London and stuff!

So as you may or may not be aware myself and Sam took a trip down to London to see Alec Empire and Modulate on the Friday. Arriving in the afternoon we made our way to Dan's work in the BBC offices near Euston and dopped off our bags before going for a walk about London. Later we then headed up to Camden and found Stacey and made our way to the venue, Underworld. As we lurked about there we met some of Stacey's friends from the big electronic pooch (Cyberdog) and soon enough were joined by Geoff and Rhys after their own journey down from the 'norf'.

The gig was really great, with this being the first I had seen Modulate live since Geoff played in TV21 about 2 years ago. I wasn't too bothered by the band up first, but Modulate really did get the night going, or course 'Skullfuck' being the song that just energised the crowd. Following them, Alec Empire was as expected and still excellent live, playing a large amount of new material, adding a new twist to 'On Fire' to make it very funky, and ending the night with some old ATR since it was the 1st of May. Of course myself and Sam are not really built for being amongst the pile of punks there flipping out to the ATR tracks. However, it was great to hear it live since I never had the chance to see ATR live and had been a fan since 1998.

After the gig, and with Dan now with us, we went for a walk about Soho, and ended up in Leicester square at the Hagan Daas ice cream palor (epic!)

The next day. after a good nights sleep at Dan's place we went looking for food and got shown Muswell Hill. I have to say it seemed like a great area to live in. We had a vey nice brunch and then headed into the city centre, ending up in Covent Garden after a good walk up and down fleet street and a walk round a few shops, and trading in Sam's empty makeup for some listicks, visiting Coco de Mer, and then goign for cake with Dan and Stacey.

The rest of the afternoon was something more of stroll about the centre of London and ending up in Hamley's (the giant toy store of doom!!!).

The afternoon turned to evening and we then headed in the direction of Shoreditch where we had dinner, wine and sat outside under some heaters in the evening air. The food was quite great, including chicken wings and roasted sweet potatoes. THe next stop on the list was The Last Days of Decadence, a great cocktail bar themed around the days of prohibition. A good time was had here as we order drinks that either took ages to make or the bar staff didn't remember how to make.

This weekened was a rather quieter affair with myself and Sam meeting up for drinks with James and his friends and then going out for a meal at Prezzo on Saturday and playing Zertz some more (I am just about getting my eye in with this game).