Matthews Street Festival: Dancing in the Rain

The last 12 months have seen me doing a lot of things that I previously haven’t had the time or money to do, not to mention the ear ache I would have got from the ex-girlfriend. Now though, me and Lisa are happily exploring everything that is put before us. This weekend we got invited to meet friends at the Matthews Street Festival, which was a first for both of us. The added bonus of the weekend was that my nephew, Ian, was over from Rome and showing his friends Marco, Angus and Enzo around the city.

We set off about dinner-time and got in to town for about 13:30, only to realise that we’d missed Pink Floyd – I was not impressed because I’d got myself all excited about that one. Disappointed, we set off in search of our friends, after some dashing around town and listening to the Beatles tribute band, we eventually met up with Ian and the lads to have a beer. The hangovers on display where outstanding, especially Angus’, who I think was actually asleep, standing up, with his eyes open! After a few drinks we set off to the Lambanana Stage to meet some of Lisa’s friends, but finding them in the massive crowd that was matching the Motown set was difficult, to say the least. We eventually met up once the crowds dispersed and made our introductions. This resulted in some slobbering and flirting, but it was all cut short because the lads wanted to watch the Guns ‘n’ Roses tribute, so we headed off with them and agreed to meet up with her friends later.

The crowd around the Tunnel Stage was big and we had to resort to being quite far back, but we still had good enough views. Some of the singing/screaming was a little suspect, but I didn’t expect anything else, Axl Rose is a difficult act to follow. However, when the classics like “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” came on the crowd lit up at the atmosphere was superb. Shortly in to their performance the rain began to drizzle down on us, but the band missed the chance of a comical moment and didn’t play “November Rain”, much to my disappointment. Me and Lisa left just before the end of the set and headed back to the Lambanana Stage to catch the second half of the Motown set, the lads headed off to watch the football.

On the way I grabbed some paella from a bloke who sounded more polish than Spanish, but I didn’t care because I was starving and it tasted superb! We ate on the move as we wiggled our way through the crowds, but once we got about 50ft from the stage we could go no further, not because the crowds were too packed in, but because everyone was dancing around in groups and I didn’t intend on getting caught in someone’s circle and made to dance like a clown as punishment. As each superb act played the rain slowly began to get heavier, but when the Jackson 5 tribute band came on I think one of the sound engineers must have wired things up wrong, because as each new song started the rain got significantly heavier, to the point that we were drenched form head-to-toe and stood in a deep puddle by the time the third song had finished. Despite this, no one seemed to care, so we all simply carried on dancing away, spilling beer and getting poked in the eye by those clever enough to bring an umbrella! When I looked at my plastic, watery pint of beer I realised it was filling up quicker than I was drinking it, something was not right here!

As The Supreme’s came on to do their final set we had a moment of magic … Lisa got a text from her friends saying they where about 10 feet in front of us and had umbrella’s … we dash like crazy though the crowds and found them stood on a raised area, with great views and a way out of the rain, perfect! We enjoyed the rest of the set and then headed down to Café Sports England. We met up with the lads and settled down to watch the Roma vs Juventus game and have some food. I enjoyed playing devils advocate between Marco, a Roma fan, and Enzo, a Juventus fan and especially when I saw the look of disappointment on Marco’s face as the third Juventus goal hit the back of the net – he was not a happy man! The meal was superb and the price was so cheap I thought I’d robbed them, so I will definitely be going there again.

After the football the lads wanted to head up to another bar on Bowlers Street who had a live band on, but as Lisa and myself were soaking wet and had an hours journey home, so we said we’d join them for one before getting the train home – what a disaster this turned out to be! We got soaked on or way there, so after a REALLY quick drink we sloped off to the train station, only to be told that the trains had been cancelled!!! This left us with two options … an expensive taxi or a guess as to which bus to jump on. We decided to chance the buses, but when we arrived at the bus station it was closed off and the temporary stops outside Lime Street Station where heaving, but I still wasn’t going to get a taxi. I decided to play my joker card … I rang my dad, thankfully he didn’t mind and agreed to meet us a mile or so outside of the town centre,. Luckily the rain had stopped by now and we were able to dive in to the local Subway to use the toilet.

It was a long, wet and fantastic day. I can’t wait for next year!

A Day of Culture

Yesterday was absolutely fantastic! Shortly after blogging about my drunken antics the day before, I picked up the better half, her brother and his son, who has just turned one, so he’s amazingly cute and has women’s hearts melting for miles around. We headed to the Botanic Gardens in Southport and let the little tinker practice his walking skills whilst we all had a nice picnic. As you can see from the pictures, it was an absolutely gorgeous day so we treated him to an ice cream, most of which ended up on us three!

After a few hours walking around the gardens, messing about in the playground and filling our faces we decided to go meet up with some friends of mine at one of their houses. The plan of action for the afternoon was to go to the jazz festival in the town centre and pass the afternoon away why the kids chase every pigeon in sight. If you look at the pictures you can see just how busy (and pigeon free) the square was after a few hours. This is definitely something I intend on doing again over the summer, I didn’t realise these arts events where so popular, but that’s because I’ve been raised with all the culture of a modern day box house and it’s something I want to change through going to more local ’shows’ and travelling off the beaten track when the opportunity presents itself.

As with most events I seem to attend, alcohol was present, in this case it was “The Pimms Stand”, which proved rather popular definitely helped us to enjoy the beautiful sunshine, good music and good company.

This was definitely a day to remember and I hope we get plenty more this summer. The full photo set is on my Flickr Account as usual.