Smiles of the week: Ain't it strange how the other half live

One little downside of last week's bank holiday was that this morning I spent a good few seconds when my (second) alarm clock went off convinced that today couldn't possibly be a working day- weekends are three days long, right? Cue me jumping out of bed in a crazy panic when I realised I was sadly mistaken. 

Despite my confusion about how long normal weekends actually are, I certainly wasn't complaining about last week's shorter working week- work absolutely flew by and as I was still on a massive music high after Live at Leeds I was in a pretty good mood all week. Here's a few of the little things that have added to my post bank holiday good mood this week

- Going to work with bare legs on Tuesday. Granted it started raining about 10 minutes after I got to work and I spent the day dreading going back outside but still, the weather must be on the way up if I could survive walking to work without longing for my 60 denier tights back!

- A text from Mama T sent from their jollies in Portugal laughing at my Dad for forgetting to pack his underwear. The morning that they were due to leave for the airport, Papa T still hadn't packed but he'd refused help; he was adamant that he'd get it all done. I'd put serious money on him begging my Mum to do his packing for him next time they go anywhere.

- After work cocktails and burritos with work. We've all been under a lot of pressure lately for one reason or another so Happy Hour was just what the Doctor ordered.

- Having a catch-up with one of my bestests in Manchester. We tried every burger place in The Northern Quarter and struggled to get in anywhere (our plans to go to my favefavefave Almost Famous fell apart as soon as we were greeted by the bouncer outside with a HUGE waiting list). We ended up in a place called Simple and were pretty excited to see that the burgers were named after Superheroes. Mine was an Ironman, and my god it was flipping incredible (and I'm a girl who knows her burgers so that's high praise from me!).

- Spending our burger-filled night laughing about the idiotic and embarrassing moments in our lives... there were plenty of moments just in that one evening. I did a nice job of somehow dribbling half of my drink down my menu and dress just as the waiter was taking our burger orders. Smooooth.

- Spending most of the weekend putting my heart and soul into baking for the Iron Cupcake competition. I've been going along as an eater since the competition began about three years ago and finally plucked up the courage to actually enter myself! I didn't win or anything, the standards are so high and I'm pretty amateur, but I'm just proud of myself for actually putting the effort in and entering!

How the other half live- Tribes

I wanna get lovesick with you

I love bank holiday weekends. Especially this one as living in Leeds meant that I could spend the weekend surrounded by lots of my favourite bands at Live at Leeds festival. Buying a wristband for the Saturday gets you into all of the main music venues in the city centre where an endless list of bands are playing throughout the day. I went last year and saw more bands than you can shake a stick at, this year we didn't manage to see quite so much, partially due to not waking up until lunchtime (we were really sensible and went on a pretty heavy night out the night before...) but also because both The 1975 and The Pigeon Detectives attracted  huge queues that I don't think the organisers had quite anticipated which meant that there was a massive backlog of people who were forced to queue for miles to get into the venues for the acts that were later on in the day. Inevitably we ended up stuck in all of these queues since all of the bands that we wanted to see were inevitably playing at those venues later in the day. 

But really, its quality over quantity at these things (at least that's what we had to force ourselves to believe during our hour long wait to get into The Cockpit) and the acts we did manage to see put on a brilliant show. We managed to catch Backyards who are a great little band that we went along to support because one of my friends is good friends with the drummer plus they're a really talented bunch, Tribes (who I've seen about four times now but still really love the energy they have on stage every single time), Swim Deep (singing along to their songs after our horrendous Cockpit queuing experience was exactly what I needed) and Peace. Peace were the absolute highlight of the day, I've loved them for ages and have been dying to see them live after missing out on seeing them at a tiny little venue in Leeds way back in October and they completely exceeded my expectations. They're still a pretty new band, their album hasn't been out for long at all but they've really exploded in popularity lately and so the venue was absolutely rammed with fans singing back every word of every song. Plus, they snuck in a cheeky few lines of Daft Punk's Get Lucky (which forces me to dance like a loony every time I hear it!) and sent the entire room crazy. Perfection. There's no way they'll be playing a venue as small as Cockpit again from now on, they're destined for far bigger things! 

After another night out and a much needed Nando's to recover, we discovered that The Pigeon Detectives were playing a free set in the tiny Made in Leeds shop in Leeds Trinity. After missing out on seeing them the day before we decided that the chance to see them playing in a really tiny venue would more than make up for being caught out by the enormous crowd. Somehow we ended up on the front row, close enough to see the beads of sweat dripping off the lead singer's hair...sometimes being so close has its downfalls...

To top off our weekend, we had tickets to see The Vaccines playing in Millennium Square in Leeds so after our little encounter with The Pigeon Detectives (and a stop off for a few bottles of cider and a slice of cake) we headed into the arena. The sun was shining and there was a great atmosphere because of it, it felt like we were at a real festival but with less mud and more buildings around us. The Vaccines were bloody incredible. I didn't think I liked their second album quite as much as the first but seeing them playing all the songs live completely changed my opinion and made me love some of the newer songs just as much as the first. If you ever get a chance to see them live then go, go go- they know exactly how to make the crowd have the best time watching.

My photos aren't exactly the best I've ever taken, I was mostly relying on my phone as there was no way my SLR was being let loose in the thick of the crowds I'd been stood in, but also because I was too busy singing until I lost my voice to be bothered about watching the whole show through my camera lens. In fact, it gets on my nerves when people do that at gigs... just enjoy the show and focus on the music rather than missing out on a good boogie for the sake of a few pictures.

Lovesick- Peace

Like those before and those to come

2013 has definitely been a good one as far as music goes. I've been thinking for a while about what I'd say my top 5 songs from this year are and I've struggled so much to actually come to some sort of definite list as once I think I have my five another song from the last few months pops into my head and takes me right back to square one. I could have probably done a top 10 (or 100...) the way I was going, but eventually settled on this little lot (I'm writing this in a rush now before I change my mind again).

If you've not heard of some of these songs before and are partial to a bit of indie goodness then definitely give them a listen. I've always got music blaring out of my laptop when I'm typing out blog posts which is why it always ends up creeping into my post titles (I should probably start linking them in my posts so they make a bit more sense!).


Default Django Django

Now this is one of those songs that I've sung along to for ages on nights out and had a jolly good time watching them at Leeds festival in the summer, but despite this, they're not a band I'd paid too much attention to until quite recently. I'm now making up for lost time by listening to them on my iPod ALL THE TIME. The rest of the album is great too so if you like the sound of this then definitely give them a go.


Sappho Tribes

I cast my mind back to the start of 2012 to think about what I was listening to earlier in the year and this was definitely one of my most played songs. I love the lead singer's voice, he's got that whole grungy rock vocal thing going on and is great to sing along to if you're not having the best day ever- sometimes you just need to belt out a big song to make yourself feel a bit better (apologies to my neighbours).


Breezeblocks alt- J

Probably one of the most hyped up bands of this year, but alt- J's album An Awesome Wave is too brilliant and refreshingly different from a lot of other stuff out there at the moment that its impossible not to give them credit for it. Breezeblocks is the first song of theirs that I heard, thanks to my old housemate who was in the same course group as them at uni and was all excited because they were about to release an actual, proper album.


Pelican The Maccabees 

I went to see the Maccabees back in March and even then this song was sending the crowd crazy. Then at Leeds festival they were headlining the NME tent and the electricity the song produced then was absolutely mind blowing. Its impossible to listen to this and not have a bit of a boogie when it builds up to the chorus. This one also took the crown as the lyric in my post title... that must count for an extra star or something!


Celestine Spector

I've had so much love for Spector since probably around February/March time and resorted to listening to their songs on youtube whilst counting down until August when they FINALLY released their album. Celestine is a song I've been continually listening to for most of the year and is always one of my go-to songs when I put my music on. If you ever get the chance to see Spector live then my word just do it, they're brilliant live and aswell as putting on a great show they don't take themselves too seriously and aren't afraid to interact with the audience (when I saw them in Leeds in May they extended an open invitation to the bar they were going to after the set to the packed out o2 Academy... if that's not audience interaction then I don't know what is!).


So there you have it, a little insight into what my ears have been enjoying this year. If anyone has any recommendations of new stuff that I can kick start the new year with then give me a shout!