Summer trip part deux: Liege

As I am waiting for my hair to dry (hairdryers are overrated!), I figured I could just as well write the next blog. In this exciting installment of the Summer Tales, the Dream Team was off to Liege in the wonderful Belgium, where they would go and turn the Les Ardentes festival upside down.

Da Journey

Immediately after Mr. Penniman and gang had left the building, we went to the car because we foolishly decided it was a fantastic idea to drive to Liege overnight. Let me assure you this is not a good idea. Although Donegan and myself fell asleep during the drive, it was Laura who had to keep Niko awake, before we would have a tragic crash and die in the Neverland of France. Especially the last 30 minutes were hard for both him and Laura. Laura just kept talking and I think she was so tired it was mainly bullshit. A memorable quote: "You know that Mika flooded his bathroom?" That's right Mika, she is psychic. Now get those towels ready!

After what seemed like ages but was only 3 hours, we arrived at our hotel. I felt like shit, I was tired and grumpy. What did make me happier was the fact that the Holiday Inn we originally booked a room at, now was changed into a 4 star hotel. YAH FOR UPGRADES!
We knew that quite a lot of people were already queueing, but quite frankly, we didn't give a damn. We jumped into our beds and slept until 12, we'd just see whenever we felt like going there.
Sleeping was so nice and I felt good when I woke up. We decided to get brunch and went to a supermarket. I also bought razors. I forgot mine at home, which basically meant that after 4 days of not shaving, I felt like King Kong's sister. At that moment I was in such a state of bliss, I didn't even care about the festival anymore.

A delightful lunch later, I had a date with my razors in the bathroom, Luke and Laura went for a swim and Niko slept some more. I have never felt so refreshed when I was ready with my shower. I did my make-up, we all prepared some more and around 6 we headed down to the festival.

Da festival

We arrived at the festival and had to find our parking lot which took quite some time. We then went into the shuttle bus and were dropped off at the entrance. The lovely lady who checked our tickets said my top was "tres magnifique". I was about to high-five her.

We immediately went to the main stage. It was around 7 now. I just walked round the sides and surprisingly enough we could just walk to the front row. It was AMAZING. Especially after the whole Compiegne disaster, this was a real treat. We were chatting about how lucky we were, when Niko said he had to go back to the car to sleep some more, but he promised us he would be back by 10.

We were still in awe about how lucky we were, but then the inevitable happened. We had been there for more than an hour, sitting down to chill some more, when a big French Lady just sat down on Laura's bag. Laura immediately stood up, demanding the woman to get off her back and she tried to secure her spot. The French lady at her turn demanded Laura to move as she had been there since 3. Her husband who had been there all along never spoke a word. Both of them stood up and the lady kept saying:

"PLEASE MOVE! PLEASE MOVE!"

Laura kept saying no.

"STOP IT! STOP IT!"

Laura had no idea what she had to stop.

"EXCUSE ME, THAT IS MY WIFE!" The man said.

"Well, congrats?"

"I WILL PUSH YOU!"

Laura, being the Essex girl that she is said: "Well, go on then!"

And she did.

Laura immediately called security and explained what was going on. The lady tried to get security to remove us, but they just shrugged and went away. 1-0 for team Laura! In the meantime, Luke was silent, afraid we would get kicked out.
We weren't. The punchline is that in fact, there was enough room for all of us to stand in the front row. After security were gone, the woman did not say a single thing any more.

The acts

We saw the full set of Puggy, an apparently famous band in Belgium and France as the crowd went wild for them. Mind you, they were very good.

After Puggy came Ozark Henry, which basically was a snoozefest (not as much as the Tindersticks though, but more on that later).

Then fiiinalllly, Mika came on! And boy was he on fire! It was waaay better than Compiegne, although Compiegne was also quite good. We danced our asses off and had the best time ever!

This was probably my favourite gig out of all 3 we did this tour. He was smiling and seemed so happy and it just rocked my socks off. Even though I wasn't wearing any.
The long wait after

We decided to wait for him after the gig. So we got our pretty asses over to the VIP parking. We weren't the only ones. Around 60 people were waiting. Then it got later. And later. And even later than later. So a lot of people left. By the time it was 4 in the morning, there were only around 29 people left and he FINALLY came out.
It was quite endearing to see. He pushed everybody out of his way to get out of the car, even crawled over them when it didn't go fast enough. The first thing he said to Laura and me was:

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE? THIS IS AMAZING!"

We said something about having no lives and having nothing better to do.
He stuck around for a few minutes, chatting and swearing like a sailor (in a positive way of course) and he did a video for Mikafans.net after we managed to get a working camera (mine didn't work. Which made him say: "Sort your shit out! How many fucking hours did you have to prepare?")

He then moved on to the other people and when he came back, Niko politely asked him if he wanted to take a group picture with the 4 of us. He happily obliged and said: "Yeah let's do it!"

Now I warn you this is not the full group picture. This is the one with the 4 of us. But considering there have been some people angry about this cropped version, I thought I would just mention it.

 

When Mika left, we were still on a cloud nine. The excitement got even bigger when only a few seconds after he left, he tweeted:

I have some of the fiercest fans in the world. I am honoured and very lucky. Thank you. X

We were the lucky ones. Lucky to have had the chance to experience such a good meet&greet. And then to think we thought Liege would be the mediocre gig. Absolutely not! 

We went to bed quite satisfied, yet the trip did not end there yet!

Summer trip part 1: Compiegne

So, I figured it would be nice to let those 3 people, who still hopefully yearn for my insightful blogposts, know where the hell I've been the past, well, week.

7 July

I woke up in the morning, not feeling quite like P. Diddy. After little sleep, I had to get up and go to the airport to pick up Luke. Him and Niko would come over to my place that day, so we could leave for France the next day, together with Laura.
It was 10 am when I arrived at the airport, although it seemed like I had to wait a million years for the bitch  to come out. When he finally did, he had some vague excuse about Mexicans and tacos. Anyway, he was there and we could get our asses back to Casa Ingridia.

After settling down, we decided to go to the supermarket to get some food for our journey. It seemed like Luke had a hard time adjusting to the Dutchness of my country and he was often quite scared and in panic whenever someone spoke Dutch to him. Needless to say, I had to jump to the rescue several times.
After a nice sandwich and a lot of complaining (we only had one bike, so Luke was the unfortunate one to sit behind me on the bike) we went home and waited for the arrival of mr. Niko.






















After quite a while (he said he would arrive at 2. It was around 5) Niko finally arrived. I showcased some of my fantastic cooking skills, although the boys were reluctant to try it. I know I should be in Master Chef, now they do too! We then went out to see Bad Teacher, which was cool and then back home and off to bed because we had another early mornin'!

8 July

Got up, got dressed and we were on our way to the airport once again. This time to pick up Laura, who already called us to ask us where the fuck we were. After we collected her, we could finally start our journey to Compiegne!

The driving in itself wasn't quite spectacular, we sang along to songs, chilled out and got bored. After almost 4 hours we finally arrived in Compiegne, but we weren't quite there.
See, we had only decided a week before to go to Compiegne a day before the gig instead of on the day itself, so we were condemned to the only hotel available. Thing is, it was nowhere to be found. We drove around for ages, even breaking all rules (damn the amount of one way roads!). Laura asked people in her best French where the damn place was, but nobody seemed to know. It wasn't until Luke and Laura decided to look for it by foot, we finally found it.

It turned out to be quite a nice place, very appartment like and we even had stairs! Yeah that's right! Naturally the upstairs room was claimed by Niko and myself.
After chilling for a bit, and me finding out I passed my last resit, we went out into the city to meet up with Rose, Treasa and Sharon. It wasn't hard to find their hotel, yet it took a while for them to get out. When they did, we went down to the Palace where the gig was going to take place the next day.

They were already building the stage and we curiously looked around. We weren't the only one. Everywhere, groups of Mika Fans were gathered around, looking or talking to the organisation. After a while, we decided we'd seen enough and went somewhere to get drinks and food. When we were done, Rose and the others went back to the Palace and our little group headed back to our hotel to sleep.

Gig day

At 5.30 Niko woke me up. He just received a text that said there were 15 people there already. Then he checked the time it was sent. 2 fucking am. Not much later he received another text. Almost 70 people. And it was not even 6 o'clock yet. I think I've never sworn as much in my life as I did that morning. We got dressed, did hair and make-up and went down there.

We arrived at around 7, where we got number 82, 83, 84 and 85. Funny thing is, there weren't even 80 people around. Apparently, most just got a number and went back to bed. Which is unfair. It also started raining. It did not make us happy people. Luckily, I met many great people in the queue, so we at least had some fun considering the circumstances.

The more people arrived, the more hectic it became. Security promised to do the number system, but as they were late with opening the doors, they did not. So there was a lot of screaming. And anger. And a whole lot of frustration. Eventually, Niko and I ended up on the right side of stage, second row. Initially I had some girl in front of me, but I switched with Niko as he had no room to stand because the man in front of him was not adjusted to gig etiquette.
I ended up standing next to a very cute French guy, offered him water. He refused though. Although he did ask me later if I wanted a bottle of water. I refused. That's how we roll.

Even though the queueing had been a nightmare, as were the 'support acts', I was very excited for the gig to finally start. It had been almost a year since I'd seen Mika live, and well, I kind of missed him.
So when the last support act got booed of stage, (poor thing had to cry it seems), we were ready for it to begin!

The moment the band came on stage, I already forgot about everything. The first notes of Relax brought back the goosebumps and I screamed like never before. The man in front of me gave me a WTF look but I didn't care. Then Mika came on stage. And I danced. I danced like never before. The man in front of me kept giving me sympathy looks, sometimes even annoyed looks but I didn't give a fuck. The guy next to me barely moved. I did. I don't go to gigs to just stare and go home. I go because I want to dance. And I don't care what others think about it.

Mika was fucking great as usual, and so was the band. Imma, Cherisse and Martin and Ida rocked it, as well as the new band members, although it seemed like they needed a little more time adjusting to the whole thing.
I loved the new songs. I loved the old songs, it was great. It felt like coming home again.
When the gig ended, I was covered in sweat. It was a great feeling for a change. Niko and I went to look for our friends and together we decided to wait for Mika to come out.

It was quite clear we weren't the only one who had this idea. I think more than 200 people were waiting. It was impossible to get closer, but I had the Fairytales Before Dark book I wanted to give him. People mobbed the door of where he was staying, it was a crazy mess.

After a while, he came out and I looked for a spot where I could just hand it to him. I found some short Frenchies and I managed to get myself in between them. I waited for him to come to us and when he did, I tried to hand him the book. He initially wanted to sign it, but I told him it was for him and he took it, quickly looked at it and promised to look at it later. Then he looked up and recognised me and said ooh hi! I said hi back, but everyone just kept screaming his name, so I walked away. Mission completed.

We said goodbye to everybody and made our way back to the car. We had a long drive to Liege to do...

But that my children, will be discussed in the next story.

Fairy Tales Before Dark Teaser

For all you 3 fans out there, the Fairy Tales Before Dark book is coming together slowly. I am very excited!

Here's a sneak peak of the cover, done by the wonderful Ana

We solemly swear it will freak you out when darkness falls!

Inspiring Shit: Rocky Horror Picture Show

Some of you who had the (doubtable) honour to meet me personally know that I am a special brand of crazy. I often convince myself the right brand of crazy yet that is up for interpretation.
When my dear friend Babz introduced me to the Rocky Horror Picture Show, I immediately knew I had found my new favourite film in the whole world. It is a mixture of insanity with most of the cast being typical outcasts, yet making it look incredibly cool to be one.

For those of you who don't know anything about the film, it was originally a stage production, in 1975 I believe, before being converted to the screen. It's about a couple, Brad and Janet, who get car trouble and seek refuge in an old scary castle, only to be greeted by aliens and in particular Dr. Frank 'N Furter, who is a transvestite from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy of Transsylvania. He created a perfect human, the blonde Rocky and that is the start of a series of weird events.

The plot isn't very layered and it doesn't have to be. The weird songs and variety of characters are enough. It is actually a parody on horror films from that time. When the film was released, it was quickly forgotten. Luckily the hardcore fans saved it from oblivion and it soon became a cult hit. The film is best to be seen in theatres, where audience participation takes place. It is still shown at midnight screenings now and then and I definately want to attend a screening once. Fans dress up as characters, take props that are used during particular scenes in the film. Everyone is accepted, no matter who you are. It's all about being free and being whoever you want to be, and sexuality isn't shunned either, no matter if it is man and woman, man and man or two ladies together. And that is what appeals most to me, not being afraid of judgements and just living the way you want to because you fucking can! Not to mention Tim Curry is a brilliant transvestite. I prefer him this way than him scaring the living daylight out of me as It the Clown.
I think it is brilliant that it has become such a cult-hit. Here's an example of the audience participation, these are taken at the 35th anniversary screening. The first one is Dammit Janet, performed by Matthew Morrison and Lea Michelle from Glee. Just listen to the audience singing along and screaming, especially during the second one:

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is not for everybody. You have to be slightly insane to get it and appreciate it. For all those years it has been a safe place for freaks and outcasts, such as me, to be themselves among people who think the same. Nobody judges you.

As Dr. Frank 'N Furter sings in the film: Don't Dream It, Be It!
Best advice anyone could ever give.

Here are some clips you should check out. If you are open-minded and slightly crazy, this might be the film for you!

I love this

It's been a while

Hello to all the 3 readers who still come on hopeful to find a new blog. At last, I am writing a new one.

I've been extremely busy the past few months which almost resulted in a nervous breakdown or at least a smashed window here and there. The past 10 weeks I've been an intern at a school, teaching kids the wonderful magic of the English language. In my first few weeks I already had a very distressing moment as the class decided to go all out against me. Luckily I managed to control them in the weeks to come. Right now I'm in my last week of the internship, and there is a project going on so my duties for now will be to guide the students through the project. Easy peasy Lemon Squeezy as my Grammar teacher would say.
It's a tough job, teaching. That is one thing I know for sure now. For a moment I thought it would be good for me to move to Amsterdam and start doing a course in English at the Uni. Considering the current situation in the Netherlands regarding studying (if you have 1 year of study delay for whatever reason, you have to pay a fine of 3000 euros), I decided to finish this course. I actually started liking teaching very much, although I'm not sure how I will feel about it in a while. At least I will have a grade which is beneficial.

Last week I had exams. The pressure of internship was added up to the pressure of learning for these necessary evils. It meant I had to skip the studytrip to Bath, Cardiff and Bristol. I just wouldn't be able to manage. I'm still waiting for my grades and I hope the results are good. Don't we always hope that?

Apart from my study load at school, there have been two other things I've been working on.

The first thing is arranging meet&greet winners for the KatyPerryForum. Katy has been very generous in providing us 5 passes for each show, and of course winners have to be chosen. It seems easy but it's a tough job. I received daily emails from fans who were not eligible, begging me if I could give them tickets. It's tough being put in that position of constantly having to reject people but the rewarding side of it is what makes it easier to do. I enjoy receiving emails of people who are so grateful that they've met their idol. It gives me a lot of joy.

Also, as many of you might know my other blog Fairytales before Dark, several others and myself are working in creating a book out of it. It will be wonderfully illustrated and it's going to be edited soon and I seriously can't wait to show you the finished piece!

Well, that was all I had to say for now. Until next time!

Xxx

Ing

I met Katy Perry...

...and I liked it. After 3 years at last! She is a sweetheart and deserves all the success that is coming her way now. She is one of the most beautiful human beings I've ever seen, and it takes a lot for me to say that. She genuinely cared about the people there and took her time with everybody. And for people who say she can't sing live, just go to one of her shows. You'll be blown away by the power of her voice and performance. I had the best time ever in Candyfornia!

About the autograph: Years ago, when Myspace was still cool and Katy unknown, I sent her a message asking when she'd come to Europe. She said first the US and then she'd conquer the rest of the world. I told her this and said: "From that moment on I knew I had to stick with this girl." She then high fived me and was all excited because it actually happened. And from now on the only way is up!