(A)Live in the Arena

The Jarre concert yesterday was in Wembley Arena. Not to be confused with the big Wembley Stadium, the Arena is a live music venue that's next door to it's big brother.

We were going to go to London the night before, and stay in a hotel there. Instead, we decided to drive up on the day and park at the Arena itself. Parking was prebooked and everything.

Here's one word - never, ever drive to Wembley Arena. Ever. Never Ever.

Why? Because driving in that part of London is MADNESS. The lanes shift about so quickly that you have to have a 6th sense to be able to predict where to be in time, not helped by the fact that everyone speeds and everyone else knows where they're going, hence making it damn near impossible to swap lanes in time.

Worse still, I had a background driver with me (Kelly), who would jump and thrash and pretend to press brakes every time she thought someone was gonna hit us.

Here's another word - never, ever drive a background driver to Wembley Arena. Ever. Never Ever.

SO - we got there at around 17:00. Gig at 20:00. Wandered over to the local Mc Donalds and almost had three courses there to spend time. Filtered in to the Arena foyer at 18:30 and, remembering the madness after last year's concert, I sensibly bought the merchandise I want earlier on. Sat down in our bit-too-small seats at 19:00 or so and waited.

The show itself was fantastic. The lighting and lasers and smoke that Jarre is so famous for was miniturised into an indoor version, bathing the whole arena with beautiful vistas of colour and sound. There were no graphics nor big projections, but they still managed to recreate the iconic Equinoxe faces using some clever LED trickery.

Jarre is also proud of a French-developed sound system that he is prototyping. It's developed so that you don't see a single speaker, everything comes from behind the stage, all hidden away with some material that is opaque to light but lets sound through. It also distributes the sound evenly, no matter where you are in relation to the speakers you'll hear the same.

The logic behind this makes sense - what he wanted to create is a show, not a concert. A show of light and sound, and speakers would only get in the way. Big towering things that can obscure the vision of anybody at an angle.

It's a great concept and it should start being used more frequently by other artists.

The music was a greatest hits affair. But more of a private one. The crowd-pleasing Rendez-Vous IV was absent for example, a track he's played live almost always. The track list was more like Jarre flicking through his family pictures and picking the ones he likes. You could see him visibly enjoying playing his tunes, improvising here, making mistakes there.

His beloved laser-harp had been tweaked to look FANTASTIC indoors, and he showed it off twice, the iconic Rendez-Vous II being one of them.

The intro was as spine tingling as I thought - the main riff of Industrial Revolution Part II starts, and a cone of laser is on the stage - a hand breaks the cone and slowly moves to reveal the silhouette of Jarre carrying his famous keyboard. Amazing.

He played tracks from almost all his albums, Oxygene got the most has he encored Oxygene IV, a track that started it all for him and happened to be conceived in a London flat, so he's extra-fond of the fact he's playing it in the city it was born.

Finally, best of all, he played Equinoxe 5, a track he last played live in Houston 1986. Even better, it's a track anyone who grew up in Iraq will recognise INSTANTLY. Just press play on the player below :)

Overall, another magical evening spent in the hands of the God Father of Electronica. I was grinning from ear to ear throughout!

Tomorrow!

Tomorrow! Tomorrow!!!

The BIG day when we get to see Jarre live again! 3rd time for me, 2nd for Kelly. First for Adam :D He's a big fan already, dancing away inside his mum when I play any Jarre stuff.

I am SO looking forward to this! I never dreamt of seeing Jarre once, let alone three times!!

This is an arena tour, indoors only. Not the usual Jarre city affair, but saying that the man has some tricks up his sleeve still. Biggest of all is that the sound system is engineered to be TOTALLY INVISIBLE. No speakers seen whatsoever.

It's meant to be that you're watching a show, not just listening to music, and big speakers take away from the image he wants to create.

I'll be sure to tweet from there (@alialsawaf if you wanted to follow) and also post a blog review after. I'll also make sure to buy at least two of everything on sale in the merchandise stall there!

Best thing is, I know what the intro is - it's the goose-bump-inducing awesomeness that is Industrial Revolution - Part 2. FANTASTIC!

moving house

We are moving homes.

Turning in to the boring old middle-aged fart that I am, not only am I married, am expecting a baby, but also now we bought a house in a quiet little close, in a quiet little village, in the quiet English country side. My God, soon there will be a dog and it'll be official - we're grown up and "parents". SHIT.

So, the last few days/next few days are all about moving out, buying new furniture for the new house, fixing the 101 little things the old owners left etc etc. And setting up the geek (read: grasp-to-feeling-younger) room :D

Net should have been transitioned smoothly, but as always things go wrong so not sure when the new house will be online. I do know the old flat is going offline soon, so adios till then!

Speak to you soon from Elmswell!

Duke Nukem Forever REAL footage.

Shame it took 3D Realms to shut down for some more info about the ill-fated, much joked about, Duke Nukem Forever.

I remember seeing footage of it in 1997, and yet it still never finished. 12 years later.

So, one of the 3D Realms team has put together a NSFW video of some of the done gameplay elements. It was all looking like great fun, and I hope that someone, somewhere picks up the team and actually manages to get the game done.

Leaked Beyond Good and Evil 2 footage

If this really is Beyond Good and Evil 2, I'm a very very happy man!

Ecoballs

We were skeptical at first. I first heard about the Ecoballs in a gadget magazine I buy now and then. They were meant to be the environmentally friendly way to wash clothes.

I told Kelly about them and she told me she'd heard about them before also, but never really bothered to find out about them.

We then started searching around and found that the Ecoballs had been around for a while now. Looking like little planets, the balls use some "scientific breakthrough technology" to wash your clothes. The funny thing is, there's no foam and no perfume as such. Washing with the Ecoballs looks like you're washing with just water.

And indeed that's what it is for the majority. It uses ions and stuff that get rid of dirt. Or so they say.

So we went out and bought some. I don't think we've anticipated watching clothes as much as this! We followed the instructions exactly (3/4 load, put both balls in) and watched it wash at 30 degrees.

When the cycle finished we took the clothes out and naturally gave them a smell. And they smelt of wet clothes. Not "clean", not fragrant, just clothes that had water on them. Imagine a pair of jeans on a rainy day. That smell.

So we let them dry. And that's when we realised that in fact the clothes were clean. And smelt like clean clothes. After ironing, they smelt like very fresh clean clothes, just without a fragrance. It's difficult to explain, but because we're so used to having perfumed washing powder/liquid/etc, the actual smell of clean clothes is something that is actually very nice. And refreshing.

More importantly, the more the clothes are washed, the softer they get. The opposite of usual washing, the biggest change we noticed is in our bed linen and towels. Everything feels softer. Colours don't fade either.

So there you have it. These things are very useful. Not only light weight, refillable and reusable, cost about 6 pence per wash (nothing!) and actually work. Don't ask me how though, they just make everything clean and fresh.

Worryingly, I'm blogging about washing clothes. It must be the Adam effect. Stay tuned.

Ames' Window

Ok, I'll try to explain this as best as I understand it.

A clever person called Ames designed a window that's got built in perspective (ie it's narrower one side than the other). He also (cleverly) stuck a stick in the middle of this window. So far so good.

Here's the genius bit - when the window spins around, our eyes get confused, and start misinterpreting the shape and the direction and everything.

Just watch :)

Fallcrack 3

In case you're wondering, I'm utterly and totally and hopelessly addicted to Fallout 3 (PC version).

Which explains any reduced blogs, random tweets, etc etc.

Have had it for a while now but never really played it until I started reading The Road (kudos A13!) and it whetted my appetite for some post-apocalyptic RPGing.

While Oblivion didn't really hook me (sure was impressive but the fantasy setting was a bit boring), Fallout 3 is like Oblivion for geeks. A sci-fi open world which is hugely impressive. The effort gone in to creating the wastelands and all it's inhabitants is just phenomenal.

That, and I'm a sucker for games that have radios. I'm looking at you GTA IV - it's all your fault.

Perhaps more later, but I know one thing - it's been a very long time since I've been so obsessed by one game, it's making everything else boring.

Try if you can. But beware, no more life.

Edit - here's a quick capture of what happens when you use The Fatman to nuke the shit out of a Supermutant Brute. Imagine doing a rocket jump with that one :)