Gatecrashing
I have successfully gatecrashed an afterparty at a gig. Albeit by partial accident. And with half of the "official" forum in tow. I say that because the official forum was closed down a while back, but the band still reads our forum a lot.

Let's go back to October 2008. I was seeing a band called Porcupine Tree at the O2 arena in Laaahndaaahn. For those not in the know, PT are a progressive rock/metal band, consisting of four blokes in the studio, 5 in a live situation. They specialise in awesome soundscapes and crunchy riffs, as well as a mixture of pretty much everything bar rapping.

Anyway. October 19th, 2008. I'd been psyched up for this gig, as it had been nearly a year since I'd seen PT, and with the forum meet-up the day before, there was an awesome atmosphere in the air, before the gig.

The gig starts. I have positioned myself in front of Steven Wilson, the lead singer/guitarist of PT. Directly in front of. I could have leant across the barrier and grabbed his feet at times, if I were that inclined to grab God's feet. At one point during the gig, he waves at me. Directly at me, eye contact not broken. Given that I am a six foot man, acting like a small girl at this point, I almost faint from the excitement of having God himself notice me.

Eventually the gig comes to an end. SW's vocal chords have given up during the last encore song, and he's gotten the entire crowd to sing it for him. PT go off the stage, and I meet up with the rest of the forum members again. I have managed to snag a copy of SW's setlist (now proudly displayed on the wall at home, complete with the duct tape holding it to the carpet he has on stage to protect his bare feet, so I can officially say, I have a bit of SW's carpet, hurr hurr), and am clutching it in my grubby fist and refuse to let anyone else handle it in case they steal it. Us PT fans are a fairly rabid lot, as you may guess.

And then someone comes up with the idea. "Hey, why don't we hang around a bit and wait for them to come out and see if we can talk to them for a bit?" It's agreed that we do this. We wait for a half an hour. No sign of them, but the tour bus is still there. And then it clicks. They must be having an afterparty. So we wait for another half an hour, and wander around the O2 arena to see if we can find it. No dice.

Just when we're about to give up hope and go home, one of our party waves to me, and I go up to him. Everyone else follows. He's found a bar in the O2 that we hadn't found before. And, gasp! We can see Richard Barbieri, the synthesist, at the bar. At this point, I did a massive double take, thinking to myself "Hang on, that's not Barbieri, is it? It is!"

So we all very nervously approach him, and half of us order drinks from the bar. At which point security clocks that we're not supposed to be there, given that we're looking nervous and guilty as hell, and starts to bundle us out of the door. At which point, John Wesley, the fifth bloke that PT use for live gigs to do extra guitar and vocals wanders in, a Guinness in each hand, and starts pleading with security to let us in properly. We're still not allowed, despite now having two members of the band trying to get us in.

So yeah. We all get thrown out, but for about a minute, I have met two people of my second fave band. And they loved us, and we loved them.

Length? Not long enough. Should have been longer.
(Ghost Atreides enjoying incontestable health benefits on, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 21:49, 3 replies)

Porcupine Tree are great
who was the support? Hopefully Pure Reason Revolution, because they are ace, and my girlfriend has been friends with their drummer since they were about 5.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 17 Apr 2009, 10:12, closed)

Oceansize
Were the support. Not a great support band. I think I saw PRR the first time I saw PT, trying to remember who the support was in April 2007.
(Ghost Atreides enjoying incontestable health benefits on, Fri 17 Apr 2009, 12:32, closed)

A friend of mine played with Barbieri
he's a regular pianist and bassist with Tim Bowness. I've always found them a bit poncey, in fairness.

And I suppose I should say ex-friend, as he hasn't spoken to me since I made a move on a girl he fancied.
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Fri 17 Apr 2009, 10:53, closed)