Andrew Bird @ Shepherd’s Bush Empire

Patrick Entertainment, Music, UK Life

Despite being slightly jet lagged from my trip to Chicago, I still ending up going to see the amazingly talented Andrew Bird at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. It was a ticket I had booked way back when. Strangely enough, I found out recently he’s based out of Chicago and here I was seeing him away from his country having just returned from his home city. Strange? Definitely.

The ground floor of Shepherd’s Bush was completely packed by the time he came on and from what I could tell there were plenty of Americans, English and a handful of antipodes around. Andrew Bird’s style of music is definitely unique. It’s laid back, almost music-box like and absolutely enchanting. Just perfect when you want some easy listening tunes. I realise that it doesn’t really do him that much justice however I don’t think words can really describe the performance he puts on for a live show.

For his first song, he made recorded snippets of him playing different instruments, playing them back almost immediately, effectively turning him into his own backing track while he carried on with the main melody. It was completely mesmerising both visually and audibly. It seems like he plays a bazillion instruments and I never realised that the whistling you hear in his songs is also him and not some sort of synthesiser, able to replicate the strength, pitch and tones perfectly in a live show just as much as on the albums.

As a musician, Andrew Bird produces some stunning sounds. As a performer, he’s even more captivating by the way that he produces these intricate sounds with what looks like such minimal fuss on stage that I always thought were produced using some sort of synthesiser.

thekua.com rating: 9 out of 10

Congratulations Gaz and Molly

Patrick UK Life

I didn’t really elude to this in my last post but the reason I’m in Chicago at the moment is to celebrate the wedding of a couple of friends I met in the UK who ended up moving to Chicago. The day was a wonderful celebration including a large portion of family and friends from both sides of the pond (Gaz is English and Molly is American) starting the day with high tea at the very fancy Drake Hotel topping off the day with a sunset cruise around the Chicago shore line.

chicagosunset

As you can see from the sunset above, Chicago’s finest weather came out to help make the day a huge success. It obviously rubbed off on the couple who couldn’t be help beam for the entire day. Here’s a picture of both of them.

gazandmolly

The cruise ran particularly smooth considering that there was an unlimited tab on board and multiple decks. I don’t think there was any incidents whatsoever and everyone seemed to be really enjoying the time on board. I guess it’s hard *not* to if you have views like this to keep you entertained.

chicagoatnight

Thanks again and congratulations to both of them. I had a fantastic time and I know that many other people did as well!

In Chicago

Patrick Travel, UK Life

Left yesterday(?) morning on a Virgin Atlantic flight to get to Chicago for a friend’s wedding celebration. Lovely all around. Flight wasn’t too packed (got a whole three seat row to myself!) and arrived at a reasonable hour. Can’t wait since I’ve never been here before.

Tube drivers with humour

Patrick Travel, UK Life

On the tube just now… This tube will attempt to stop at all stations. This will be going to … stopping all stations except for Cannon Street (pause) due to a lack of complete interest. How can you not have a laugh at that?

Goodbye Marlow

Patrick Travel, UK Life

It’s been about nine months since I’ve been based out in Marlow in Buckinghamshire. It’s not particularly the easiest of places to get to involving both the tube network, Chiltern railways and a taxi to finish it off but it’s been a great team and some interesting work. I’m leaving the project with mixed feelings, definitely glad I won’t miss the commute though will definitely miss other aspects.

sunrise

Like these views from the hotel that I’d been staying at particularly with the wonderful weather lately. It’s based by a lock, directly opposite a church dotted with headstones nestled amongst well kept jade green grass.

lockview

It certainly makes waking up a much easier task…

The Living End at Koko

Patrick Music, UK Life

Wednesday night saw a huge number of antipodeans (and others) descend upon Koko to watch Aussie rock band, The Living End. Good doesn’t really begin to describe how the night went. It helped that they had some really decent support acts, including Tellison and I think the other people were called To The Bones. Both served to warm up a full house audience on all floors.

thelivingend

We stood fairly close to front of stage, close enough to be pushed around and jump around in some of the audience, but far enough not to be involved in the crazy antics that probably happens at most of The Living End’s gigs. They did an awesome job cycling through plenty of their classic tracks across their five albums, as well as a number from their newest, White Noise which I can highly recommend.

It was definitely a high energy audience, fuelled by an equally high as energy band churning out some amazing tracks. Everyone was friendly, made happy with the great tunes and the only people that ended up dragged out of there were those that were crowd surfing their way to the security at the front of stage. An awesome night that probably left most people pretty sweaty and satisfied.

livingend

(Picture above is linked to the original source and that you can tell that I didn’t take with my camera phone).

Weekend in York

Patrick Travel, UK Life

Last weekend I finally headed up to York to visit a couple of friend Toni and Claire who have been living up there since late last year sometime. I’d promised to visit them sometime this year and finally got a weekend that worked for all of us. It was great seeing both of them and they were fantastic hosts for the weekend.

clairetoni

Getting to York was surprisingly easy. Even though it’s very close to the north most part of England, it only took two hours to get there from Kings Cross station via one of the National Express trains. I booked my tickets in advance but didn’t really get a super cheap fare but at least I managed to reserve my seats which made a huge difference heading up there on a manically busy Friday evening at Kings Cross station. Better yet you get to choose what sort of seat you had, including whether or not you have a table and powerpoint (helpful to plugin in if you need to charge your phone or laptop!)

bettys

Yorkshire is, of course, well known for its tea and there are plenty of places to choose from to sit and have a pot. Fortunately Claire knew the best place to go in York… Bettys Cafe Tea Rooms. It was obviously popular with locals with lots of “ladies lunching”, as well as quite a few groups of tourists. We waited outside in a queue for a table upstairs and it didn’t take too long as they seemed to have enough turn around.

minster

One of the other significant places to visit is the York Minster, apparently the largest gothic cathedral in Europe. Regardless of whether or not their claim is true, it certainly is impressive and the £6 is worth walking around inside. They even have a huge tower that you can climb up for a marginal cost but we decided to skip it with the queue not looking like it was moving and stretching quite some distance inside.

We also visited Harrogate and it took me a while to make the connection with the Harrogate Spa Water that you sometimes see around. The country is absolutely gorgeous with large lush green fields all over the place and very clean tasting waters. It was a great place to take Claire and Toni’s energetic labrador for a walk and a place to socialise with many other dogs. We couldn’t help but stop and laugh (and take a photo) of the following on the way back:

hedge

It was a great weekend to spend in the country and well worth heading up there for a weekend break. It certainly beat the crazy rush to get to airports and then arrive late in some European country. Oh, and it didn’t seem so grim up north.