I wonder if The Streets are as annoying to listen to by someone from Manchester as "aussie rap" bands are to me. I quite enjoyed The Streets' Original Pirate Material but in the back of my head I kept thinking this probably pisses a lot of people off...

Saw LOTR:RTOK last night. It's bloody long. Four hours including the half hour or so of advertising before it. Too long to sit, which makes the last half hour that much harder to sit through.

For the first time the changes started to crumble around my brain. Much of the movie I spent going "huh"? Even though I haven't read the books for so long (6 years?). On looking at the changes (see link below) some of my "huh" moments were just my bad memory forgetting events, while others (Saruman, the battle(s), Arwen) were just plain wrong.

I'm not sure I enjoyed it as such... I'm happy that it's all finally over. It was pretty. Through all three movies I still enjoyed Sam/Frodo/Gollum. Except the end. Elijah Wood is still freaky looking and Astroboy whiny.

I was amused greatly by borrowed shots from various Sci-Fi movies including Dune and Aliens3. I actually expected the Aliens3 shot. Left me shaking my head.

Changes between ROTK movie and ROTK book. Fellowship changes. The Two Towers changes.

I remember from Saturday night the band playing after us telling Leigh that they practiced for two hours every day. It showed because they were certainly damn tight. In comparison, Walken practice once a week for about three hours. We might do an extra practice somewhere on a weeknight in there if we have a gig coming up. Personally I think any more and it stops being a hobby and starts being a job. Maybe to "make it" it has to be a job, we'll certainly be ramping up with a few gigs to promote the EP in March...

Gig @ Armadale was a bit of a disaster but we pulled through. Daniel broke his top (low-E) bass string halfway through the second song and lost his spare set of strings. We spent the rest of the gig trying to figure out what songs we could get through without his main string [see setlist].

Managed pretty well and Dan deserves a bit of a slap on the back for pulling through and not crumbling under the preasure (as I would have). Had a listen back to the gig, we were a bit loose but I'm pretty happy with it. Last gig before the EP (?) @ Green Room on Elizabeth street Thursday night.

We haven't played that stage (Armadale Hotel Back Room) since way back in 2002 for one of our first gigs. We played acoustic and two of the tracks from that night are on our first CD. Since then it looks like they've moved the soundgear from upstairs downstairs. Much bigger stage, nicer foldback speakers. Excellent sound. Lots of chairs and tables for the lazy. It's great now. And you can ignore us and play pool if you like.

Hung around after our set to watch The Greeting Method who sounded pretty good in soundcheck. Good, tight band. Their rythmn section is great, lots of perfectly executed drum fills and perfect bass. I noticed a few guitar mistakes (a few wrong chords) and some over streached singing but I suppose I'm more likely to hear that sort of thing. And they could have turned the backing vocals up a bit. Otherwise they played great. Huge sound. They're a heavy-rock band, influenced by Tool and Foo Fighters. If you're into that sort of thing check 'em out. I expect they'll be around for a while. We were thinking we'd like to offer them to play some gigs with us but we don't really think their style suits us. We've far more pop. There I've said it. Walken are a pop/rock band. Sigh.