I went out for the evening.

It's ironic slightly that after deciding I couldn't maintain a daily entry here I got loads of inspiration but no time to actually write about them. I honestly couldn't decide what I wanted to blog when I realised I had a few minutes to myself this evening.

However, as going out for the evening ought to be matter of course but sadly, sooooo isn't and given that this particular night out was completely awesome, it wins. Introspective seasonal posts and whines about my health can wait.

Big goes out all the time, every Saturday he has a regular dj gig at a rock pub in a neighbouring town. Of late, he does the Friday and the Saturday. Beside that, producing the podcast gets him free entry to any number of rock and metal gigs and festivals that he cares to ask for. Between the dearth of babysitters available to us and my usual need to be curled up in bed at a reasonable hour in order to function day to day, I don't often join him.
This was a special occasion. Firstly, it's half-term and I've booked leave from work so have some leeway with the fatigue. Secondly, the in-laws were not only willing to babysit, but to keep Small overnight! Thirdly, the gig in question was ALICE COOPER!
I love Alice Cooper. He writes and performs great songs, is a pretty great dude in himself and his live shows are something else entirely. I have seen him once before, last year and besides doing all the songs you can think of when you think of Alice Cooper (Billion Dollar Baby, Poison, Elected, School's Out, Feed My Frankenstein etc) he also had a giant FrankenAlice puppet, shoved a mic stand through someone and was executed by guillotine for the crime. The theatrics are worth going to see alone.

This year he's doing a whole new set for the Hallowe'en tour so we were promised a different show. Besides that, he was supported by Duff McKagan's Loaded and Ugly Kid Joe. Both acts appeal to my teen nostalgia in ways I can't begin to describe. So I took off my Mummy Head and rummaged down the back of the sofa and in the back of the cupboards until I found my old Rock Chick head and this was the result

Not bad, when you consider how out of practice and impoverished I am (I'm a mother)

So with that we bundled Small into the car, dropped him off with toothbrush and George Pig and off we went to Sheffield City Hall (via a very nice Thai buffet for tea)

Big had to interview the very beautiful and talented guitarist Orianthi before the show but a very small and very terrifying pit bull of a woman attached to the tour refused to let me join him so I hung out with another blagging journo of our acquaintance who, it turned out, was one reason the pit bull was so pissed off. He'd overrun his own interview slot. 

I also allowed myself to be utterly fleeced for a tshirt. It's a nice tshirt though. 

Then the bands came on.
Loaded were great, really relaxed stage presence and good solid rock tracks. Duff McKagan makes a rather good frontman and unlike his former bandmate and frontman who shall go nameless, hasn't descended into overinflated ego and overinflated stature self-parody. Good start. 

Then Ugly Kid Joe. Now, I was excited to see them as I loved them when I was a teen but I was admittedly also a bit worried that they'd be past it. Not so, not so. Amazing set. Whitfield Crane is incredible, he was everywhere, running through the crowd, jumping the seats in the stalls, dragging seated people to their feet, challenging the audience to get into the spirit - everything you want from a support band and more. Besides which, they still rock, Whitfield can still sing the same as he did *coughcough20-oddcoughcough* years ago. 

Then Alice.

I understand from Big that there had been complaints from those elements who always complain about something that the Hallowe'en tours had been the same for too long. Well, this year it was all new. This set didn't let up at all, the tempo was fast throughout and we just had to keep up. It was lighter on some staples (No Elected!) but threw in some covers of departed contemporaries in a 'Raise the Dead' segment which was just fab. I imagine the moaners will just have complained that he left out too many favourites instead but sod em.

I could not have had a better time. Look, there was even a snake!
That was probably the last night out I'm likely to see for maybe another year so it's just as well it rocked there and back again.