Alice in Dublin

Wow, what a whirlwind the Dublin concert was! I left home at about 4am to get to Bristol Airport....got there in the end in spite of getting lost in Bristol centre - WHY is it that the airport signs run out just as you are getting into the stupid one way system???? So, five times round Cabot Circus, and then - HURRAH, I am somehow on the right road and make it to the airport in time for my flight. I was prepared for the security thing this time, with tiny bottles of everything in my plastic bag, no luggage to check in and my carefully measured 'hand' luggage. It's actually a pretty pink wheeled case with lovely flowers on it -ewwwwww..................... I really must do something about that....black spray paint mebbe.

So, Dublin airport is ok, I found my bus stop without too much trouble, and managed to get off at the right stop. I'd picked the nearest hotel, and it is REALLY near, I can sit in the bar and look at the poor wet people queueing outside entrance 3.

I went down and had a chat with them, it seems that, as I have a ticket for entrance 1, there's not a lot of point waiting here. So I decided to go into town and see if I could spot The Master out shopping.......

Sadly the nearest I got was a shop where he went " last time he was here", never mind, next door was a tattoo and piercing place, so after a 3 seconds deliberation I went in and got my 6th ear piercing. It's still hurting 10 days later, I am such a wimp.

On arrival back at the queue I met some other mad people who love Alice/Def Leppard/Thin Lizzy, and spent 4 hours chatting to them and getting wet, and hoping we'd get in before the other queue at entrance 3. I took my latest scrapbook/journal with me (pics coming soon)and whiled away the time by doodling and getting other people to write in it.......

EVENTUALLY, after being penned in with barriers, and moved several times, we were allowed in - we were all ready to race to front at this point, but NO, THAT'S NOT ALLOWED, - health and safety, y'know. So we walked VERY quickly and I managed to secure 12 inches of barrier all to myself. Boy, was I ecstatic or what!!!




Thin Lizzy were on first - I was thinking, most of them are dead, so who is gonna show up? Well, there was Scott Gorham of course, along with a few other guys, sorry I don't know who they were, but they were very good, did all the hits, inc a great rendition of Whisky in the Jar. On my side of the stage was a guy called Marco Mendoza - dunno where he came from, but he was kinda creepy - trousers are a little too tight I think.....










And then - after about 30 mins of stage rebuilding for Alice, (and being at the front, I could see behind the obligatory curtain as they dragged on lots of rubbish piles and creepy wall hangings - suddenly (after the intro by Vincent Price) the Master Himself appeared at the top of the tower (used in TOD) and he did an awesome rendition of Black Widow including fireworks - and I sang along to it all, together with two considerably younger girls standing behind me... How do they know all the words? They're barely older than my daughter.....


An AMAZING concert followed - band were really tight especially with the new song, I'll Bite Your Face off, - and I shouted and yelled and sang along with everyone else............Damon was on my side of the stage, (hadn't realised how good he looks close up).....
Alice came over to our side several times, always looking to intimidate the crowd - but we all know you're a sweetie, Alice, in spite of the menacing looks:)).

Sadly I wasn't in the right place to get some $ bills, but Damon threw out a lot of guitar picks, one of which landed in my hair, so I didn't come home completely empty handed.








It was a shorter set than usual, he was on for about an hour I think, but he did Black Widow, Brutal Planet, Clones, 18, Billion Dollar Babies, Is It My Body with snake, No More Mister Nice Guy, I'll Bite Your Face Off with jacket with 'new song' on the back and the name of it on his shirt once the jacket had gone,





















Feed My Frankenstein with a giant Frankensteins monster....



















Clones was one of the highlights of the set even though I don't know it very well - Damon and Chuck were moving like robots -other stuff included Poison, Wicked Young Man (the photographer got spiked) Cold Ethyl, Killer/ Love The Dead, (Guillotine came out here), School's Out with Another Brick In The Wall, lots of balloons/confetti/silver streamers (several of which I got tangled up in on my way out) and then Alice wearing a tall black sparkling top hat doing the encore of Elected, and waving Irish flag. Songs that got cut included Halo Of Flies - shame I was looking forward to that, and Be My Lover........ ah well maybe next time.

And then - Def Leppard. Well, I'd been up since 4am, walked about 10 miles in Entirely Unsuitable shoes, had my ear stabbed, waited in the rain for 4 hours and jumped up and down for the next 3....so I made a Really Bad Decision, and decided to cut and run........When I'd fought my way out, I crawled across the courtyard to my hotel and fell into bed. After 45 minutes of hyper active tossing and turning, I thought 'this is a waste of time', so I got up and went down to the bar. Armed with wine, I went out on to the balcony where I listened to Def Leppard screaming their heads off across the way, and I was really regretting I'd not stayed. But sometimes you make the wrong decisions for all the right reasons........

So then I sat in the bar for a while, and listened to people phoning their friends and telling them how Alice blew DL off the stage......and finally got to bed about 2 am. The longest day EVAR........

The following day consisted of Facebooking it from the hotel lobby and fish nibbling my feet, before eventually getting the bus back to the airport - lost my ticket and had to buy another one, gah - NOT running for seats on the plane (still managed to get an emergency exit!) - and coming home.

I'm pleased to report that getting home through Bristol is a lot easier than finding the airport. And that I now (nearly) have one precious ticket to see Alice at The 100 Club on Sunday 26th June:. ¸.•*´`*•.¸omg`*•.¸¸.•*´.Taking a better camera to that one, I think.

Also got my tickets for the Night Of Fear in October at Bristol and London. At last, some reason to look forward to autumn.