Murray and Mr. West

As reported yesterday, last night I went to Manchester to see Mr. Kanye West.

I left work earlier than usual. The brain tumor/hemorrhage I have convinced myself I have, was really starting to smart. I made a slight improvement back in the flat and eventually managed to convince myself that I wasn’t going to die, and that going to the gig would be a good idea. Of course Lisa’s enthusiasm for the gig helped spur me on, but I felt tired and unwell.

Having been a passenger on many of journeys to Manchester I felt happy to oblige and offer my services and give Sweet Jon-ay and Eve-e-o a lift in my* fine automobile. Lisa had taken the precaution of getting enough AA batteries from the various remote controls we have littered about our flat, so we could, in the absence of a car stereo, listen to her personal CD player through her portable speakers. It did the trick.

The journey itself went without a hitch which made a nice change Of course negotiating the multi-story carpark was a tad problematic, due to my inept driving skills and the fact that the Audi has the handling abilities of a Sherpa Tank. It wasn’t long before my head started to hurt again.

Once the car was eventually parked up after several comedy driving moments courtesy of myself, we headed towards the Arena passing several clutters of make-up caked teenagers looking excited and shifty- cigarettes and cider most probably.

Due to the headache, I started to feel a little flat it was agreed that beverages should be acquired. Of course, since I was driving a beer was out of the question. This made the 15 minutes queue feel worse. Whilst queuing I had time to observe the variety of people in attendance. It did seem that there was an awful lot of 14-17 year old girls. Hiding their acne with several inches of make-up, wondering through the crowd in procession, arms linked together and enough metal in their teeth to repair the Titanic. Alongside these mini skirted Lolita’s was a truck load of Chav lads. Top Man and Burton’s clothing was in abundance. (shudder) Alongside these fashionably unaware, were the middle class whit hip hops fans, complete with clichéd sideways baseball caps and Elizabeth Duke jewellery. There was also a small contingency of young fans there with a parent or older sibling, savoring the atmosphere sporting their newly purchased Kanye Merchandise that will now doubt take the remainder of the year to pay off. There was spores of the tradional looking Hip Hop fans, young black men donned in Wu Wear and other such expensive sports attire. The odd Emo kid was spotted and I even saw the odd student wearing their obligatory scarf- despite the uncomfortably warm temperature.

There was also a lot of ladies wearing mini skirts.

Whislt waiting and categorizing the other punters, my right eye started to hurt. I subtly try to rub it without disturbing my contact lense. I failed, and I could feel it sticking out of the right hand corner of my eye. Lisa spotted it immediately and I removed it. Alas, as I have only just managed to put them in with the aid of a mirror when they come fresh from their packaging, I knew attemopting to re-insert it was a fool hardy gesture. I tried. I failed. Jon, Eve, Lisa and I watched it fall from my awkward finger onto the grubby M.E.N floor. Bugger. I was now blind in one eye.

Eve bravely suggests retrieving it, and putting it in my mouth in order to recite my sudden inconvenience but IK decide against it.

My head hurts more now than ever. Of course Lisa’s attentions turn to her and my friend’s impending safety as passengers in my car. I think my erratic car park maneuvers had flustered them. Having a driver suffering from a brain tumor who could only see out of one eye did not install a metric ton of trust. I irritably assured her I was fine and continued rubbing my eye.

Finally we get to the front of the queue and because I was feeling lousy I was seduced buy the idea that a hotdog would be a good idea, washed down with a litre of Fanta. The Fanta, I hoped would give me a much needed kick start as, in my youth its consumption would always send me a little hypo active.

When we eventually found the section where we were to be seated. It was high up. Very HIGH up. We were “up in the Gods” as it were. We were forced to make the entire row stand up in order for us to reach our designated seats. I apologized most profusely with a mouth full of hotdog, mustard and ketchup decorating my beard. When we finally made it, we dusted the snow off our seats and parked our arses until our nosebleeds finally stopped.

It wasn’t long before the Kanye West show started. Oddly, he chose to open the set by playing one of his videos before making his entrance, whilst his 14peic all female orchestra took up their positions and look nervous. Of course, being blinded in my right eye made it very difficult for me to actually see if they were nervous or not, but that was my impression.

Ahhh. The show was good. Only blighted by the girls in front of J,E & L who decided to dance badly throughout. Also a few technical difficulties Kanye experience, blaming the VT guy, Monitor guy, Sound guys, DJ etc. But it was good. I chose not to stand though until almost the very end. I wasn’t in the mood to sway. After all, my standard gig position is to fold my arms, pint in hand and not my head subtly. It was quite amusing to see young white scally lads stood up, donning their hoods and baseball caps, throwing some rather lame Vanilla Ice style moves.

During one instrumental interlude, I decide to name my tumor Murray.

Jon commented whilst Kanye decided to milk the crowd and dance, that he passed a remarkably resemblance to Carlton banks from The Fresh price of Bel Air (Alfonzo Ribera). He was spot on, he really did! Oh Alfonzo where are you now?

Anyway, it was good, and even the 40 minute wait to leave the carpark wasn’t too bad I suppose, although I had more tricky car park maneuvers to make yet again.
I’m off to the land of Scotland tonight for a Withnil & I type break (we’ve come on holiday by mistake). Thankfully I’m the only one of us ho knows the dialogue to the film on an unhealthy level, therefore it’ll stop me from regaling the same lines over and over and over again as I do on every trip to the countryside. Therefore won’t be in work until Wed, therefore I’ve been ensuring that all my work is sorted before I leave…the hand towels have been loaded up in the toilet and the dishwasher has been emptied…another job satisfactorily done..