Hellfire Festival..

...attached to a music trade show at the annoyingly large Birmingham NEC, bloody miles away from the train station. When I got there it took a fair while to find someone who could give me a pass, but luckily I was just in time to witness the joys of Kiss covers band "Dressed To Kill". If one is going to form a tribute act, surely there's better acts to ape than Kiss for pity's sake? Maybe it's the dressing up that appeals. While we're on the subject, I want to get OC/DC together if anyone's interested - we'll take ages to set up our gear, making sure it's just right, then play the same riff over and over for the whole set. Anyway, after deciding I would ignore fake Paul Stanley's advice to catch them in Swindon in a couple of weeks I went for a wander around "Music Live" in the hall next door, an event which magically brought back all the horrors of seven years working in a guitar shop, then multiplied them by fifty. The place was full of men playing bad guitar solos. I hate guitar solos. Actually that's not strictly true - I hate the vast majority of guitar solos, but particularly those without accompaniment played by punters in music shops. Honestly, just play a chord - you'll know if you like it or not.

The show went well anyway, despite the ludicrous fifteen minute changeover time (nice of them to admit it was their amp that was faulty when the show was over). Warm Carlsberg (441) backstage this time, and no catering I might add. Shoddy.

Flying to Lebanon on Friday. That should be interesting.