The Global Battle Of The Bands.

[decay;;]

One day folks, hang in there, I know we all want to hijack the lorries carting all those album imports to our local record dealers but please, for the sake of Gerard, don't get yourself in trouble :]

Anyways, my point today... which is completely non-MCR related... is about two of my best friends playing a show in London on Sunday evening. Their band, Caution, won the London heat of the world competition a few weeks ago and are now heroes in this shithole suburb we call home... and now they're off for the semi-finals.

They're phenomenal, and we love them, so all I'm asking is to spare a thought and wish 'em luck, yeah? Give them a listen too, so you'll understand what I mean... they deserve to win 1st prize. If they batter the crap out of their opponents tomorrow at Borderline (it's a venue near the London Astoria if you're interested), then they go through to the national final in Manchester... and then...

A world tour and a record deal is theirs :] Not bad for a bunch of 14/15 year olds ranking at at least 4 years younger than most of their opponents.

So wish them the luck they deserve, I'll be there with my 'posse' (where the hell Yazz will be, I don't know)... though this will put a severe fuck-you on my album buying mission... I'll find a way. Yazz, if you still want your album-buying parade, I may be around...

Love, Allie
xoxox

Caution's myspace: www.myspace.com/lovecaution

And today me and Jow went on a rampaging hour-long mission through over 10 shops in Reading to obtain each member of My Chemical Romance on a Kerrang cover... we succeeded :]]
We managed to find Bob in a newsagents all on his own, and Ray on a rack in a supermarché... pretty good going :]]

[ricegrains&rosesxo.]

=O
Yoo realise I'm gonna KILL yoo for getting them.
Yazz is still looking.
I mean,, I've even got my stepdad going down the newsagents EVERY DAY since WEDNESDAY looking for Ray and Bob =[
ANDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD I'm going into town tomorrow.
Alone.
To buy TBP.
And find Kerrang!.
And I have to meet my dad for lunch ¬_¬.

Yeah,, good luck caution =]
Just make sure they don't get too big headed... =P
Theres still the finals and the semis.
And the record deal and tour,, of course =P
But yeah.
They deserve to win it.

So Long And Goodnight...
Yazz.
xoxoxox <33

[decay;;]

UPDATE!
Last night was indeed the semi-finals... Caution owned as always, they were the last band on. Played Hero and All We Have Seen, and got a great reaction.
Fifteen bands played, and the top seven go through to the national finals in Manchester.
And guess what?

CAUTION CAME FOURTH!
Scoretings!
So yes, I'll be in Manchester next weekend, same time, so I'll keep you posted ^_^
xoxoxox

[ricegrains&rosesxo.]

Bugger!!
What day are they gonna play next weekend??
'Cuz next weekend is the Halloween party of the Yazz!!
Or if I'm not mistaken thats next weekend.
And yoo bought special skeleton gloves for it...
... and Yazz got a Ring O Fire armband =].

Wooosh!!! Caution have left the building =].
They deserve a little superhero cape now.
=].

So Long And Goodnight...
Yazz
xoxoxoxoxoxox <33333333

[decay;;]

Manchester, 29th October. Shut up I know this is really late.

So then. It was strange, not going to a GBOB with my Zoe, as we had been in attendance together for all the heats up 'til this. With this heat being a very late one, with a four hour trip ahead, and school the next morning, I knew things were going to get... interesting. But when I finally got to Joe's house at about 9am, only having been awake 45 minutes, I found that he was in his house with Charlotte and Simon, and that Christie and Nik were outside. So I hung with them and we all gossiped about the new MCR album and Will and Grace and stuff.

Unlike the last adventure (to London for the semi-finals), instead of a huge double-decker blue coach we had a simple one-decker coach. Maroon. We didn't get on for a while because we were waiting for Adam, who turned up rock-styar style a good 20 minutes late. Smoooth. By then, the rest of us had assembled. The party this time consisted of: Me, Carl, Amy, Christie, Nik, Charlotte, Claire, the band and their families. Everybody sat down, with me sitting happily on my own next to Christie and Nik, with the band taking up the back row next to a giant Caution sign stuck to the back window. And off we trundled. The journey was fairly boring, but it was kept amusing by the constant (terrible) renditions of songs from the band, which mainly consisted of TBP songs being screamed at random intervals by Adam along the trip.

Finally, we were released into the outside world at around 11:15am, having reached the halfway mark services and doing rather well for time. Me, Joe and Christie hung together, and upon walking in, noticed these wierd flubbery cushioney things called 'Cushtie', which Christie mistook to say 'Christie'. Robbie brought one and later complained that it smelt like oil.

Me and Joe happily trotted into a clothes shop where Carl and Zak were happily buying converses. Joe flicked through the jumpers for a little while, debating whether to get the manky half-price one or the pretty expensive one, and we found Amy, who was suspiciously eyeing up a large shop sign reading CAUTION: SERIOUSLY LOW PRICES. Amy then proceeded to jump into the rack of coats in front of the sign, unhang it from the wall and run out the shop with it.
To me and Christie's amusement, a woman walked back in with the sign ten minutes later claiming to have "seen a young girl running around the carpark with it". Amy spent the rest of our time at the services hiding.

Me and Christie went to hang with Zak in the queue for BURGER KING (yeah man). I decided I was going to buy a milkshake, which Zak told me they didn't sell, and we placed a bet. Guess who lost :[
Joe managed to buy some cereal and sweet-talk the cashier to get some milk for him, and then we got back on the coach. This time, Carl decided to be a pain and sit next to me, I called Zoe, and Nik let us borrow his AMAZINGLY WICKED CD-MP3 PLAYER, which is like a CD player but instead of music tracks the CD has like a trillion MP3s on it. He had The Black Parade on it, Billy Talent II on it, and others. It was amazingly cool.

Did you know that on road signs, they abbreviate Manchester Airport to M'cr?
They do. I noticed it when I went to Scotland and told the others, who were vaguely interested (except Joe, who squeled every time he saw an M'cr sign).
We finally got into Manchester at I-don't-know-o'clock and made our way straight to Pure (the venue), where we escorted the band to sound check - eyeing the metal detectors and bouncers on the way. The club itself was far more impressive than The Borderline - a huge stage, complete with mutlicoloured lights, and a huge projector on the ceiling, a large staircase with a small balcony, and, on the top floor about 15ft from the ground, a large windowed VIP box. However, we were kicked out of the club, and waited outside for a god hour while we waited for the band to finish up.

When they finally did, the parents took us to Hard Rock Café - which scared me greatly, even though the giant guitar stretching across the ceiling WAS amazingly cool. We bagged two GIANT tables, one for the kids and one for the adults, and proceeded to place our orders from the menu, which consisted of mainly burgers and steaks. Me and Christie hunted cover to cover for anything with pasta, and eventually ordered macaroni cheese. Joe ordered BBQ ribs (or bee-bee-queue ribs, as he informed the waiter), and Zak ordered chicken something-or-other. Now the really cool thing about HRC, is that there was a ginat screen next to our table playing rather old music videos - rock music videos. The played a song by Smashing Pumpkins, which amused me greatly as everytime I look at Billy Corgan I see our very own Gerard Way.

The orders came... Joe's BBQ ribs appeared to be bigger than the plate, and Zak's chicken... was actually a whole half a chicken that was bigger than his head. The macaroni cheese was actually discusting, but Dan (Simon's brother) kept things interesting by disappearing upstairs to the bar and returning with a handful of plastic guitar drink stirrers - and was forced to keep going back to get more.

After everybody had finished attempting to eat, we left HRC and wandered around a little bit in the city. We tooka few pictures of the band posing, and found this really bizarre, literal FOAM BATH with like all this foam coming out of these taps. Back at Pure, one of the guys from a band showed us some magic tricks - he chose Charlotte as a victim, and after a few card tricks with her he asked her for payment and said her watch would be fine, and pulled it out of his pocket. She hadn't even seen him take it... for a while we waited for the go-ahead to enter. The woman at the doors then proceeded to tell us we weren't allowed in. Here's the thing: Pure is generally a 16+ venue, but because the band are under 16, they had no choice but to let them play. However, we technically weren't allowed in at all, being under 16 and all. Tracy (Joe' mommy) had managed to persuade them otherwise though, and so about an hour later we were merrily strolling up the staircase into our VIP box (which we were condemned to - the price we had to pay to actually be allowed in the place),

The VIP box was pretty sweet - a bar, fancy leather sofas and cushions and stools, and huge windows letting us see right down onto the floor. However, the huge screen for the projector meant we couldn't actually see much of the stage - in fact, all we could see were peoples feet as they played. But the PA system meant we could hear just fine. I joined Robbie for a bit, who - trust him - managed to spot a bald guy down on the floor headbanging like a madman to the band playing. He liked old enough to be the singers dad. He was like headbanging on his own and everybody else was just stood there, or edging away from him. We all beat eachother up to get pictures and movie clips, and then shared them with one another until the band left the stage and the next two were called to set up. I sat myself down in a corner with Zak and Christie, where the view was slightly better (we could actally see a member of each band if they veered to the extreme right of the stage), and waited.

A little while later, one of the bouncers came in and told us we could go out onto the staircase if we wanted. The band and almost everyone else left, leaving me, Christie and Carl. At this point, a band named Floors And Walls were playing. A really good rap-rock outfit. With the fatal flaw of having the lead singer make amusing hand gestures. So me and Carl moshed on the sofa making gangsta hands - being watched by the dude at the bar counter very warily.

Caution were called to tune up, and just before they played, we decided to join the others out on the balcony, where the bands parents had come up to join us temporarily. Just then, a huge commotion approached and we all turned to see the two bouncers guarding the barrier to the 16+ floor dragging the stage manager up the stairs, punching him and yelling at him. We all looked as they passed - and looked at the clear route down the stairs onto the floor. And suddenly all the parents were shouting for us to run, and with a huge shove we all toppled onto the stairs and ran onto the floor, rushing to the front, where Adam was adjusting his mic staring at us with a look of complete shock on his face as we all wished them luck, the parents dancing around us telling us to take of our VIP wristbands.

But then the dream was spoilt. When the band had just about finished setting up and were waiting for their cue, the bouncers were back with a vengeance. They came to the front and started pushing us away from the stage, ordering us to get back upstairs. It was quite confusing, being shoved back by a really tall, muscle-boun bouncer and pushed forwards again by the band's parents, telling us to stay where we were. Eventually we gave in and retreated back upstairs, putting our wristbands back on. The rest of the audience booed and complained at the bouncers as we went back upstairs, defested, and assembled on the balcony, where the bouncers took up their previous positions.

Caution dived straight into 'Hero' and had the whole audience dancing -which was kinda cool as the other bands hadn't got as big a reaction. After the song, Adam made a shout-out to us fans upstairs, and then they played 'All We Have Seen', which went very very well. After their set some of our group returned to the box but I stayed on the balcony with Carl and Christie to congratulate them. Down on the floor, the band were surrounded by A&R's and label representatives haggling them for future shows. A good twenty minutes later they came back, and I told them that it was the best I'd seen them play :] Then we returned to the VIP box, where Joe's mom informed us that the bouncer that pushed us away from the stage was a 'prick' and a 'nob', and that she was going to complain.

The results... we all trooped back out onto the balcony to discover who was going through to the world final in London. I can't remember if the band were with us or not, but the announcer came on and everything went as quiet as it could. He informed the audience that there would of announced three bands with the first going to the final, but due to the tough decision they had awarded a fourth place spot to Caution. Cue cheering from all :]

Bizzali won... so they go to the world final. I didn't like them at all but there you go :]
Pleased with the results we all collected our stuff and trooped back onto the coach, me throwing myself at the window of Fopp, where the racks containing copies of The Black Parade were visible. Joe sat next to me this time instead, and once the excitement had worn off a little bit, everyone began to drift off to sleep. Me and Joe stayed up and talked for a little bit about The Parsonator and turning the Fairy Crew into a movie using plastercine and lego, we decided we were tired. So Joe collected hoodies and jackets from the sleeping people and we put them in between our seats to make a cosy cushioney thingmabob. And then we fell asleep :]

I woke up first after about an hour, and Alex (a friend of Adam's brother) woke up next - and managed to knock a screw from his seat onto the floor, waking up the band as well. I poked Joe until he woke up too and then we stole the sleeping Charlotte's pikachu. Then we got home and my mommy took me back to my bed, where I managed an amazing two hours sleep. We did get back at 4am after all :]

THE END.
Yawnn.

[ricegrains&rosesxo.]

Nowthatsoundedamazing.
Not yawn you idiot.
My dad would NEVER let me go even a local Caution gig ¬_¬
Well actually.
It's probably Karen telling him not to ><

Speaking of Caution.
Super Kev should've been there.
You could of sliced through the bouncers with just the words "SUPERKEV! I CHOSE YOU!"
Haha.
Hopes Kierrans okays and all.
And yeah,, got a review section up.
So I'll make a subboard in it for stuff like this =]

Xoxoxox <333333