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Published: August 16th 2006
Hello!!!!! Wembley..........
.... well not quite, but our biggest crowd yet at Parklife !!!There comes a time in every man's life when he must admit that he's getting old and as my 30th fast approached I decided to face it head on and make an event of it, it's not as if our round the world trip has been arranged by Saga!!! STA travel is for students and youngsters (so i keep telling myself).
With Carla's birthday on the 27th and mine on the 29th, we had a busy week either side of the 2 dates. Firstly another trip to North london to visit Lorraine and Andy, great food, a comedy club and a relaxing sunday in regents park followed by our first proper good bye before the trip !!!!
Carla's birthday came first on the Thursday and with mine on the Saturday we had booked a private room in one of our favourite poncy pubs in MK, the Swan in Salford and with room for 30 we filled it and it was great to see everyone we cared about in the same room, both sides of the family (my folks back over from France) and all our mates including a few who made the trip from London and my mate Avy
A stroll in the park
Carla, Lorraine and Andy take it easy !! who spent 4 hours travelling down from Newcastle especially (cheers big man!!!). Great food, great night, great speech from my Bro (aka the landlord) and a crap speech from me and off we went into Saturday for blackstar's final gig at the Parklife festival.
Avy left early so another of the dreaded goodbyes took place and we then headed out to meet up with my aunty, uncle and cousin and her boyfriend who had come down especially for the Gig and my Birthday. The scorching weather of the previous 2 weeks had eased but it hadn't kept away the crowds and as we arrived at 3ish the site was full and the exitement of playing to our biggest audience yet (I would guess about a thousand) kicked in along with a desire to drink as much lager as possible before we hit the stage at 5.30. Backstage the bravado and excitement continued and as the announcer called us on we hit the stage and off we went. Now things always go slightly wrong, the odd chord out of place etc... but what we have learnt as a band over the last 18months is that we play well together and
The Birthday Bash
The Balloon isn't 30, I am !!!! just crack on and enjoy the experience and I really am gonna miss the thrill of performing with these guys whilst I'm away. The crowd were on their feet, a bunch of guys at the front who looked like they survived on a diet of hard drugs were going mental and even a blackstar flag was raised by our number one fan, it was great and as we left the stage to be interviewed (check it out on
www.mk-music.net/Page_Musician.asp?Site=1&Sectionfiltered=46&Page=455&Member=5573
we all agreed it had not been our tightest, but def our best gig to date !!!!!! and another box ticked for me!!! (cheers guys!)
We arrived back home at 7.30pm a little worse for wear with very little time to get ready for a family meal at 9pm!!! Carla was clearly in a state as the coffee she made to sober us up looked like asparagus soup and we hit the restuarant with slightly clearer heads to enjoy a great meal which included birthday cake (see photos!!! GO cub scouts)
Sunday brought more goodbyes as Linda, Steve, Cath and Chris left to head back North and then onto a Do at Carlas Mum & Dads including
Matt & Avy
Ooh!!! Northern boys love Gravy !!! 'Bon Voyage Banner' and more goodbyes to Carla's family before getting ourselves ready for France and the next chapter.
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