray and Jinx - Ki Saro and Nordu were staying elsewhere) and we spotted someone had written Dubya Bush with some chips on a wall. Some more people were playing in a mobility scooter for some reason while we just headed back to the hotel to crash.
We didn't meet Stray and Jinx this morning, as they took advantage of having late checkout which we couldn't get for some reason. We were told to ask about it this morning, which defeated the point of having a lie-in. Still, we got up and out, after a reasonable night sleep despite the bed being somewhat bowed in the middle. Then we had the delights of a Sunday in IKEA as Wolfie is building a new networking lab before we came home to chill for the rest of the day, with our bodies still not yet recovered from a hectic weekend.
The drive over was pretty straightforward, with us arriving at Stray's place for exactly 6:30pm. He already had dinner cooked - chicken in a cheesy sauce - and with Jinx already there, we were soon fed and ready to go. We decided to book an Uber to save time, with our driver being perhaps the worst taxi driver in existance. To be fair to him, this was only his third day on the job, but he did manage to run two red lights and get completely lost around a housing estate, not to mention his continual riding of the clutch. Anyway, we did eventually get to the venue just outside Deansgate station, where Patter was waiting for us dressed as if he was going on a sailing weekend.
We went inside and was delighted to see a pretty full house for a largely unknown band in the UK. We grabbed some fizzy beers and sat in the beer garden, which was essentially a bit of decking by the side of a pavement with three huge trees in it. Still, it was a good place to socialise before the band started and we also popped in and out to hear the support acts play too. Before Bloodywood went on, we decided to grab t-shirts and more beer, before heading over to the quietest part of the venue which was just in front of the cloakroom by the side of the stage. This impaired the view only slightly, but the acoustics at the gig were extraordinary, so it didn't really matter. Plus once Bloodywood started with Machi Bhasad (Expect a Riot), the whole place went into pandamonium. The energy of the show was exceptional, indeed it was one of the most energetic I had ever been at, and while there were a few technical issues (the bassist's guitar strap had to be tied with masking tape towards the end), the banter between the crowd and the band was strong too. An Indian version of Smells Like Teen Spirit was welcomed warmly, particularly from me due to my love of Nirvana, while Ari Ari was another highlight. Some of the songs were in Hindi, which made singing along somewhat tricky although I tried my best and probably annoyed everyone. Still, it was a rammed show which ended as it started on Machi Bhasad, which was a huge highlight. The guy who screamed 'Fuck Brexit' was also fantastic, as were the messages of tolerance and acceptance from the band themselves.
We decided to hang around after the gig, purchasing another pint of fizzy at the bar. This enabled us to talk to some of the local metalheads in the beer garden as well as the band themselves, who chilled outside after the gig. It was great chatting with them about their history and roots, and how they thought of their first ever UK tour. They also invited me to New Delhi in the end, which I warned them is something I would take them up on. I guess I impressed them on their knowledge of Lucknow. Anywho, aside from dropping the rest of my pint near them, I didn't embarrass myself too much, although I was six pints in by this stage and incredibly dehydrated, what with the room being exceptionally hot after all the blistering weather we had been having.
After this, we wanted to go to the new Brewdog Outpost bar down Oxford Road, so we headed off shortly before midnight. I would have happily stayed longer chatting to the band, but time was getting tight and we did want to get our 54th Brewdog bar stamp. It was about twenty minutes' walk, with the only interesting thing being Wolfie saving Patter from stumbling into the path of a bus. We soon made it to Brewdog though and got a few drinks from this cavernous pub, albeit one which seemed somewhat out of the way from the city centre. I hear this is student area and there is a Five Guys next door so maybe it will work for them, but it did seem an odd place to put it. Still, it is huge and is an Outpost too where they brew their own beer, so I am sure it will be popular, even if it wasn't too busy when we were there. We did get to meet another metalhead though, who had been at another gig but who was interested in Bloodywood. We told her about them and also about Damnation in early November, so we may be seeing her again.
We were feeling quite rough by this point, with Patter and Jinx pretty much already gone, so we piled into taxis, with Patter heading home and us heading back to Stray's. Once there, Jinx and Wolfie effectively collapsed while Stray cracked open an 11% Omnipollo beer he had been saving for some months which was tasty but pretty much the last thing we needed. We then pretty much headed to bed, waking up disorientated in the middle of the night needing a pee before sleeping in until pretty much noon, which was a bit of a problem as we had to head over to Cabincon in Scarborough. I was expecting Stray to come wake us but he never did, so we just had to take the initiative and leave, saying goodbye to our friends on the way out. This also meant that we had to source our own breakfast, with a trip to McDonald's in order. The quarter pounder was nice enough but the fries there are hideous these days - I remember when they were salty greasy flakes of unctuousness, now they are just chewy bland rubbery husks.
The rain was pretty bad and it only got worse as we drove across the M62, becoming torrential. This meant we had to adjust our speed accordingly. Also, we realised that in our hurry to leave on the Friday, we hadn't packed our coats so we thought it wise to swing by home to pick them up. All of this, as well as a diversion in Scarborough itself due to a road closure and some ancillary congestion further back down the route meant that we arrived at Cabincon about two hours later than we had intended. Still, at least we got there and our tardiness meant for cheap parking, which was something. We saw Hazard's crew leave from the One Stop so tagged along with them, finding a group of about twenty furs hanging outside the familiar two-storey coloured cabins. Alas we had missed most of the fursuiting fun, and indeed some of the food as well, but pizzas were coming later in the day and we got to graze on crisps and cakes and the like. Ultimately though it was just a chilled afternoon, enabling us to speak with a number of furs far more in-depth than is usually possible. I had great chats with Ferret and his partner, Windsor and Sval, while it was great seeing furs like Ninji and Raymond, whom we don't get chance to see much. Oracle and Adia, alas, had to leave pretty much as soon as we had arrived, with most of the furs getting down there for 11am. I wish we could have come down earlier but we completely misjudged the traffic. Anyway, we did get to spend a good four hours by the seaside and the weather was nowhere near as grizzly as we had expected, with the rain largely holding off for much of the day. The final half hour was arguably my favourite as we ended up watching some friends play cricket on the beach and provided the match commentary, which was a really neat way to end the day. I also came up with Captain Scarborough there too, a rare stroke of sober genius from me. Indeed, it was great feeling I didn't have to perform in front of people, which is what my social anxiety often forces me to do, while I wasn't drinking at all here which made a nice change from how I usually approach furry events. It was a great afternoon and my only regret was we didn't arrive earlier.
Most people headed off around 8pm, which is when we decided to go too. I grabbed my cabincon badge and headed off with Wolfie, with Hull our next destination for Spiders. We hadn't eaten much during the day, just nibbles really, so we decided to look for a restaurant en route. We didn't really fancy a second McDonald's in a day, so we were relieved to spot an open fish and chip shop just outside of Hull. It closed at 10pm, twenty minutes after our time of arrival, so we ordered the small fish and chips and ate them in the car as the restaurant portion of the place was closing. Even though this was small, the servings were actually quite huge, meaning we felt somewhat bloated after we had eaten it. This was to cause problems later at Spiders as the beer we were drinking just made this worse, to the point that we only had a pint and a half before the discomfort became too much. Anyway, as we were running late, Ki Saro and Nordu were already down at the club and I told Stray and Jinx that they might as well join them. This gave us half an hour chill time in the Cornmill Hotel, our lodgings for the night, before we headed out to the club too. We were told to get a taxi there but Hull hath no Uber and the two taxi companies that the hotel called were busy until 1am. This meant we chanced it through some rather ropey neighbourhoods of disused buildings, light industrial units and the shittest nightclubs you will ever see. Aside from one man screaming 'fuck' and 'cunt' to random demons, we were largely unscathed, although we did stick on the main road.
Spiders was a little hit and miss for me if I was being honest, largely because of the heat. It was swelteringly hot inside, so we decided to sit in the beer garden, where you couldn't really hear the music. The beers were cheap at £1.80 a pint and the conversation as good as ever - and people watching, particularly seeing the duo in the shark costumes - was always a highlight but I was in the mood for some tunes. There were also some memes within the group which Wolfie and I didn't really feel part of, which made me feel a little left out in all honesty. We did eventually go inside and get a couple of songs in, but again it was so hot that most people just wanted to escape to the relative coolness of the beer garden. This meant we missed a lot of the songs, but we did get to dance to a couple, so it wasn't all bad. Ki Saro was trying to get us to drink some foul looking flavoured shot things in plastic test tubes, which my stomach couldn't counternance, and indeed one of the reasons why I wanted to dance was because standing up put far less pressure on it. We decided to apply for membership, a three-week process apparently, so we'll see how that goes while in the end we decided to leave slightly early due to our stomach troubles. This was a shame but we stuck it out until half an hour before closing and really I wasn't feeling it too much - perhaps we had overdone it by doing Manchester, Scarborough and Hull all within the same day. I don't think many of us were. On the way home, we decided to walk again as we were now a quartet (me, Wolfie, Stray and Jinx - Ki Saro and Nordu were staying elsewhere) and we spotted someone had written Dubya Bush with some chips on a wall. Some more people were playing in a mobility scooter for some reason while we just headed back to the hotel to crash.
We didn't meet Stray and Jinx this morning, as they took advantage of having late checkout which we couldn't get for some reason. We were told to ask about it this morning, which defeated the point of having a lie-in. Still, we got up and out, after a reasonable night sleep despite the bed being somewhat bowed in the middle. Then we had the delights of a Sunday in IKEA as Wolfie is building a new networking lab before we came home to chill for the rest of the day, with our bodies still not yet recovered from a hectic weekend.
