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Antony

Re-Living My Youth: Steps Live

By Friends & Family, Gigs & Shows, Happiness & Joy, History2 Comments

As part of my Christmas presents last year, mum bought me a ticket to see Steps with her, Ian and Jodie. We got into town early and grabbed a bite to eat:

Mum & Ian (1) – with Flash!
Mum & Ian (2) – without Flash.
Me being sophisticated drinking coffee. Later I spend some time peeing while the warm up artists were on. Luckily they were terrible and worth missing.
Me.
While Jodie’s off powdering her nose, me & Ian fight over her bag. We stop to pose for a quick photo.
Jodie’s back and posing for a photo with mum.
Mum, Jodie & Ian.
Mum, Me & Ian.
I decide to be cheeky and mess up mum’s & Ian’s hair (forgetting that Ian doesn’t have any). Mum retaliates as a photos taken.

We got to the Arena and took our seats. There were two warm up acts, both of which were shockingly bad.


Ian, Mum & Jodie.
The audience go wild as the Steps logo appears on the screens at either side of the stage.

Five tubes that Steps were rise up and into on their first appearance on stage.
A vault with countdown clock on. The graphic was completely on a back screen.
The vault opens.
Steps appear on stage.
The graphics screen at the back of the stage. The screen lit up, in combination with the lights made getting photos really difficult.
Steps appear on stage. We were treated to a few Steps classics with dance moves using the back screen as a Just Dance type game.
Steps – Dancing & Singing in boxes.
Backing Dancers – Playing with Fire, while Steps sing.

To give you a feel of the hyper-active, excited atmosphere of the audience, I took a short video:

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Then each member of Steps did a solo song. First Lee, singing a mix of a few songs. His performance was excellent, and there were even screams when he ripped open his shirt:



(Lee performing with his shirt open.)

Next was Faye:



(Faye performing.)

‘H’ sang Don’t Stop Believing and did some clever stuff by making it look like he was interacting with the big graphic screen at the back of the stage:



(H performing. With his use of the graphic screen, I struggled to get a good photo.)

Lisa sang next, singing a mix of different songs including her track ‘Lately‘:



(Lisa performing.)

Claire sang her solo last. Claire had put on weight, but looked better for it. Unsuprisingly she sang an opera type song (having been on Popstar to Operastar):




Then it was time for my favorite Steps song: It’s The Way You Make Me Feel. I couldn’t help feel disappointed, rather than just having H singing the male lines of the song both H and Lee sang them. There voices didn’t feel like they became one. I would have preferred just H to sing to be honest. Still the costumes lived up to expectations, see below:



Lee in his mask and suit.
H in is costume. Claire, Faye and Lisa wore corset type costumes. All keeping in the theme of the orignal music video.

H closer, a photo of the side screen.
Steps then went on to sing Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart

Steps stopped to say Thank you’s – mostly to the audience for supporting them. They even posed for a photo:

Then they slowed things down with a few of their ballot type tracks. What amazed me was that the audience sang along, louder than Steps at some points. The audience singing in mass made me aware of how many people related to the words in Step’s songs.


(Steps sitting on the stage singing some of their slower tracks.)

Steps brought back the hyper-active, excited atmosphere of the audience with Stomp and some other songs. Here’s some photos:

Stage for Stomp.
Stage for another song.
Stage for another song.
Steps on Stage performing Dancing Queen.

Then it was time for Steps to take a bow and leave the stage:

For their encore they performed the only track they hadn’t performed so far: Tragedy :


(Leaving the audience on a high.)

For me it was a bit of nostalgia, re-living my teen years. But Steps stated that they were back – so they may well release some new music. I hope they do, I really enjoyed myself and had forgotten how much I enjoy a bit of cheesy pop.

I would like to apologise for quality and size and of the photos. I should have taken my camera rather than used my iPhone, this would have improved the quality of the photos. I’ve also had to significantly reduce the size of the photos to save on disk space (see More Disk Space). But if you’ve not got tickets to see Steps, don’t worry as the tour DVD is available to pre-order here: Steps – The Ultimate Tour Live [DVD]. Also you can order the live concerts on CD here: Steps Live! 2012 [CD].

Blog soon,

Antony

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Thursday 12 April 2012

A Good Way to Reduce Your Alcohol Consumption?

By Happiness & Joy, Life, Shopping, ThinkingNo Comments

I recently discovered these cans of pre-mixed Smirnoff Vokda and Diet Cola:

They taste delicious, much better than if you mixing your own and slip down rather nicely. At £1.75 and only 1.6 units per can, they are ideal if you’re not a big drinker or want to reduce your alcohol consumption.

Think of it like this: if you pour a vodka and diet coke at home you’re likely to pour more than a pub measure (25mls shot) 1 unit. Your likely to pour at least a double at 2 units – if not more, whereas these cans are only 1.6 units.

Of course it depends on how many of the cans you drink – but in theory, they are a good way to reduce your alcohol consumption.

Blog soon,

Antony



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Monday 9 April 2012

More Disk Space

By The WebNo Comments

Hi all,

I recently I received an email saying that I was close to my 200MB of disk space. So I decided to look at my photos/images that were taking up most of the space…


Photo / Image Library:

John Barrowman LIVE

Dylan & Russell

25th Birthday Blackpool

Pagan Stone Circle in Angle

…Oh, that explains the lack of space. So I’ve upgraded my disk space with Dataflame. Hopefully that will allow me to share more photos and images with you.

Write soon,

Antony



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Monday 2 April 2012

Film Nights

By Reviews, TV, Online Streaming & FilmsNo Comments

Monies been tight, so what better way to enjoy a cheap night in than a Film Night?

I’ve had a few film nights recently, picking up a DVD or two for a fiver and then settling down with some popcorn. So what have I watched and what have I thought? Well…here goes…

Paul
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have created some brilliant films such as Shaun of The Dead and Hot Fuzz. Paul is their latest film about two sci-fi geeks who travel to America for a road trip of UFO hot spots. Then by chance they meet Paul.

Paul is an alien who’s been hanging out in a military base but has decided to catch the first ride home. In pursuit of Graeme (Pegg), Clive (Frost) and Paul are federal agents. Along the way they meet Ruth a Christian Fundamentalist who comes along for the ride and Graeme finds he likes. What follows is an hilarious sci-fi comedy which ends with Paul getting home, Graeme and Clive writing a book that everyone at Comic Con assumes is fiction.
Monsters
The film starts 6 years after NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was sent to collect samples and on it’s return it crashed over Central America. It created an Infected Zone taking up half of Mexico.

The film starts in Mexico were the two central characters are introduced. Kaulder is a US Journalist trying to get photos of the aliens for a paper he works for and Sam the daughter of the owner of the paper. Her father instructs Kaulder to get her home safely. They are forced to go through the Infected Zone to get back to the US.

What follows is a story about the development of a relationship between the two main characters. The acting is weak at best and although there are the occasional action scenes, the film is somewhat forgettable. If I’d seen the film on the TV, I certainly wouldn’t have bought it.
The Last Airbender
Aang is the last Airbender and appears in the Southern Water nation. The Fire nation soon discover him and chase after him. The Fire nation want dominance over all and they’ve already killed off the Air nation, mostly dominate the earth nation and are starting to dominate the Water nation. Each nation has the ability to manipulate their element.

Traditionally one member of the Air Nation becomes the Avatar: the one that keeps balance and peace between all nations. Aang was the chosen one but ran away as he didn’t want to be the Avatar. The Avatar has mastery over all the elements which is how they must keep balance. Aang sees the suffering of the people and decides to become the Avatar. But he needs to learn how to manipulate Water, Earth and Fire.

In this film he learns to manipulate Water and Earth but the Fire nation are closing in on him. As the film comes to an end I realise that the story is to continue in another film. I tried to Google the next film but it turns out that Nickelodeon haven’t decided if they are making the next film or not yet.

The Mist
This film is based on the book by Stephen King. It’s a horror-type-film based in a small town in New England. After a storm, a mist develops and envelops town while a father and his young son are in a supermarket. People try to leave the supermarket but there are things in the mist, creatures from another dimension. It turns out that an Army Base close by had been working on a way to make a window to other dimensions but accidentally created a door – allowing the mist and the creatures through too their world.

What follows is a brilliant film with suspense, action and characters that all deal with the stress of life threatening situation in different ways. Eventually the father and son and a few other characters escape to a car and drive. They drive and drive until they run out of petrol. The father has a gun with four bullets but there are five people in the car.

They all feel hopeless, so he shoots the others and then in emotional state gets out of the car shouting the creatures in the mist to come for him. But at that point the army turns up to clear up their mess and eradicate the creatures. That’s how the film ends and I couldn’t help being disappointed that they’d given up hope.

Season Of The Witch
This film is set in the time of the crusades with two particular crusaders. After slaughtering women and children in the name of god they decide to leave the crusades. Known as deserters a Cardinal catches them. He agrees to let them go home if they first transport a girl suspected of being a dangerous witch to a remote monastery so that Monks can perform a ritual to rid the land of her curse. But is she an innocent girl or a witch?

There’s a lot of suspense in this film but the end of it is good. At the end the witch becomes a powerful demon trying to distory all copies of a book full of rituals to banish him and other demons. Needless to say the crusaders are successful but die in the process and the girl is free of the demon. The end of the film is good, but it does drag through the middle.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Monday 26 March 2012
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