Paul-Lancaster

Hawksley Workman
Bronson Centre, Ottawa ON – 8th May 2006

The Hawksley Workman show last night was amazing. On stage it was just him with his Pianist, Mr Lonely, keeping the whole show really intimate and personal. Between songs Hawksley kept the crowd entertained with stories of snowmobile tea and of his fascination with the Canadian Governor General, Michaelle Jean. During the show the crowd got further drawn in, when Hawksley set up a recording of the crowd shouting “HEY” To be used as part of the recording of a track on the next album. I can’t wait to listen to it to see if I can pick it out.

Most of the show was to promote the latest album “Treeful of Starling” but there were still quite a few songs from previous albums, the extended version of “Anger as Beauty” was a favourite of mine. The highlight for me though was when Hawksley came out to do a second encore. Playing only a Banjo, and sitting right on the edge of the stage, Hawksley lead a sing along of “We Will Still Need A Song” as all the crowd gathered around him. Fantastic.

The Cribs, Death Cab For Cutie & Franz Ferdinand
Cepsum, Montreal QC – 15th April 2006

It was off to Montreal over the Easter weekend for a phenomenal concert. Wakefield’s finest The Cribs kicked off the show with their mischievous Yorkshire antics, much of the crowd seemed relatively unenthused, but I loved them, and the crowd at least picked up a little when they played “Martell”, used in a TV advert over here. Death Cab for Cutie were up next, now from what I had listened to of Death Cab prior to seeing them live, I had always got the impression their music was quite mellow, so I was expecting a low key show, but to my surprise they rocked! I didn’t know all of their songs but I was officially converted. They kept it entertaining too, Ben Gibbard pulling out a mini drum kit during “Different Names for the Same Thing” kept it particularly memorable.

The stars of the show for me though were without a doubt Franz Ferdinand, being a big fan of both their albums I had a good idea of what was to be in store, but they excelled my expectations. They couldn’t have got the show off to a better start, in my opinion, making their entrance accompanied by Neutral Milk Hotel’s “The Fool”. All the members of the band were full of energy and had great stage presence, they really got the crowd going. Being my first Franz Ferdinand show, it was awesome to hear quite a few tracks from their first album along side the newer stuff. An awesome show from start to finish.

So Crystal bought me a bottle of wine, so sweet considering she is an ardent beer girl, she bravely entered the alien world of the wine store and picked out a bottle, a good bottle too. I couldn’t wait to indulge but being a beer girl, she had overlooked the fact that she didn’t own any form of cork screw, Boo! So after deciding that pushing the cork in was way too ghetto, we had to pull out a whole collection of tools to get that thing out. Various screws, hooks and knives were employed before a pair of snipe nose pliers turned out to be the weapon of choice, we nibbled at the cork with them until we pulled it out in little bits. It was worth it too the wine was goooood.

These crazy dogs can usually be found around the Ottawa markets, they are so cute.

but this…

Apparently this bad boy is a House Centipede, and tonight we caught one creeping across our floor, I say creeping, this thing was like a streak of lightning flying across the ground and a pesky little bugger to catch in the small glass in the photo, which happened to be the only thing available to hand to contain this beast. Our blurry photos didn’t really do it justice so after a quick google I bring you the image on the right, clearly highlighting the true horror of what we had to deal with this evening. Let’s hope we don’t see any more of these!

So here I am, finally in Canada! After what felt like the longest journey ever. Actually it wasn’t that bad really, despite the 4 hour connection in London, which would have been torturous without the old iPod to save me, but in the end both flights were on time and I actually landed in Canada early, so it was all good.

Then came customs! I was quite lucky that for once I actually got off the plane quite quickly and looking back at the crowd behind me, decided to suppress my urge to go to the bathroom in order to get a good spot near the front of the queue. Despite me having to go to the kiosk with the meanest looking customs officer, getting through customs seemed surprisingly smooth, or at least so I thought, until I was pointed to the small immigration office to the side, and if I thought the customs officer looked mean, I hadn’t seen anything yet. It’s at this point, as I join the immigration queue that I actually start to remember all the small print on my application paperwork, like needing proof of funds and being able to state the purpose of my visit, and it didn’t help my nerves that by this stage I was now desperate to pee.

When I finally got to the front of the immigration queue and my interrogation began, I quickly realized that not knowing my Canadian address off by heart posed quite a problem, but luckily I remembered that I had a text document on my laptop with all the details in it. So, while I uncomfortably shuffled from side to side trying not to wet myself, I pulled out the laptop and started what seemed like the longest boot up of a computer ever, giving the immigration official ample time to question me on the contents of my laptop, casually asking if I have any illegal pornography or hate propaganda on there! Glancing back at the now snaking queue behind me, I realized that with all my laptop shenanigans I had become the immigration queue equivalent of that guy at the supermarket checkout paying with pennies. Eventually though I found the document and was able to provide an address and telephone number, finally satisfying their criteria.

Next up, the dreaded baggage carousel but my bags miraculously came around within seconds of me approaching, and before I knew it I was through the final gate and there was Crystal there to meet me. It really all did feel like it was meant to be and boy was it all worth the wait.

…and fit it into 2 22KG bags (the weight restriction imposed on my Air Canada flight to Ottawa). I’d imagined this to be so easy, travel light I thought, but to actually achieve this feat proved to be much more of a challange than I anticipated. Fitting both my snowboarding gear AND a smart suit for job interviews into my luggage proved to be the difficult thing. Will I even need a suit? Will I even go snowboarding? Well I suppose it is better to have the gear with me rather than have to buy new or get it shipped over. It’s all packed now though and well underweight too.

So Canada here I come!

So this Blog never really got off the ground eh? Well, the whole point of it was to have a place to post my photos and to write up some music reviews. Hence the name Photo Phono, it seemed like a sweet little combination of words and covered the two things I was interested in Blogging. So roll on 1 year later, considering that I first joined Blogger in February 2005 and I have managed the mighty total of 3 oh yes count ‘em THREE posts, I decided it was time to start over with a whole new attitude to my Blog. So as of today I am using my Blog as an online journal, as well as hopfully blogging photos and music like I originally planned sometime. I’ll keep the name, I still like it.

Oh and I got my Work Authorisation Letter, it’s official, CANADA here I come!

So on with the show…

Not even a new photo, but I feel like uploading an image, seeing as that was the whole point of me starting a Blog.

Park Guell, Barcelona, June 2003.

It’s my personal Blog, it’s all about my photography, and other peoples music. Simple.

…Well maybe not that simple, I may blog other stuff from time to time too.