My car has been absolutely beastly for weeks now and on Saturday I decided enough was enough, and that it needed a thoroughly good cleaning. Armed with bin bags and a strong stomach I tackled the hideousness that was the rear seat footwells, in behind my seat and the passenger seat. The remnants of too many nights out were all there; empty chicken boxes, a bottle of cider, magazines, wrappers and bottles of all varieties. The thing is though, is that it’s not me sat back there, it’s my lovely passengers leaving the rubbish there. I think I need to have some words.
Clearing the boot was a mission in its own undertaking, I had no idea how big it was in there. There were two bags worth of empty plastic bottles from training, back from when I used to take bottles of water or sports drinks with me. As I went deeper, past all the stuff I kept ‘just in case it came in useful’ (like spark plugs, a full set of ignition leads and god knows how many spare bulbs) I started to get to stuff that I’d long forgotten which brought loads of memories back, lots of happy ones at that. I found shoes, beach mats, towels and a road atlas from summer missions to the beaches, along with bits and pieces from my last birthday. I found a book and an empty half-bottle of bubbly I forgot I’d left in there, and I had to laugh when I tore open a cardboard box only to get showered in ‘Happy Birthday’ confetti. It took me ages to get through everything in there because it all reminded me of things, people and places; it was like a little nostalgic trip down memory lane. By the time I’d finished on that Saturday afternoon I had two plastic bags full of empty plastic bottles and two bin bags full of assorted rubbish and things I didn’t need any more. It’s never getting to that state again. It’s a good job I did choose to clean it out too, I ended up driving for a big night out that night.
As soon as I saw that Zane Lowe was going to be playing in Falmouth I emailed my friend, she’s as into music as I am and we both agreed that we had to go. We loaded the car with people in various states of inebriation and headed down, only to be greeted with a practically deserted venue. I needn’t have been worried though, it was held on the university campus and it wasn’t long before it was full of ‘wacky’ art students. The warm-up DJs were pretty good, although one of them was very annoying through his overuse of a noise which can only be described as a manatee with a bad throat doing an impression of a fog horn. He put it in-between most songs which made it feel like a total cop-out instead of actually mixing the tracks together, something that someone like, oooh, a DJ might do?
When Zane came on at midnight the place started bouncing, and I have to say that having never intentionally gone along somewhere with the sole purpose of watching a DJ, I was so impressed. I know how energetic the guy is from his Radio 1 show, but had no idea how he’d come across as a bona-fide venue DJ. I needn’t have worried, he was simply awesome. There were times he was mixing three or four tracks in very quick successions, playing with loops and samples and even singing along and air-drumming. Everyone in the building was dancing, bouncing and throwing themselves into one another to a high-energy mix of hip-hop, indie, rock and drum ‘n’ bass (and I don’t even normally like d’n’b). It was a thoroughly awesome night, despite not having a drop of alcohol. I wouldn’t say I need alcohol to have a good night, but if I’m having a good time a couple of beers always goes down a treat, and I’d have to say that if it’s even possible, my dancing improves!
If you ever get a chance to go and see him perform (he’s on a Home Taping tour at the moment), do it. I defy anyone to not get up and jump and get drawn in with his utter enthusiasm.
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