And the carny had a horse, all skin and bone
A bow-backed nag, that he named "sorrow"
How it is buried in a shallow grave
In the then parched meadow
And the dwarves were given the task of digging the ditch,
And laying the nag's carcass in the ground
And boss Bellini, waving his smoking pistol around
saying "The nag is dead meat,"
"We cain't afford to carry dead weight"

I was listening to this song, half-asleep, at half past midnight last night. I've never actually listened to all of it before. It is a... severely strange song.

Anyway, bunked off school early to head to the bus stop to go to Ipswich to see the Chili Peppers yesterday. Met (Shaun) Marshall there, then Josh and Robin turned up, then it was a two hour-ish journey to Portman Road on the coach. I was stuck at the back because I'd bought my tickets seperately, so I listened to the Talking Heads, a lot, and read Spies which as previously mentioned is the book I must read for English. I actually quite like it. It's one of those books, like Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, which are semi-autobiographical and based on the part of their life where boys go from being children to adolescents, and I find them strangely interesting. Possibly because I never actually seemed to have gone through it myself. Eh, I don't know. Maybe you have to had grown up in 1960s Ireland/WW2 London. It's a good book, with some nice twists at the end: some of which you're prepared for, some of which come as a intriguing shock.

Anyway, queued ("Standing in line to see the show tonight," as Robin punned) outside Portman Road for ages while they slowly opened up the turnstiles (turnstiles 42-47 were packed, while 48-53 next to us were totally empty: but of course, our tickets were for 42-47. Why do event organisers always manage to cock everything up? It's a CONCERT, LOTS OF PEOPLE ARE COMING, OPEN THE TURNSTILES, DUH). Went in, found ourselves dead centre to the stage, but about halfway across the pitch, so view = ehh. Ate a sandwich. And so we waited until !!! appeared. Yes, !!!. You mean you've never heard of !!!? (They've got no hope because you can't search for them on Google, not even "Three exclamation marks"). Yes, they were an American something-rock band, spelt !!!, pronounced "chkchkchk" or "powpowpow" or "thrpthrpthrp" and so forth, and they were #@!%?!. Hoho, they weren't really. I might like them, but they were pretty forgettable. Next up was Karl Barat's Dirty Pretty Things, and they sounded like what would happen if one of the guys from the Libertines went off and started his own band. Good songs, but I only knew the last one, Bang Bang You’re Dead.

And so finally, the Red Hot Chili Peppers appeared. Woo. Couldn't see them very well, mind, but tiny Flea is still as good as giant Flea. And I didn't really get any good pictures. They were alright, as in great, but not as great as they could have been. They played most of the classics: starting off with Can't Stop and moving into Dani California, then Scar Tissue, Californication and By The Way at the end, followed by Under the Bridge and Give It Away in the encore. In between they played stuff off the new album, random short jams with Flea, Chad, and John Frusciante, a rather sweet little solo piece by Frusciante, and also at one point Anthony Kiedis apparently forgot the lyrics to a song, asked for someone to get them for him, and announced "We're calling an audible", and I was like "whoa! I'm like, the only person in the crowd to get that joke!" except for the man in the 49ers shirt behind me. But it was kinda disappointing, because they insisted on playing the weedy ballady songs which are track 32 of the B-side of their new album's second disc (probably), and I was there for straight-up funk. And at the end they did this random jamming thing, which was cool to begin with but after three minutes of repetition I just wished they'd give us an extra song.

But eh, you can't have it all.

On the way back I finished Spies, listened to Nick Cave a lot, and slept a little. Luckily my dad was there to give me (and Marshall) a lift home. Hurrah.

My phone ringtone is the codec from MGS. How cool is that?