Put the freshness back

I know when to go out. I know when to stay in. Get things done. Today I've single handedly done some freelance work, watched two episodes of Ashes to Ashes, washed two lots of dishes, picked Ka up from work, then taken her to a hairdo appointment and done the housework. Yep, you read right, housework! Hate it. If there was one thing in this world which I could pay someone else to do for me it would be housework. Dusting, hoovering, polishing tellys, brushing floors, cleaning bathrooms, slipping on the porcelain bathtub whilst cleaning down the tiled walls and banging your tail bone off the bath tap (hitting your tail bone off anything is generally very sore but a bathroom tap is not to be messed with). That's definately one thing that would make being rich great, having your house cleaned for you.
Most blokes, of course, don't need to even complain like this as they get it all done for them. I'll mention to some of the guys in work about doing the housework and they'll either look at me and laugh, spit out their tea in a giant spray of outrage or simply look rather vacant as if they don't have any idea what the hell I'm talking about. A quick run around with the hoover doesn't make me any less of a man does it? As long as I don't get the shake 'n' vac out and start dancing round the living room I'm pretty sure I'll be alright. It needs done after all and it earns you a couple of brownie points with the other half too (which you can cast up at a carefully selected moment later on).
Talking of the other half, Ka is off on her first hen doo at the weekend. When I say first, I mean first of three. A trip to Newcastle being the first, a work night out being the second and a meal out in Glasgow being the third. On Saturday morning I'm dropping her off in Hamilton to meet up with the eleven other crazy women going down to Geordie land, including her sister Angela, my mother, Auntie Tricia and my sis, Lynsey Ann, to mention a few. Imagine being stuck on a small bus with that lot?! Angela has organised a non stop couple of days though so there will be enough to keep them busy. Hopefully Ka will come back in one piece. This leaves me with the place to myself. A nice freshly hoovered place, because remember when your carpet smells fresh, your room does too.

Calzean, caravans and sausages

We were sleeping in the tent again, over the weekend, as we stayed the night at Calzean castle, just outside Maybole on the South coast of Ayrshire. We went along and met up with Uncle Tom and Aunt Linda who were already set up in the Calzean camping and caravan park in their caravan. Sally and Jake, the two collies, were also there of course and were not slow in leading us through the forests to the castle, after we had successfully set up camp. Well, Sally did get a little slow on the way back, but she is approaching seventy.
It had been many years since visiting Calzean and my memories were more than a little hazy. We had a good walk round the grounds up to the magnificent house, turning as we reached the main building's front entrance and descending down in to the walled gardens. From there we headed out to the Swan Pond and then, after a short break on the opposite end, headed back, only making another very brief stop at a small sweet shop in the grounds so that Tom could buy some liquorice. As we approached our camp once more the rain started to drizzle down from the clouded sky above and we took shelter in the caravan where we demolished a bag of Red Sky crisps or posh crisps, as I called them. I then took a slurp of my tea and realised it was Earl Grey. Again, very posh. All this while our little tent sat shivering, patiently outside, waiting on it's occupants.
Caravaning is not proper camping anyway is it? A solid roof above your head, with cushions and sofas to lounge on? Drinking earl grey, dining at a proper dinner table? That ain't proper camping is it? You're supposed to get smelly and grubby camping, drinking cold tea from a flask and sitting precariously on a rubbish foldy stool which either buckles under your weight or sinks into the muddy puddles under your wellies. Why do we put ourselves through the misery of camping then? There must be something primal there. When the rain starts up caravans are a god send. Especially when the rain is no deterrent to a good barbeque.
Tom fired up the German barbeque in the caravan's awning - a large, metal, gas powered cooker that produced a mean steak and sausage. This was the second BBQ of the day as Tom had cooked up some rolls and sausage on our arrival at the campsite earlier. We then talked long into the evening to the sounds of U2's Rattle and Hum and Bowie's Live at the BBC 2003 concert over a good few bottles of Peroni and a few bottles of wine.
The third BBQ of the weekend then came when we arrived at Colin and Heather's place, in the Gorbals, on the Sunday evening after having got home from Ayrshire, showered and refreshed. Colin and Heather now stay in one of these heavily regenerated parts of the Gorbals were the flats look something like the exteriors of major scientific research laboratories with glass panels, large windows and elegant shapes. Upon Ka and myself finally finding the right door, Colin wasted no time in lighting the coals and before we knew it, we were eating more sausages again. I think we ate more sausages that weekend than we have done for the past two months. Afterwards we sat and done some catching up talking weddings, past school fashion statements and Morecambe and Wise. Colin, it turns out, being a bit of a fan and almost giving us a short rendition of their famous dance. Twice that night I mistook the bathroom for the boiler cupboard, the bathroom, which was of pretty good quality, apart from the Van Gogh rip off on the wall, being of excellent quality.

Clean cut chips

Just had my first fish supper for around two years... shockingly greasy but fairly enjoyable. A guilty pleasure I very rarely partake in. Will probably regret it in the morning. When I do naughty things like that I often wake up the next morning with a strange taste in my mouth and a feeling of absolute guilt. Not to mention the bad feelings in my gut of the calorie additions. A calorific hangover.
Ka was over in Hamilton trying on her wedding dress with her Dad and wheel chair confined Mother. After making my way through the hectic Hamilton traffic I picked them up and took Grace and Dougie home. Upon arrival we opted to join the in-laws for a quick chippy. They've never been the same since they stopped coming wrapped in newspaper (the chippys - not the in-laws). The chips with half a greasy ink news story printed over them somehow seemed to taste better, I suppose it must have depended on how tasty the news story itself was. If you were ridiculously lucky sometimes they'd even come with a page three girl. The chips are all too clean cut nowadays. Another casualty of the health conscious crazy world we now live in. Not that I'd go more often if the suppers still came in yesterdays latest classified section. In times of deadlines Davey Clyde, in the office, often shouts things inferring his latest work's preferred use. He'll be sitting in his seat mumbling away to himself as he plans his last classified page and suddenly bellow "Right, let's get rid of this chip wrapper!" Probably not the most complimentary remark to make about our treasured weekly newspaper titles and sadly no longer even accurate.

Blue lagoons and Bolognese day

A pretty relaxed weekend there except from various painful gymnastic manoeuvres before dinner last night.
After a quick meeting with the Wedding photographer on Saturday morning Ka was out and about again hitting the shops with Beth leaving me to my own devices. My device on this occasion being my iMac with which I was adding more photos to reidnet. Unfortunately I did not get everything finished as various meetings, dinners and movies interfered. Saturday evening we met up with my Mum and Dad as they delivered a bottle of champagne with a wedding gift before they flew off to sunny Turkey. Oludeniz to be precise.
Ka and myself went to Oludeniz for the day when we went to Turkey two years ago. A great little resort on the south coast with beautiful beaches, a fantastic blue lagoon and the whole resort bordered by giant hills and cliffs including the Babadag mountain, popular for cliff jumping opportunities. By that I mean, paragliders of course and not people that want to end it all. The blue lagoon was particularly impressive. A large pool of deep blue circled by the Turkish hills, the nature reserve and the weaving paths through the palm trees running through it. In the Lagoon you could swim a good distance out into the water and still see your feet kicking below you. Far more relaxing than ocean swimming. Especially if, like me, your one of those paranoid swimmers that still grows uneasy after swimming out into the middle of the ocean and realise there's nothing below your feet but the dark, unfathomable ocean life. Your former relaxed self disappearing as you look around urgently for shark fins and blobby jelly fish rising out of the ocean. Images of that severed leg in Jaws drifting down to the rocky sea bed flitting through your mind.
On Sunday we were treated to Dougie's Bolognese special after Morgan put us through some gymnastics in the living room whilst Angela tried on a bridesmaids' dress with Ka upstairs. I certainly would not go to any fitness class run by Morgan after that. Even after a trip to the gym in the morning I was knackered by her maneuvers. Ka's Dad then treated us all to one of his culinary specialities. Bolognese has always been a favourite of mine anyway although my Mum's recipe is better than Dougie's but maybe I'm just biased. Dougie's was great but Mum's is better. Perhaps something to do with her secret ingredient - a glass of red wine (not so secret anymore!). Anyway, I always look forward to a bit of Bolognese. I woke up on the Sunday morning like one of those puppets that advertise pasta sauce on daytime telly:
"It's bolognese day!" I grin as I awake on Sunday.
"It's bolognese day?!" Ka frowns as she opens her eyes.
In Uddingston Dougie shouts excitedly "It's bolognese day!" as he leaps from bed and pulls the bottom tomato from the cupboard of stacked tomatoes.
Grace, in her stookie, shakes her head with a smile as the tomatoes tumble down over Dougie from the cupboard, "Papa always get so excited on Bolognese day!"

Scottish sunshine and bloodcurdling screams

There ain't a cloud in the sky over Central Scotland today. Maybe summer is finally on it's way? Now that I've said that, it will probably be teeming with rain again tomorrow. Looking out the office windows at this different, brilliant blue sky makes me feel like we could, in fact, be in some kind of foreign destination. An office plucked from the middle of Scotland and transported to a strange land where the sun feels warm against your skin and you can barely look up into the sky without having to shield your eyes. Then I hear the heavy hum of the printers downstairs and the battling fork lift trucks outside and am pulled back into reality once more.
The fork lifts are particularly busy at the moment, dealing with todays batch of titles, running off the press downstairs. They scoot about the parking lot outside with their piles of newspaper titles, manoeuvering in and around the trucks and vans as if competing in their own version of Robot Wars. The occasional yell from one of the operators echoing up and around from somewhere in the distribution area.
The operators and factory workers yell so loud sometimes, their voices reverberate around the factory. Once, one of them yelled with the most terrible, bloodcurdling noise I'd ever heard. Truly horror movie worthy. It was so loud I wondered whether he was being eaten alive by one of the printing machines as I worked or flattened by one of the enormous rolls of newsprint which stand ominously around the factory floor. Maybe he'd banged his head and fallen on to one of the conveyor belts which line the walls, waking up at the precise moment when he tumbles off the track into the recycling paper shredder. Perhaps one of the fork lift trucks had took a wrong turn and skewered one of the operators on the factory floor with one of it's forks.
As I sat imagining these various and horrible deaths I could not help but notice that nobody else in the office had seemed to pay the least attention to this terrible noise. To this day I wonder if it may have even simply been all in my mind. A horrendous, mental, cry for help on one of my twelve hour shifts perhaps? Looking at the long lost Scottish sunshine outside through the window, I think all us office workers may well be having similar frustrated screams of pain right now.

Initiation's over, Michael. Time to join the club!

On Saturday night Ka and myself cracked open the bottle of Spanish Cava, a gift from her Mum and Dad from Salou, pulled open the Curry flavoured Sensations and sat and watched the classic eighties flick, 'The Lost Boys'. What a classic. Eighties films were just great. Great atmospheres. Fantastic, over the top effects. Brilliant music. It's great to watch one of these old movies and still enjoy it fiftieth time around. Think of how many classics the eighties spawned? Especially if you're around the age of thirty and these movies were the first, great experiences of the video recorder and big screen. You had so many kid classics like 'The Goonies', 'The Karate Kid', 'Labyrinth', 'Wargames' and 'Flight of the Navigator'. Then you had the slightly older, teen, aimed movies like 'Weird Science', 'Gremlins' and 'The Lost Boys'. All the 'classic' dance movies to which Ka has a penchant, "Dirty Dancing' and 'Flashdance' all have that quintessential eighties quality about them.
'Blade Runner' is one of my favourite all timers and that was made in '82. The first of all the dystopian future science fictions but a film I did not discover till well into my teens. And the rest! The Indiana Jones movies, the Star Wars sequels, The Terminators, The Predators, the Alien movies, the Lethal Weapons, Robocops, Beverly Hills Cops, Ghostbusters, Poltergeists, The Nightmare on Elm Streets, the Chevy Chase comedies and the brilliant Back to the Futures. There's just too many to mention. Okay, not all of them were classics. A lot of them were quite cheesy in places, a bit too American corn in others but all stir so many memories for me.
Robocop for instance was the very first eighteen certificate movie I was officially allowed to watch, thanks to my cousin Craig and his pals. I think it was a sleepover and when we were going to watch this VHS that Craig had hired out my Aunt Ann advised me to phone up the parents to ask permission to watch it. This crazy, violent, futristic thriller about a man that gets half slaughtered and then tranformed into a kind of Frankensteins monster cop machine to roam the streets of LA (at least, I think it was LA?) seemed like such a big deal at the time. Looking back I'm realising it may well have been this one film that got me hooked on science fiction. The way it could be crazy, terrifying, horrific and somehow based in the 'real world'. However, I've not watched it in many years and suspect that if I ever did go back to Robocop I would probably switch it off after half an hour either bored or embarrassed, completely disillusioned.
This did not happen on Saturday though as Ka and myself sat through 'The Lost Boys'. We quite enjoyed the dog attacks, the flying camera work, Kiefer's early acting skills and Granpa's car horn whilst eating our curry Sensations. Not to mention the exploding vampire in the bathtub. Fantastic. They don't make 'em like they used to! Gawd, the eighties were twenty plus years ago?! That realisation is a bit of a horror story in itself. I'm off to watch Ashes to Ashes.

Varying degrees of loss

It was two years ago tomorrow my Granpa Reid passed away. It's quite strange that it has been two years already. Part of me still expects him to be there when we go round to my Gran's place. Sitting in his armchair, watching the telly. It was usually the horse racing that was on. Engrossed or in a trance like state, he'd sit there watching until the race ended, then get up and offer drinks and argue with Gran. Sometimes I can still feel his whole weight on my shoulder, from when I was younger, whenever he got up from his armchair and he'd plant one of his giant hands down on my shoulder for some unnecessary support. He'd also sometimes stand heavily on your feet as he passed you by on his way through the living room. You'd have a sleep over at Gran and Granpa's some nights and wake up with carrots and onions in your shoes like some kind of strange non seasonal Veggie Claus had visited during the night. I still find it odd that Granpa did pass away at all. There was nothing wrong with him! He was only 81? He could have easily done another ten years. Such is the way with life though.
Not quite as unfair but still a complete p**ser is the fact I've been robbed. Last night I decided to check out our accounts online and discovered that someone has nabbed £35 from one of our accounts. Last week I purchased a tenners worth of petrol at a garage in Rutherglen. On the statement this is listed alongside another item which was apparently £35 bought from the same garage the next afternoon at approximately 1pm?! Ka and myself were both at work when this purchase was made and the credit card in question was, as far as I know, in the right arse pocket of my trousers. How did the thief do that then? Was my card scanned by some piece of evil card scanning equipment whilst in the garage the night before? Had somebody been watching me type in my pin? Who knows. All I know is we're £35 poorer with no sign of a return and my card has now, once again, been cancelled. So now I'm having to wait on another cash card coming through the post, preceded by another new pin. The third new card in a year. The last one being lost in T in the Park last year whilst dancing to The Wombats and, almost immediately before that, when I had nipped up to the Spar outisde my work to withdraw some money. On plugging my card into the hole in the wall the whole industrial estate decided to conk out. The whole site lost it's electricity supply for around two hours leaving me with no cash or cash card. The only plus point being we sat at our desks in the office with nothing to do for two hours (I think we ended up having a paper ball fight).
On a brighter note, one of our blue wheelie bins has mysteriously appeared at our door. Yes, one of the previously thought long lost wheelie bins has turned up safe and well. One of the other neighbours welcomed it home on Monday evening. Somehow, this wheelie bin escaped the ned bonfires and has survived?! Unfortunately there is no knowledge as to where it has been the past month or so but I'm looking into it... nope nothing in it either.

The policeman's haircut

Following the naked neighbour arguing with his female friend on Monday night things really kicked off when he locked her out the flat. Ka and myself were just settling down for the night when we heard the ned screeching from the front step. The close has a keypad code to enable us residents entrance, the number she obviosly did not know. Davey, the naked neighbour, had locked her out following with her rattling the close door for around half an hour at around midnight. She then moved over the lawn to his front windows and started banging on them yelling and screaming abuse through the glass and threatening him with the police, shouting in her best, most threatening female ned voice. Around ten minutes later a police van turned up and a police man and woman walked up to the front close to try and get some sense out the girl. Unsurprisingly she did not give them any. Davey then appeared at the door, telling the police that he had just wanted the girl to leave him alone. This obviously switched something in the female ned's brain and she went mental, hurling abuse at, not only Davey, but the two attending police officers. The policeman calmly stood and listened to the barrage of insults until, in her fit of outrage, poiting wildly, the girl yelled:
"I'll take y'ees all f***in' on! You an yer stupid haircut!". She'd done it now. With the mention of the haircut the girl had crossed the line. Suddenly the policeman moved. Diving forward he grabbed the girl around the shoulders and spun her up off the step and through the air, planting her face down on the front lawn. As the girl struggled wildly, the accompaning female officer then dug her knee into the girls back as the policeman got his cuffs out. All the while the girl continued the hurl her abuse but, luckily for her, refraining to mention the policeman's haircut again. As this was happening another police car was pulling up outside with another two officers and as the ned was thrown in the back of the van. The two new arrivals got a very brief update from the two arresting officers which probably went along the lines of:
"Slagged the haircut"
A nod between them.
Davey was taken in and, presumably, questioned after which things finally calmed down. I wonder if you can get done for insulting a police officer's haircut? I certainly hope so. The stupid lassie should get done for breach of the peace at least. There's nothing I hate more than this ned culture that infects our society. Why would you even let someone like that in your house in the first place? Boggles the mind.

The naked neighbour's doors and ironing boards

There's some action in the block tonight as raised voices echo throughout the close outside. The guy downstairs, or the naked neighbour, as he was described in a previous post, has had many a female 'visitor' over the years. Many of them generally not giving much away except the noise of their heels echoing in the stone close. Tonight, however, one of them is going mental downstairs. Shouting and cursing at a male, presumably the naked neighbour himself, her ned like voice screeching and squawking. Ka and myself are, of course, up against the front door listening in as she yells at the foot of the stairs outside. Not that we revel in the goings on of our neighbours' lives. We were merely a little intrigued by the loud commotion... (nothing is on the telly). A few moments ago, however, he asked her to lower her voice which, of course, it being a woman and all, had the opposite effect and made her screech even louder. She was then, from what we could hear, deliberately muffled and pulled back into his flat, where the argument goes on as I write. These things are so much more interesting when it's somebody else.
We're just back from Uddingston, where we welcomed the future In-laws, Dougie and Grace, home with one of Ka's beautiful lasagnes. Unfortunately, on Saturday night, Grace fell in their hotel in Salou and fractured her foot which ended up with the pair of them having to make a visit to the local hospital. Fortunately they were able to get a good, temporary covering over it until an operation back home, which will hopefully happen in the next few days. So now Grace is hopping around on one foot, the left foot being in giant bandage form, with Colin and Dougie acting as crutches for navigating the house. Not a great thing to happen nine weeks before her daughter's wedding.
Other exciting news is that we got a new ironing board yesterday (yes, this is, as good as it gets!). We lost our ironing board around two weeks ago in a tragic ironing board guitar playing incident and had to say a fond farewell (I think it was 'Crosstown Traffic' I had been playing). Anyway, on taking our ironing board down to the bins I discovered another, sad looking, neglected board covered in cobwebs propped up against a wall, behind one of the wheelie bins. Feeling sorry for it I decided to give it a new home and brought it upstairs as a replacement to our dilapidated old one (which I set fire to later as a sacrifice to the ironing board playing god whilst high on old Easter chocolate and Jack Daniels). Unfortunately, however, after using this old board for a few days I discovered it was growing lumps and after a few irons felt like I was ironing shirts on a cobbled path. It was no good and also had to be disposed of. I suspect it was probably the naked neighbour downstairs' board. He also has other things lying about the close outside and around his front door and the wheelie bin shed. An old lamp stand sits outside his door together with an old, golf bag, ripped and torn and an old front door lying on it's side. All cloaked in a thick layer of dust. The old front door lying on it's side outside the naked neighbour's flat was most probably from his last war from one of his other former girlfriends. Maybe he'd wanted to go golfing and asked her to iron her shirt to which she threw a lamp at him and stormed out the flat slamming the front door behind her, which came away from it's hinges and collapsed to the ground in a cloud of dust. Sometimes I'm not sure why the naked neighbour bothered to get a new front door as he often goes out during the day leaving it wide open. Before heading to the shops yesterday for our shop, and a new ironing board, I took some rubbish downstairs and was surprised to see the naked neighbour's entire hallway, lying open before me. Clothes horse, hoover and drying washing all perfectly visible complete with a semi new looking ironing board propped up against his wall. How easy it would have been to nick. Being too honest for that kind of behaviour (or boring) I carried on, in my way to the bins and then on to the shops, for my food and the new ironing board.

Daleks, pirates and tropical plants

Yesterday morning I had an appointment with the Doctor. Unfortunately he did not turn up, which was odd because a familar blue police box was certainly there . Yes, yesterday morning Ka and myself ventured along to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery to experience the Doctor Who Exhibition that's been open since the end of March. My inner geek was enthralled. With a host of models, costumes and props the small exhibition was very entertaining with some great exhibits on show. The Daleks squawked and moved by remote control firing lasers at the viewers and the Cybermen lit up, speaking in their monotone accents and didn't really manage much movement at all. A slight wobbling was all you seemed to get from the Cybermen after activating them by pressing the one big button at the front of their stand. Kylie's outfit from the 2007 Christmas episode was also there. I stood looking up in awe at those fish net tights and waitress uniform for perhaps a little too long. Another highlight was a Dalek that you could actually climb inside, control and voice by speaking through a mike which transformed your normal tones into that of the metallic pepperpots themselves. When I say it was a highlight, I mean, it would've been if I had had the opportunity to have a go. The thing was forever surrounded by these flamin' kids who could not even do a decent voice through the speaker. I tell you, if I'd been given a chance inside it the kids would have all been running for their lives! As we left Ka managed to crash one of the touchscreen computers which taught you all about the Doctor, past and present. Ka requested info on Ecclestone's Doctor to which the computer gave a viral warning and closed down. Unfortunately K-9 was not around so we had to inform a clueless security guard who just kind of garbled something expecting a laugh and when we looked back blankly he shrugged and carried on moping about. He was possibly a little scarier than some of the creature designs surrounding us.
After our adventures in space and time we headed up Byres Road to Oran Mor for some lunch. As we discovered on entering the friendly whisky bar, Celtic FM was transmitting live with various different musicians and singers which we listened to as we bought a pint. After sitting quietly, listening to the music for approximately ten minutes or so, another bunch of folk dressed in blue rags and rubbish pirate costumes jumped out from behind one of the bar's wooden pillars singing 'A Pirates Life for Me' and 'Yellow Submarine'. As this all kicked off I was just standing to make my way to the bar to order food when a small man in his sixties, who had been sitting quietly beside me but at the next table, jumped up on to his feet, elbowed me out of the way and started playing a flute shimmying away to the music, joining the young pirate with the guitar. Picking myself back up I made my way round all the shiny happy pirates to the bar and realised it was 'A Play, a Pie and a Pint' day in Oran Mor. This relaxed lunchtime theatre programme runs in Oran Mor through the Spring and Autumn in which you can go along and for the price of a ticket get a , you guessed it, drink, pie and play. In all honesty the pies did not look up to much but scotch pies are often like that. Once you start eating them you generally forget that they actually look a bit unappetizing.
After lunch Ka and myself then headed to the Botanic Gardens across the road for a walk around the plants, ponds, glass houses and sunbathers. It had been a long time since my last visit and the gardens really impressed with their vibrant colours and amazing amount of tropical foliage. Don't get me wrong, I don't have much of a clue when it comes to gardening and always speedily flick the channel whenever I hear that Beechgrove Garden theme tune but the walk round the Gardens and the Kibble Palace was surprisingly enjoyable.
Once evening came we were once again eating out, only this time it was with Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann for Tapas in Ola, EK's one and only Spanish restaurant. It was Mum's treat and we all ended up leaving, bellies full and a little inebriated. It was the Brandy's fault. They ran out of JD.

How to stay awake

Last night Ka and myself were up in the circle of the Glasgow O2 Academy. This great venue, formerly the Carling Academy (not sure why it's changed it's name) was host to the American band The Fray last night. The tickets were bought as a birthday treat for Ka as she has quite liked them since they came out of the woodwork with their debut album and single, 'How to Save a Life', which was probably guilty of being horribly overplayed on both the radio and many an american television drama. Not being particularly interested in them and having always thought them to be pretty mediocre I went along not expecting much. Although I did almost fall asleep at one point and the slight pain in my back from sitting in the Academy's seats kept niggling at the back of my mind, I did, surprisingly, quite enjoy the performance. The band translated quite well live and although a lot of their tunes have the tendency to sound a little too alike there were some definite stand out songs. None of which I can mention, of course, as I don't know what they're called. Whether it's The Rolling Stones or Gary Numan, U2 or Electric Six it's always good going to a gig just for the whole live experience at least. As long as the act keeps you awake of course.