fingertrouble (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fingertrouble) wrote2006-08-07 10:11 am
fingertrouble) wrote2006-08-07 10:11 am
Brighton Pride - a surreal sunny weekend
Just recovering from a weekend in Brighton Pride - sun, sea, no sex but definitely a burned back and some odd but fun experiences. Photos to follow - also in a LJ cut most definitely as at least one is not work safe, if tamely so ;-) Here's the marathon weekend report:
The weekend started with John in the genteel if rather pompous environs of Kew's Glasshouse restaurant - not bad, a bit too fussy but nothing that my stomach couldn't intially cope with. I had watercress soup and then lamb if memory serves. Not bad, if for the fact that the service were the sort that pesters you every 5 seconds, good service knows to hang back...also I didn't know we had to vacate the table by 9pm (probably the reason for the pestering to hurry us along), the resulting bus ride home after such a rich meal made me feel very sick. Grr.
Saturday started with a mad dash down to East Croydon to meet Scott![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tga to head down to Brighton, and on the way found out Doug and Greg sardonicbear were also going and Doug was going to meet me on the train also - I won't go into the minutiae, just that the logistics and journey ended up being slightly too stressful (only interesting thing was finding out that Scott hates bugs via a squatting impressively-sized grasshopper...hehehehe *stores info for future use*).
Made it to Brighton and the Park meeting Greg and their friend Stefan. It was a beautifully hot sunny day, Greg and Scott did one of the scary looking fairground rides (which the results of they felt for hours after) and we hung around the Popstarz tent where Ben Jamin was playing Justin Timberlake's new one (I wanted to go up and ask 'got any RnB?' to simultaneous make an inside DJ joke and make a point...that tune is horrible) and he played No Doubt's Hella Good which was also played at the Bear's tent which we moved to shortly after...
Scott and I dashed around randomly interviewing people there for a future podcast, and took pictures, you'll hear that soon if it came out OK...best one was a full rubbered up (and fully hot!) fisting queen, but the skinhead with the Skrewdriver tshirt is getting edited out on principle (and the fact that the interview with his friends was boring anyway)...ffs who wears that to a Pride event? Or at all? Fascist git.
After that Greg, Doug and Stefan went to see DE Experience (hmm, remember seeing him at Bulk nearly 10 years ago, a drag queen tribute to a drag queen, how meta *rolls eyes*) which me and Scott avoided and eventually went down to see his friends at their local pub they now own, the Leek and Winkel.
There we met up with Eric Kleptone of the Kleptones, a lovely guy and great to meet up with the man at last! He does great mashups, you might remember the interview on Radio Clash #72 about his work. We chatted mostly about music industry or bootleg-related stuff, but a load of other things, like how Brighton is different as the freaks are in the majority there, and like SF almost no-one is local. I didn't interview him this time, or take pictures...otherwise the poor guy would think I was stalking him! It's nice to go offline sometimes.
Scott had to go get the train but we went to the Sidewinder (nice venue, very hot though!) and chatted more - Eric pointed out Damien who owns Skint who was there, it was very chilled. Not wanting to turn in just yet, Eric mentioned there was a beach party and we headed down to the beach. This is from when things got slightly surreal...
Sureal moment #1: Walking past Audio, a club on the seafront. I was eating pasta from this late night mediterranean deli place. There was a drag queen giving it some outside, pretty much off her tits.
Drag queen: "You eating PASTA!?!?"
Me: "Yes"
Drag queen: "Ooh, get you. That's very posh! It's the seaside love, you should be eating fish and chips or something"
Me: "Well I like to pretend this is the Riviera."
Draq queen "..."
That shut her up...
So we met up with friends of Eric, who are part of the (Free?) 4A Crew which is the only pirate radio station in Brighton - Jim, and Ian originally from Perth who had a small soundsystem on a trolley pumping out various tunes in front of the DeVere hotel. We then walked the whole seafront, pied-piper style following the music which was fun.
Surreal moment #2: All of us (8-20 people) dancing to Nina Simone's 'My Baby Just Cares for Me' on Brighton Seafront at like 1-2am in the morning, doing the moves to the piano bits like the video or just freestyling...
So we headed over to Black Rock (Black Rock? Sounds like an Enid Blyton book, 'Mystery of Black Rock!' or 'Picnic at Black Rock' where they all die mysteriously) where the illegal party was at - and there were loads of people, and what Eric described as lukewarm techno playing, but a nice vibe. The locals who obviously used it as a cruising ground were a bit pissed off though; but quite a few gay men and women were there, it was very mixed.
The police did eventually turn up and the music was turned off, but then the police went and the music continued then a bigger soundsystem arrived in front of the Volks station and it really kicked off just before 3am.
Surreal moment #3: Eric had gone back to his place for some booze...I didn't drink beer, so in response he pulled out a bottle of champagne! So there we were at a small illegal free rave chugging champagne...Class!
I headed off after 3am to find the tent...wandering through Whitehawke or whatever it's called (not not Whitesnake) with prostitutes hangin around it's a dodge area, but the Pride Campground was in East Brighton Park...I found the park but how was I going to find the tent? *cue dramatic music*
Surreal moment #4: Finding the tent via a beacon visible 100s of yards away the other side of the park - Doug and Greg had a LED lightsabre and had affixed it as a locator on the top of the tent...so like some shipping beacon I found the tent easily! Brilliant idea.
Sunday started sloooooooooooowly with a fry up meal in the Pavillion cafe there and amble down to the beach via Lidl. Greg wanted to go find books, but me and Doug stayed at the Naturist beach just by Black Rock and pitched the tent after we had a very English picnic (napkins? cutlery? table cloth?!?!).
As a result today my back is a bit prawned but John would be proud as yes I did go alfresco, and the swim in the sea was great and very liberating. As with most places it was slightly cruisy with men checking each other out but ambiently so, and there were straight couples too, and old blokes in their 60s-70s so I felt quite comfortable.
(Not that) Surreal moment #5: Some alternative art-school types were doing some sort of shoot (with cameras and video, a bit naughty there, even I was being discrete and respectful with my photos making sure no-one else was in the shots) with a man and a woman fully body painted and a real yellow snake (python?) wandering down the beach. Very Brighton.
So that was the marathon weekend report - pics and podcast to follow!
The weekend started with John in the genteel if rather pompous environs of Kew's Glasshouse restaurant - not bad, a bit too fussy but nothing that my stomach couldn't intially cope with. I had watercress soup and then lamb if memory serves. Not bad, if for the fact that the service were the sort that pesters you every 5 seconds, good service knows to hang back...also I didn't know we had to vacate the table by 9pm (probably the reason for the pestering to hurry us along), the resulting bus ride home after such a rich meal made me feel very sick. Grr.
Saturday started with a mad dash down to East Croydon to meet Scott
tga to head down to Brighton, and on the way found out Doug and Greg sardonicbear were also going and Doug was going to meet me on the train also - I won't go into the minutiae, just that the logistics and journey ended up being slightly too stressful (only interesting thing was finding out that Scott hates bugs via a squatting impressively-sized grasshopper...hehehehe *stores info for future use*).Made it to Brighton and the Park meeting Greg and their friend Stefan. It was a beautifully hot sunny day, Greg and Scott did one of the scary looking fairground rides (which the results of they felt for hours after) and we hung around the Popstarz tent where Ben Jamin was playing Justin Timberlake's new one (I wanted to go up and ask 'got any RnB?' to simultaneous make an inside DJ joke and make a point...that tune is horrible) and he played No Doubt's Hella Good which was also played at the Bear's tent which we moved to shortly after...
Scott and I dashed around randomly interviewing people there for a future podcast, and took pictures, you'll hear that soon if it came out OK...best one was a full rubbered up (and fully hot!) fisting queen, but the skinhead with the Skrewdriver tshirt is getting edited out on principle (and the fact that the interview with his friends was boring anyway)...ffs who wears that to a Pride event? Or at all? Fascist git.
After that Greg, Doug and Stefan went to see DE Experience (hmm, remember seeing him at Bulk nearly 10 years ago, a drag queen tribute to a drag queen, how meta *rolls eyes*) which me and Scott avoided and eventually went down to see his friends at their local pub they now own, the Leek and Winkel.
There we met up with Eric Kleptone of the Kleptones, a lovely guy and great to meet up with the man at last! He does great mashups, you might remember the interview on Radio Clash #72 about his work. We chatted mostly about music industry or bootleg-related stuff, but a load of other things, like how Brighton is different as the freaks are in the majority there, and like SF almost no-one is local. I didn't interview him this time, or take pictures...otherwise the poor guy would think I was stalking him! It's nice to go offline sometimes.
Scott had to go get the train but we went to the Sidewinder (nice venue, very hot though!) and chatted more - Eric pointed out Damien who owns Skint who was there, it was very chilled. Not wanting to turn in just yet, Eric mentioned there was a beach party and we headed down to the beach. This is from when things got slightly surreal...
Sureal moment #1: Walking past Audio, a club on the seafront. I was eating pasta from this late night mediterranean deli place. There was a drag queen giving it some outside, pretty much off her tits.
Drag queen: "You eating PASTA!?!?"
Me: "Yes"
Drag queen: "Ooh, get you. That's very posh! It's the seaside love, you should be eating fish and chips or something"
Me: "Well I like to pretend this is the Riviera."
Draq queen "..."
That shut her up...
So we met up with friends of Eric, who are part of the (Free?) 4A Crew which is the only pirate radio station in Brighton - Jim, and Ian originally from Perth who had a small soundsystem on a trolley pumping out various tunes in front of the DeVere hotel. We then walked the whole seafront, pied-piper style following the music which was fun.
Surreal moment #2: All of us (8-20 people) dancing to Nina Simone's 'My Baby Just Cares for Me' on Brighton Seafront at like 1-2am in the morning, doing the moves to the piano bits like the video or just freestyling...
So we headed over to Black Rock (Black Rock? Sounds like an Enid Blyton book, 'Mystery of Black Rock!' or 'Picnic at Black Rock' where they all die mysteriously) where the illegal party was at - and there were loads of people, and what Eric described as lukewarm techno playing, but a nice vibe. The locals who obviously used it as a cruising ground were a bit pissed off though; but quite a few gay men and women were there, it was very mixed.
The police did eventually turn up and the music was turned off, but then the police went and the music continued then a bigger soundsystem arrived in front of the Volks station and it really kicked off just before 3am.
Surreal moment #3: Eric had gone back to his place for some booze...I didn't drink beer, so in response he pulled out a bottle of champagne! So there we were at a small illegal free rave chugging champagne...Class!
I headed off after 3am to find the tent...wandering through Whitehawke or whatever it's called (not not Whitesnake) with prostitutes hangin around it's a dodge area, but the Pride Campground was in East Brighton Park...I found the park but how was I going to find the tent? *cue dramatic music*
Surreal moment #4: Finding the tent via a beacon visible 100s of yards away the other side of the park - Doug and Greg had a LED lightsabre and had affixed it as a locator on the top of the tent...so like some shipping beacon I found the tent easily! Brilliant idea.
Sunday started sloooooooooooowly with a fry up meal in the Pavillion cafe there and amble down to the beach via Lidl. Greg wanted to go find books, but me and Doug stayed at the Naturist beach just by Black Rock and pitched the tent after we had a very English picnic (napkins? cutlery? table cloth?!?!).
As a result today my back is a bit prawned but John would be proud as yes I did go alfresco, and the swim in the sea was great and very liberating. As with most places it was slightly cruisy with men checking each other out but ambiently so, and there were straight couples too, and old blokes in their 60s-70s so I felt quite comfortable.
(Not that) Surreal moment #5: Some alternative art-school types were doing some sort of shoot (with cameras and video, a bit naughty there, even I was being discrete and respectful with my photos making sure no-one else was in the shots) with a man and a woman fully body painted and a real yellow snake (python?) wandering down the beach. Very Brighton.
So that was the marathon weekend report - pics and podcast to follow!
no subject
You play on my bug phobia, there will be trouble!! :-p
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no subject
Maybe that was the Bears Tent then? Seemed to be a lot of the same tunes!