Alkaline Trio at Nottingham Rock City 17/4/2014

Wow. What a night! They were awesome, absolutely incredible.

To start, the two warm up bands.

1. The Murder Burgers
Not bad at all, sounded a little like early Green Day stuff. Would consider an album to hear more of them.

2. Bayside

Good too, old fashioned rock/metal. Lead guitarist was amazing, such talent and a lot of solos to show it off. Sick, sick, sick was a great, standout track by them.

The main event!

Alkaline Trio

Just incredible. What a great mix of new tracks.

1. This Could Be Love
2. Hell Yes
3. She Lied To The FBI
4. Every Thug Needs A Lady
5. Cringe
6. I Wanna Be A Warhol
7. I'm Only Here To Disappoint
8. Jacked On Green Beers
9. Sadie
10. Balanced On A Shelf
11. Dine, Dine My Darling
12. Mr Chainsaw
13. Time To Waste
14. Young Lovers
15. Stupid Kid
16. Warbrain

Encore (and really, two of my all time favourite tracks, by any band, ever? The whole place went crazy!)

17. Private Eye (I don't have to quit doing f**ked up sh*t for anyone but me)
18. Radio (shaking like a dog sh*tting razor blades)

So much energy, just a great, great performance. Loved every minute of it, and my voice is so hoarse today I don't know how they do it night after night. If only they'd played Mercy Me and I Lied My Face Off it would have been the perfect set.

Here's hoping I get to see them again soon.

PUPS delay

For anyone out there waiting to read my new series (PUPS - the adventures of a third grade werewolf) I have some bad news. Four days ago my computer died and I have managed to lose a great deal of my writing, associated notes and other bits and pieces. I thought I'd backed them up, but they weren't on the backup drive so I don't know what happened there. I try to do it once a week, but I suppose it must have been 2 or 3 (months maybe?).

Finally worked out it is the hard drive that has failed (tried to do a fresh install and the windows boot disc said 'No - hard drive is about to fail). It's a Lenovo ideapad Z580. Just about a year old, but I can't find the receipt to say for sure (which is not in the box which I can find). I have managed to piece together a working PC from some of the old ones in the garage, but it clunks and moans and sounds like it is steam powered. It's also incredibly slow!

Anyway, I've managed to get back copies of books 1 and 2 (the case of the horrifying headmaster and the case of the loathsome lunches respectively), but book 3 will need to be started from scratch (the case of the cancelled Christmas). I have also managed to lose all of the book covers that I made and the associated artwork to make them again.

Oh, and all of the data and artwork for my website for some reason.

I could see this as an opportunity, if I was a glass half full kind of person. I suppose I am starting to do that now that I've stopped being so annoyed with myself, but part of me honestly believes that whatever I write for PUPS book 3 will never be as good as the chapters I had already written. Anyone else ever felt like that?

So, to summarise -
Pups 1 and 2 saved but back to being in non-edited format
Pups 3 starting from scratch
Website lost (will have to start from scratch next time I want to change it, may well look different if I get a flash of inspiration)
Artwork and covers for Pups 1-7 lost and will need to be redone from scratch
Need to buy a new laptop hard drive

I think that's about it. Has anyone else had a similar problem? How did you cope? What did you do?

A really inspiring story would be great about now....