When I first conceived the idea for this blog, I didn’t really know how I’d feel about it. Sure, it was something I had passion and dedication for, but since starting this blog, it’s excelled all expectations I had. I was thinking about the blog since around mid December, then I discovered the postaday2011 challenge and that really inspired me to make a dream become a reality. Today is the last day of the first month, and to be honest,
barely a moment has gone past this month where I’ve not been thinking about this blog. Songs, ideas, do I do this, do I do that etc etc. I really want to thank each and every person who has come to this blog and read the blog, left a comment, subscribed, bookmarked, tweeted and whatever else you’ve done. You’ve really made me smile and I value each and every single reader here.
V is for Victory!
So, onto todays post. Continuing with the theme of the victory, todays offering touches upon a very special part of my childhood which I still relive and enjoy to this day. I remember about 9 months ago now, I was about to turn my laptop off after noticing I’d strayed into the wee hours of the morning (you know it’s late when the hours are in single figures!) yet for some reason, I felt compelled to check my email inbox. BOY! I’m glad that I did. I’m subscribed to the ticketmaster newsletter thing, and the email was that Michael Flatley was reprising his role as Lord of the Dance for a string of special performances as a ‘victory lap’ for the fans.
This immediatley got me reaching for the wallet. I didn’t even care they cost £55 a ticket! To put it into context. I’ve now seen Michael live 4 times since the 1990s (this being the 4th, 3 times for Lord of The Dance (I was fortunate to be at the last ever uk performance on the original run when I was about 9) and once for Celtic Tiger) — to say I’m something off a diehard hardcore fan is true. After watching my recorded version from the TV for 96th time, the video broke. I now have all the shows and soundtracks across VHS, DVD and CD (sometimes multiples. Heck! I even have my 1997 tour t-shirt stashed away safely) I’ve probabaly watched the show in excess of 250 times (total guess, but could be a fair estimation!) So, I grew up watching the show and the chance to see it live with Michael performing one more time was an oppotunity to good to miss. I asked Milky if she wanted to go (we’d been together a few weeks by this point) showed her the website and she came along. She absolutely loved it from start to end. To try and convey how much it meant to take my girlfriend to see it would be impossible, but it almost felt like a baton passing. When I’m still in Primary School my parents took me to see it, and now 13/14 years later I’m taking my GF to see it. It almost felt like a combination of my life. It’s the childhood days fused together with my twenty-something years. The thing that really struck me is how universal the show is and how someone from the otherside of the world and a culture quite removed from the UK/west can sit there and keep a permanently fixed smile of breath-taken awe for 2 hours! Anyway. I’m beginning to ramble here so I’m going to go ahead on post the video. This section of the show is called ‘Victory’ and is the first of 3 finale pieces if you like. This paticular video is taken from the ‘Feet of Flames’ concert (which is essentially Lord of the Dance uncut!)
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It’s a Sunday today, which can only mean one thing, taking it easy. Sunday is the one day of the week where we are allowed to rest and go with the flow. Today’s plan is roughly sketched out. Watch Andy Murray win the Australian Open Tennis, and thus end a 70+ year wait for a British Grand Slam champion. Then I shall keep an eye on some video games I’m bidding for on ebay (yes, i’m one of those bidders who likes to watch the auction until the last few seconds, and sneek in with a bid when the counter is displaying single figure seconds) I’m also making a roast dinner along with my parents which will be good. Gives me an excuse to plug myself into some music whilst I do the vegetable prep and such forth, before eating dinner and getting ready for what might just be the single greatest TV show in the world… Top Gear.
So after coming back from my local town this evening, I was sitting down to eat my dinner when the news came on. Nothing noteworthy there you may enquire, but considering the lead story on the 6 o clock news was the recent trouble in Egypt, it got me thinking. I was looking at the sequence of pictures along with the report of what happened. As I was watching this news report, I was suddenly reminded of a great song which seems to have more relevance and poignancy then ever before.
This song also reveals a guilty pleasure… Air instruments. In a scene reminiscent of Dr. House (wait… is that 3 days in a row now I’ve mentioned that show? If not 3 in a row, I think maybe 3 out of 4) I end up playing air keyboard for the intro before coming in with the drum fill. I remember one of my friends laughing at me (in a good way) on the old university campus bus after I was listening to this and Phil Collins’s Something In The Air Tonight back to back and I’m there doing air drum fills. Aww, the good old days of hour plus long commutes each way to university plugged into my ipod listening to allsorts of music. I think along with The Sims 3, Age of Empires 3 and talking to Milky, my iPod is the single biggest reason for a disrupted sleep pattern!
Today’s post is one of those songs that does poetic justice to the world around us. The lyrics are highly emotive and I just adore the stark honesty of them, combined the with sublime wording. For someone living in the world at the moment, the lyrics ring out with prehaps more poignancy then ever before. Times are harder then they’ve been for a while. I know I try to keep the tone of this blog on the positive, but sometimes like this, a song comes along which just moves you so much you cannot ignore it.
Todays song comes from one of my favourite (if not absolute) bands of all-time. I first fell in love with this band back in year 6 at school when my teacher played Time from Dark Side Of The Moon. Since then I’ve loved and grown with their music. Pink Floyd have been the soundtrack to my life somewhat (especially the last few years) I absolutely adore their music. David Gilmour is a personal idol and I look up to him when it comes to my guitar playing.
After several hours of deliberation, I’ve decided to throw a curve ball and go for something completely different here. This song I first heard whilst at my girlfriends university halls earlier this year. I found the melody really enchanting and the song to be very beautiful. The song is from a japanese anime so as such is sung entirely in Japanese. I don’t really know what’s being sung, but the song is very beautiful and the music is strong. If any japanese speakers read this who are able to translate or give me some indication as to what’s going on, then that would be greatly appreciated. This is Dango Daikazoku from Clannad.
Today’s song came from the most unlikely of places, or one that I wasn’t expecting. This is part of the appeal for me, the song I put up can arise from all kinds of situations. One thing I’ve not really talked about so far on this blog is my enjoyment of Video Games. One of my favourite games of all-time is Mirrors Edge. I’m working my way through it slowly. I know it’s an older game (by video game standards) but I didn’t get it until recent times, and at £5, I couldn’t grumble.
