DAY 7: From Voltaire to Volta

Got up Bright and Early and all excited coz at 19:00 the doors to the Carling Academy (Birmingham) would open for us to watch the Mars Volta*
The only obstacle was that there was about 1,000KM between us and the ticket office and the Academy.

Oh well! we left the hostel thanking the Hostel Caretaker for helping us out the night before :-P headed to the Trainstation and got on our Eurostar train in time.
An uneventful train ride followed, we slept through most of it. The Eurotunnel isnt very interesting at all, once they spent so many millions on it they should have put something interesting in it, at least it would justify the high price of the journey.

Arriving in Waterloo station at about 10.00 we wasted no time on getting to the coach station and booking seats on the next coach to Birmingham.
We slept on the coach.

We arrived with loads of time to kill, so we ae a nice big meal at Macdonalds**.
We picked up our tickes from the box office and waited for the show.

Doors opened at 19:00 so we went to wait at about 17:30 when there were very few people. By 18:00 the queue was superlong.
We got in at 19:00 without a problem, and the people and the door/cloak room congratulated us on having brought the biggest bags to a show in the history of the Academy. Despite the 'No Food or Drinks' Rule they allowed us to take in the Pasta and sauce, and instant rice which we had in our bags.

Ok after a long wait (til 21:00) the bands intro music (the theme from Fistful of Dollars, Ennio Morricone) came on. Very dramatic entrance. What followed was a 2hr [more or less] spectacle without any breaks.
I'm not going to attempt to describe the Volta's music, or live experience, but they were as good as i expected and much more than that even. I took a couple of photos but due to the lighting and the people moving around they're not very good. I borrowed some much better pix from a girl called Pill (a Mars Volta Fan, who i met through the TMV fansite, who is coincidentally the girl mentioned in the next post, one of the lucky ones who met the band and broke the news to us) .

The Singer did some funny stuff in the show, apart from the regular latino dancing, he played around with one of the security guy's hair and took off the headphones of one of the girls...and then just jumped into the crowd.

*The Mars Volta are a band from Texas, they play rock music but very strangely, its very guitar orriented but they use loads of latino style percussion, very wierd psychdelic organs and stuff, saxophones, flutes. check out their website www.themarsvolta.com or the very well kept fansite www.thecomatorium.com

** we had made an oath not to go to Mcdonalds on the trip but we decided its not a sin in England, as long as we ate fish and chips there on one occasion.










Night 7: Despite the 24 hour drinking law, Birmingham was like a ghost town

I was told that Birmingham had quite a nightlife, and after the 24 hour Drinking Law had just been passed we figured we would have no problem hanging around there at night.
But man, just after the show, Birminham centre (near the Bullring) was completely empty. No where to buy food from or anything.
We went back to the coach station and tried to catch a coach, but since we didnt have a ticket and the ticket booth was closed, they wouldnt accept us on the coach (they usually accept people if there's room but apparently there wasn't any).

Well the next Coach was at 03.00. Luckily we met this real funky couple from Oxford and went to hang out with them at an allnight pub. After drinking a couple of pints we headed back to the station. The 3AM coach didnt accept us either so we slept in the station with plans to buy a ticket as soon as the booth opens at 06.30.

The Bullring in Birmingham (a massive shopping centre).