Photos, music and other random stuff: My 2010 in review

July

I had planned to go and see Florence and the machine at Somerset House, but I managed to get a ticket to 6 Day Riot's "On This Island" Album Pre-Launch which conflicted with the FATM gig, so decided to go and see 6 Day Riot instead, it was a shame the gigs conflicted as I really want to see Florence live, but the pre-launch gig was very special, 6 Day Riot were going to play an acoustic set of their new album live to just 40 people.

The venue for the pre-launch was a small room in the downstairs of The Drunken Monkey pub in Shoreditch.

I decided to take my 550D DSLR along to this one, I'm glad I did, although the venue was small, the lighting was quite dark and shadowy, so I doubt my LX-3 would have coped well, I even had to resort to using flash, something I wouldn't normally do, thankfully the band didn't mind.

It was fantastic to hear 6 Day Riot in such a intimate venue, they sound even better playing acoustically than they do normally.

I even got to chat to all the members of 6 Day Riot before and after the gig. :)

This is my joint favourite gig of 2010, the other being Nerina Pallot's Christmas Party. I enjoyed myself so much that I went back into London the next evening to see them live again at The Remedy at Tooting Tram and Social, a live music evening presented by XFM's John Kennedy.

This was a much larger gig with a couple hundred people there at least, the sound system at Tooting Tram and Social could be better and the layout isn't perfect (having the door to the toilets by the side of the stage is quite distracting with people walking past all the time), but you get a great crowd there, and it's very lively with most people dancing near the front of the stage. So despite its shortcomings, i'd recommend checking the venue out, it's a lot of fun.

August

I decided to go and see Braxton Hix (Now known as The Chain) live at The Pelican Acoustic, Notting Hill. This was a lovely little gig at a tiny pub in Notting Hill. Took some pics and even a little video this time, and got to chat to Kate and Ben from Braxton Hix for a little while.

I attended Eastbourne Airshow this year, I've been quite a few times before, it's well worth a visit.

A few of my best pics from the airshow:

I decided to go along to Richard Branson's attempt to kitesurf across the english channel at Dungeness, it was quite an experience, a lot of press there, and a few famous people, including Princess Beatrice, but I didn't know it was her at the time, doh!

I arrived at the site quite early, but due to the weather conditions, Richard and his team of kitesurfers had already set off :(, but the weather deteriorated and the support boats could not keep up with the kitesurfers, so they aborted the attempt. Which meant that I got to see them return and even got to chat with Richard Branson! I've wanted to meet him for a long time as my Father cut some of his early vinyl releases.

The kitesurfers even put on a little show for the crowd:

London Electronic Dance Music Festival

This was a lot of fun, I love dance/electronic music and the lineup was a dream come true... Leftfield were headlining!!! And Annie Mac played a DJ set too. And got to meet up with Grace, friend of mine from Glasto, and Matt, a friend of her's.

My only complaint was that it finished too early, the venue curfew was at 11PM :(.

I spent the final day of August at Port Lympne Animal Park, the first time I'd been there in 20 years! Really enjoyed it, it's improved a lot since I was last there.