Jamie R

Enter Shikari on 6th November was bloody awesome. I couldn’t keep up with the fast moving energetic crowd and had to get out of the pit a few times. I lost Weston, but then found him again, he couldn’t survive it either. After getting lots of free water from the bar we went back in for a bit and endured a load more 14 year old wannabe-emo kids smashing into me. It was an awesome concert, but I don’t think I’ll see them again for a while. Don’t get me wrong, they are a FANTASTIC band live, who play FANTASTIC stuff and the atmosphere at the gig was awesome, it was just too violent in a way! I can survive a Metallica gig no problem, but 4,000 young people crammed into the Brixton Academy isn’t really a nice thing, especially if you’re at an ES gig! Too hot!

For you lampie folk out there, this page describes the technical side of the concert. Equipment includes High End Systems Studio Beam washes, Martin Mac 2000’s, Martin Atomic 3k DMX strobes and a Flying Pig Systems Hog 3 iPC for control.

Christmas is, at writing 20 days away. Laura’s off to Australia for Christmas and New Year, she’s leaving on the 14th, so no Laura for 3 weeks. I wish I could fit in her suitcase. Meh ah well - I’d happily trade in most things to go out there with her! What are all you lot doing for Christmas? Going out and getting sloshed? Staying at home with typically-Christmassy chestnuts and mulled wine? Going to Florida or Sydney or wherever? I reckon I’ll just be staying at home - might go and get my pipe and slippers as Nick would say - “fetch me my pipe and slippers young chap, I am a MAN now!” lol.

I found a really embarrassing photo of me at PLASA 2007 on the Avolites website earlier today. Man I look awful. It’s alright though, I found an equally bad one of Ricky at PLASA 2004 (I didn’t find any of us at PLASA 2006)…he’ll hate me

My college’s sixth form revue is on Wednesday 19th, which will be fun. I’ve been busy getting things ready for the lighting side of things. Should be good. This year’s theme is aliens and sci-fi, so I’m thinking lots of green/purple/strobes/whatever I can get my paws on. Hopefully everything will go to plan.

In terms of site news, I’ve added a donations page. Anyone who likes what I do and would like to contribute something to my PayPal account, they can do so through my site. Anything, however small will be greatly appreciated. I’ve also added a new section called “Essex Stage Crew” which is an area of the site which will be detailing more of my theatre work in the future. It’s not up yet but it will be soon!

Over and out

Jamie.

Phantom of the Opera was FANTASTIC. Having wanted to see it for ages, me and Laura went down to London on 20th October and saw it at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Haymarket. Whilst we were there, we checked out a few of the sights of London and went to Chinatown. Chinatown was better than I thought it was. Being a bit of a food man, I did have to go and check out a few of the restaurants around. I think I might have annoyed her a bit though, because the word “buffet” kinda interested me, and so I dragged Laura into the nearest all you can eat restaurant…yeah, bad I know.

And so there I was, I guess doing what I do best - When we left, I found the real Chinese restaurants down the road, leaving me regretting not taking time to actually look around, and putting my money in the nearest restaurant that said “buffet”. Oh never mind.

The hotel was quite nice. We got a package deal from a company called “Premier Ticket” which included one nights hotel and theatre tickets. In the end, the hotel wasn’t bad. We stayed at the Holiday Inn in Regents Park. Overall, it was a rather nice two days! That was the main thing we did to celebrate our year anniversary.

Anyway, Friday 26th was the release of OS X Leopard, Apple’s long awaited successor to 10.4 Tiger. I haven’t had a chance to get my paws on a copy, yet (even though I don’t have a Mac that will run it - I have 2 G3’s with 10.4 :/) so I can’t really say anymore. On Saturday 20th (the same day that I was in London), Apple opened their store at Lakeside, not too far from me. I was planning to go to the opening and grab meself a free t-shirt. However, when I saw the opening date I nearly shot myself, but oh well. I also missed the opening of Leopard due to having other stuff to do at the time

November November November…Well, it’s getting cold outside! Tis no good. I’m going up to Colchester on Monday 6th to see my mate Nick’s band Scorpio Toy play. I’ve been meaning to go to one of their gigs for a while, but haven’t yet cos I’ve been busy. I’ve made an effort to ensure that I can go this time, cos Nick keeps telling me to go! On Tuesday 7th, I and Jamie W are off to see Enter Shikari at Brixton. Should be awesome!

All the best,

Jamie R.

Hey

Well where to start - as you might have noticed, and as one person actually emailed me to ask me why (thanks Roy), my site has been off line for the past week. This has been due to the unforeseen fact that I hadn’t renewed my hosting account (domain and hosting were both up for renewal at the same time) and so my site went off line. I couldn’t renew anything before due to lack of money. I guess my host is pretty cheap at £30 a year for hosting for an *alright* hosting spec and because my site doesn’t use a great deal of server resources (only about 4 or 5 gig a month on average traffic) my current host suffices.

In other news apart from hosting, I’ve been pretty busy in the last week. I like being busy, except last weak was*really* tiring. Saturday 7th July I went to the annual war bird gathering up at Duxford - the Flying Legends air show. I’ve upload shed loads of pics (only a few compared to the amount I did take, most of which were crap) to my gallery. You can find the album here. I was really looking forward to the airs how seeing as the star of the show would be a Lockheed P-38 Lightning nicknamed “Glacier Girl” which was part of a flight of 6 P-38 Lightnings and 2 B-17 Flying Fortresses flying from North America to the UK in 1942. The pilots of the mission, called “Operation Bolero” downed over Greenland due to bad weather and ended up landing on the ice. The crew were rescued after several days of being on the ice; however the aircraft were left there. In 1992 however, an expedition to the site of the crash landings resulted in one (and the least damaged) P-38 being lifted from 268 foot of ice. A ten year restoration project began and on 26th October 2002 P-38 41-7630 took to the skies for the first time, 60 years after being ditched over Greenland.

“Operation Bolero II” was finally organized, and preparations were made for the second attempt at the mission. This time, just with the P-38, which by now had been dubbed “Glacier Girl” and a recently restored P-51D Mustang (TF-51D 44-84847) called “Miss Velma” which was being flown over to the UK to become The Fighter Collection’s latest acquisition. However, Glacier Girl’s involvement in Operation Bolero II ended abruptly on 26th June when coasting out of Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada with “Miss Velma”, she started trailing coolant. Steve Hinton (pilot of Glacier Girl who had also flow every previous post-restoration flight in her) managed to get her back to Goose Bay where she was inspected. The problem turned out to be major - a cooling vent had popped off the right engine. All 4 aircraft returned to Goose Bay (P-38 and P-51 with support aircraft in the form of a Cessna Citation Sovereign and a Pilatus PC-12) and so the flight continued once more without Glacier Girl. The right engine will now need a massive overhaul, and there are rumors that both engines might be replaced. Miss Velma eventually made it to Duxford on July 4th after being weathered in Scotland for a few days. Hopefully Glacier Girl will make an appearance at Duxford soon - Operation Bolero III is in talks, so hopefully we’ll see her at Legends 2008.

In other news away from air shows, I saw Metallica at Wembley Stadium on Sunday 8th July. It was a really long, tiring day seeing as I’d been up to Cambridge a day before and been at Legends all day. However, it was a GREAT concert - Metallica are far better live than I thought they would be. The supports were Mastodon, Machine Head and HIM. I can safely say that I didn’t really like Mastodon, and HIM were pretty much hated throughout their set. With the crowd all shouting “fuck off back to Finland”, I’m kinda assuming a lot of people didn’t like them. Ah well, I personally quite like HIM. I think they’re a good band - everyone’s different though. I went with a few mates and we got on a coach organized by our local newspaper which picked us up at Clacton Station and took us straight to Wembley. Was a good day! I’ve put pictures up here.

Gonna go and book my driving test now, going to see when they have dates etc!

Chow!

Posted for a while, so here I am. I guess it’ll be a long one, but I’m bored and I think I might as well write something here. Post a comment if you’re gonna read it!

I’ve been doing a fair bit of stuff lately to be honest, which probably kinda explains the lack of work on the site and blog posts. Right now I’m watching Panorama on BBC One into the whole “computer revolution” and a study looking into whether there is a clear link between WiFi and health problems. Roughly every school, a lot of homes and work places are now installing wireless networks etc. It’s looking into whether there’s an impact on our health caused by mobile phone technology and wireless network technology. There are a lot of debates either side of the argument - should we have and use WiFi (particularly in schools) or not? I think we should, from what I’ve seen, there have no adverse effects to the use of WiFi, however I do see both sides of the argument.

There might be a few people around who “have” been affected by the use WiFi about, however there amount of use and coverage it has now, it’s pretty much unavoidable. If there was really a problem, then surely there would be a far bigger outcry and public response from it? Maybe my view is wrong, but it’s what I think. Surely, if there was a problem, a *lot* of people would have symptoms and problems about it. One woman on the show is apparently sensitive to WiFi and has undergone tests. It’s true, there are electro-sensitive people, however the UK doesn’t recognise it as a disability, whereas for instance, Sweden do. Also, don’t you think that they would be affected by standard phone masts and radio stations?

In terms of what I’ve been up to, I guess it’s a fair bit. Last month (well, 22nd April,) LJ took me to see Trivium at Ipswich’s Regent Theatre. It was an awesome concert, and although it was in a theatre, really exceeded my expectations. I really enjoyed myself and have uploaded a few photos to my picture gallery. Also, me and three of my buddies have gone and got tickets for Metallica’s July 8th concert at the new Wembley Stadium as well, which will be extremely good seeing as it’s Metallica’s only gig in the UK in over 16 years I believe.

College is going ok. We’ve signed off media now because we’ve done all the work for this year and have no summer exams in it. I had a general studies exam today, as I did last Monday. I’ve only got IT left now, which will be a 15 hour exam spread over 2 weeks.

I also went upto Duxford at the weekend (Sunday 20th May) and went to their Spring Air show. It was the first air show I’ve been to this season so far, and hope to go to a lot more. The theme of the airshow was to commenenrate the 25th ending of the Falklands War, so it was a rather moving and rememrable display. I was surprised to see a Bell UH-1H Helicopter there, which to be honest, was unknown to me before the airshow. The UH-1H Iroquois, more commonly known as G-HUEY or “IROQUOIS” - serial number “ 13560″ was the star of the show. It was a “trophy” of the Falklands, seeing as it was captured from the Argentine Army and brought back to the UK at the end of the war. Now it’s owned by three Huey enthusiasts and looks forward to a good display season. A full write-up and pictures are coming, I’m in the process of sorting the photos out.

My driving lessons are going rather good at the moment, got another one on Wednesday after college and then I’ve got my theory test booked for Saturday 2nd of June. I’m happy with the way it’s going at the moment, my driving instructor Paul says that he reckons I can do my test at the end of June. I’ll get it booked up soon when he thinks I’m ready for it, and will see whether the little men at the DSA wanna give me a licence or not! Laura’s also started driving now, so hopefully we’ll be both soon be driving about!

The summer is on the way, and I hope will be fantastic. As you can probs gather from blog posts last summer, summer 06 was the best summer I’ve ever had, and I don’t know whether I’ll ever be able to beat that experience again. It really did rock - I hope this summer will be just as good, if not better. People will be driving and it’ll be good. Me, Bryn, Dean, Ricky and whoever hope to go on a few roadtrips etc, which will be schweet! If I pass my test that is.

Anyway, I better go. Have fun people!

Jamie.

Well it’s July, and it’s great! - The exam month of June has gone and now I’ve just gotta wait for my very low grades to come in in August..yeah, I’ve failed straight.
Exams are now over (well, they were as of 21st June but I was too lazy to post anything here until now) so I have plenty of free time until September which is rather good because it gives me a chance to be lazy and do bugger all (well, not really, I’ve gotta find another job and get site sorted and partayyyyyy.) In September I’ve decided I want to start A-Levels in Sixth Form (my school is also a sixth form so it means I don’t have to travel any further from what I was doing.) I’ve decided to stick to what I’m fairly good at in terms of subjectage, and not stray into the stuff that I was rather crap at (well, ok there wasn’t any point just putting that cos it’s obvious but I just did :)) - I’m taking IT, Media and Chemistry. Should be fun.

Last night I went and saw one of the greatest bands on earth play at Portman Road, Ipswich - The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Fucking hell, they were awesome! The two support bands (!!! - pronounced “chk chk chk” and Dirty Pretty Things) were pretty good..well DPT was. !!! were crap.

Photos are here if you want to see them - I had a great time and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything! I bought a new RHCP t-shirt as well, I’m happy

Jamie

So it was my 16th birthday yesterday (5th April 2006)..well happy birthday me!

I’m 16, do I feel any different? no. Was I excited about my birthday? not really..well except the party
I suppose it’s the first year where you’re actually supposed to be excited to a certain extent I guess..woo I’m 16! Like when I was younger, I used to say to myself I can’t wait to be 16 (not because of the fact you can join the TA, have sex or buy smokes + gamble), but because it was an age where you were supposed to be more accepted into the world as an adult and not a scrawny little kid who gets up to loads and loads of mischief, lol.

Because my 16th was / is supposed to be a “special” birthday, I thought I’d put on some banging party for all the wonderful folk I happen to know. Originally conceived as an April fool joke, I told people my party was going to be on April 1st. When I did, most people said “yeah cool I’ll be there”, but some people still had the cheek to question “Are you trying to mug me off in front of my pals? that’s on fucking April Fools day!”

In terms of the party (which was, if you haven’t already guessed it on was on Saturday April 1st), apart from loads of people being sick outside in the car park of the hall I’d hired and the fire extinguisher getting nicked and Emma Barden (sorry, I couldn’t resist telling people :p) pulling the coat rail off the wall when she was pissed, the party was great!!! lol, but that was all part of the fun I guess!

Ergh I had to go back the next day and brush up people’s puke…great fun after a bacon sarnie xD

My friend Ricky (aka LxRixTa) bought his whole rig along and I took my rig along and we put on one hell of a lighting show, although we felt at the end of the evening that 19 fixtures (compromising of mainly magic gobos + scanners and a few other non DMX disco lights such as a set of Vasto’s) just wasn’t enough..sorry, we’re mad.

I really had fun though, and I hope every one else did as well..well, a lot of people said ’twas a great party so I’m happy

Pictures..o, pictures - Well I was linking the photo page, but I’ve decided not to for the time being. If you want to look, then please ask me for the URL.

Anyway, enough of my partying antics and stuff, I’ll leave you alone

~Jamie.

Yo

Sorry if it’s taken a while for me to get this put on here, but I’m happy to say that the Up and Comin’ gig, or most of it!! was a success! yay…

I’ll firstly tell you about what went wrong: Everything was fine until 1/2 way through one of APO’s songs, lead singer Tim Marsh decides to go and fall over. Lol, this was funny…Screamo falling over on stage whilst screeeeeeeammming! hehe.

Also, we had sound problems (or more precisely, crap microphones) which I had to spend 10 minutes at the start of the show sorting out, so things were a little delayed. There wouldn’t have been any problem if I (and the band members and people who I had got to help) were allowed out of more than one lesson out of five. Well, I was out lesson 2, half of lesson 4 and lesson 5 (lesson 4 because I kept on winging at the amount of set up time we had left…). Ricky stayed in the hall most the day rigging our lights whilst I was in and out of lessons. I managed to get some people out lesson 2 as well, but this was tough and I had senior management on my back, again…

With restricted set up time, it made mine and Ricky’s job harder as the techie guys. Although we got everything sorted in the end with the time we had, it meant that Ricky couldn’t do the programming he wanted and I couldn’t get a decent sound check. Oh well, next time I’ll really annoy ‘em!

What did go well however is what you (or whoever actually reads this, if anyone), will want to know. The bands themselves played really well, and for The Popes Main Rival’s first major gig, the audience loved them In terms of the slightly more hellraising screamo band Another Pointless Outlook - the long hair gentlemen of hardcore, they certainly left an impression!

I’m sure the audience really wanted to see my ugly mug up on stage introducing everything etc, but y’know, you win some, you loose some hehe! Everything was going *okayish* until the end, when the audience started shouting “SING SING SING”…ut oh. I didn’t wanna let them down, so I sang (a bit, the bit that I could remember) of Bohemian Rhapsody..like I can sing!

If you want to know all the lighting and sound gear that we used:

Lighting:

• 4 Howie Battens
• 2 Acme iSolution iRock 6B barrel Scanners - 5 channel DMX
• 2 Acme Dynamo mirror scanners - 4 channel DMX
• 2 Chauvet Intimidator mirror scanners - 5 channel DMX
• 4 Acme Magic Gobos - 3 channel DMX
• 2 UV cans
• Le Maitre Neutron XS Hazer
• 6 CP62 Parcans 1000W (with blue and red gels)
• 4 Strand Quartet 650W fresnels
• Zero88 Sirius 24 Analogue Lighting desk
• Acme DMX Master (DMX controller for up to 12 DMX fixtures. Each fixture can have up to 16 DMX channels assigned to it)
• A lot of Socapex cable and socapex spiders
• DMX cable etc

Sound:

• Behringer EuroPower PMH3000 powered mixing desk
• 2 Peavy 300W Club Speakers - 15″ cabinets
• Multicore
• 25 meter speaker leads
• One corded Microphone and one wireless Microphone

It was great fun, and I’m glad that we put the whole event together now. We raised nearly £200 for charity which I’m extremely pleased about. We’re hoping to do another one down at lower school someone in the next few months if it can be arranged

A BIG thanks to my friend Ricky for helping me with this gig - getting stuff to and from the gig, setting up etc and taking time off work to help! Cheers mate.
Anyway, photos…the best bit - Erm well, you can find photos here (I’ve put them up on Jamierees.net ’cause I’ve run outta disk space here)
Jamie.