I’ve not been on here much these past few weeks. That’s mainly due to my ISP having cut my off for no apparent reason for a week and a half. Nice, eh?
Most of my posts since the beginning of March have been typed up while I’ve been out and about (on my iPod touch, using the official app, mostly), then previewed and posted as soon as I’ve been able to find a free wifi hotspot – of which there are a total of 2 in this entire city. This has been on account of my ISP cutting me off with no reason, whenever they felt like it.
What Have You Been Up To?
Most recently I’ve been spending time at home, relaxing.
Relaxing and reading.
Relaxing, reading and doing a bit of muscle building.
That’s pretty much it.
Oh, and I went to see ‘Back and Forth’. You know, ‘The Foo Fighters Movie”
Back and Forth
I’ll be honest with you, I was a bit worried going in that I would be able to learn more by reading the wikipedia entry, or a really well written biography. But it turns out that I was wrong. It had everything that the average Foo Fighters fan would want, and one or two things for the not-so-average fan.
I really liked the presentation of the whole thing. Yes, it’s a documentary, but it doesn’t really feel like one. For some reason, it felt like I was sat having a chat with the Foo’s in between recording sessions for their new album. It was full of humour, and honesty – something I like in documentaries. The film makers chose not to gloss over some of the less savoury aspects of the Foo’s history.
The only potential down side was the cost per ticket. It was £10 per ticket. Compared to the average £4-£6 per ticket that most cinemas charge, this was a little more expensive. But I can see why…
Post Back and Forth
For those who didn’t stick around after the movie, you missed out on something amazing: They performed the entire album, “live” in one take.
I say “live” because it was recorded live the day before theatrical release (on the 5th of April) in 3D. then sent out to all of the theatres that were going to play the movie.
Unfortunately for us Brits, they had decided to “un-stereoscope” (if that’s a word) the performance for us. Probably because we don’t have a big a set up in this country for 3D film. It was a real shame, too as Dave had decided to specific things that would look great in 3D – for instance: thrusting the headstock of his guitar into the camera, head banging into the camera, and there were even shots of one of Taylor’s cymbals vibrating into the camera, too.
Stereoscoping is the process of shooting film in 3D
Aside from that, it was an excellent performance. It was great to see Pat officially re-instated into the band, finally.
Wasting Light
I couldn’t sleep last night until about 2am. I’ve no idea why, though. I’d gone to bed at, around, 11:30 but couldn’t seem to nod off. So, I booted my PC and fired up iTunes. I sat there, doing some menial library maintenance when suddenly my hard drives went nova.
All I could hear was an almost constant clicking.
Here we go. The motherboard’s crashing. I’m never gonna be able to get my data back now.
After 30-50 seconds of hardcore clicking from my hard drives, a message popped up:
You’re purchase of “Wasting Light” has finished downloading, would you like to burn it to CD
I’d forgotten that it had gone past midnight, and that Wasting Light would automatically download as soon as it was 1 second past midnight. I’d already listened to the whole album – both legally and for free – several times, as there had been a website set up specifically to stream the album (which still works, and can be found here). I’d certainly recommend it to any Foo Fighters fan, or any fan of loud, long hair’d, beardy, shouty music.
That’s not to say that it’ll only appeal to those of a Foo’s or loud, long hair’d, beardy, shouty music disposition. I should think that most, if not all of the album will be approachable by most people. Although, some non-rock music fans might find White Limo a little hard to penetrate.
Reading?
This past week, I’ve read my way through two and a half books. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is. the first one I’d read was The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. 1720 odd pages of late 19th century literature. Although, I’d read some of his stuff before (mostly The Happy Prince, the book that is) it was still a lot of literature to read. And in 4 days? I think that’s some kind of record for me.
Considering that I’ve been reading (read: “attempting to finish”) Genji Monogatari for years, now
I’ll be sure to come back to this one, often, as I enjoyed reading it so much. Although, The Picture of Dorian Gray was a little hard at points – but I’ve put that down to it being filled with references and ideas from the era in which it was written. It’s still a good story, but I’ll have to read it a few times to get all of the sub-plots.
I’ve also been reading about Saigo Takemori – who has been named as the “Last of the Samurai”. I’ve not finished it yet, though. The author, John Man, has spent a lot of time researching not just Takemori but Japanese history, Japanese culture and the Samurai, and it all shows.
Again, I’ve not finished it, yet. So, I can’t comment more than that.
Other than that, I’ve been sitting around in the sun all week.
J
