Farewell to All This

I'm changing location. I'm leaving my beloved North East behind and going to the midlands. Obviously there are a lot of problems with this, chief among them being that I won't be in the North East, with its vibrant music and political scenes, cool buildings and sea view.

Instead I will be in a miserable, accent-less limbo that for reasons best known to themselves, quite large numbers of people have chosen not to leave. So I thought I'd mark my leaving with some photos of my last weekend on Tyneside, which it has to be said was as close to perfection as you can get. Dear reader, I know you're fascinated, so I will tell the story in stages.

SATURDAY



Saturday kicked off with the anti-EDL demo, which was the largest and most confident that I've ever been on in Newcastle - and one where we outnumbered the racist scumbags. This is a good thing, obviously. Also they were effectively contained by the rozzers and there was no violence, at least during the day. Certainly though their boasts of getting 2,000 hooligans to the Toon were idle ones. It's hard to estimate numbers accurately but when I and a comrade left our demo to have a quick snoop it looked like there were 4-500 tops. Still a lot, but considering how big they've been trying to make this, not as bad as it could have been. I'd say there were about a third as many again of us on the UAF demo, and there were another couple of hundred or more up at Monument where the TUC were doing their event. So all in all a successful day, and hopefully the twats won't be coming back.

After that, on to the Doctor Who exhibit at Centre for Life. This was ace. You must go. YOU MUST GO.

Following which, Evolution Emerging was on - a load of free gigs down the Ouseburn. Got to see the amazing Let's Buy Happiness again and the even more amazing Mammal Club, followed by the lovely Soundtracks for a B-Movie, who once their technical problems were sorted out turned out to be purveyors of beautiful instrumental music.

SUNDAY
On Sunday the weather was manky but Evolution proper had started, and luckily I'd got my grubby mitts on one of these...
Which meant I could actually see and hear the Futureheads, unlike people who were inside the venue...

MONDAY
Then Monday, it was Slow Club, Brilliant Mind, Mammal Club again and De La Soul. Fucking ace.

So, although I'll deeply miss Tyneside and all those who've been kind enough to put up with me at various points over the last decade, seriously: what a way to go.