Emily Cawdron's Review of Derby Museum and Art Gallery

Derby museum and art gallery

Most may say museums are boring and out of the two they would rather view an art gallery, just like me, i visited Derby museum ready to view their art exhibition but as it was closed. So i ended  wandering around the museum and yet I was still looking at art but just not on a canvas, it wasnt just boring rocks and ancient history it was hidden art. History and the world is art. From the skill, colour and preciseness in the porcelain to the time, erosion and evolution of the world and nature its self, both had the same things as a painting and yet so much more.

I enjoyed my time at the museum and came out with a whole new view of history, rocks and art.

Emily Cawdron

Emily Cawdron's Review of the Clothes Show Live!

Clothes Show Live

On the 3rd December 2011 I attended Birminghams yearly fashion event, at the NEC Clothes Show Live. The day consisted of the art of great makeup and appliance and also the hour long fashion show. The show was no normal event, as the models and clothes came to life after department closing time. There was great usage of the stage and the 3 massive over head screens giving you different angles, close ups and a great view. Also the great use of the lighting as the stage practicaly changed colour along with the models, who danced there way down the catwalk to live music, in the stunning explosive clothes of colour, shape and size. As they worked their way through the different floors of this magical artistic department store.

I loved the show as it was exciting, big, bold and colourful, as it shows you, you can, and how to create great art off a canvas.

I found out when/where/who/what/how at                                                         http://www.clothesshowlive.com/

Emily Cawdron

The Wombats at Rock City, Nottingham: Review!

I recently went to see The Wombats perform live at Rock City in Nottingham. I love The Wombats and all their music, and so was expecting an amazing music gig and I wasn’t disappointed! The support act were alright but not anyone who I was particularly interested in researching further, however I did get there a bit too late to really see and hear them properly. Then, after a while, The Wombats came on! The stage was set out with their instruments, with their logo on them. I do really like the style of The Wombats; it’s very cool and artistic so I was glad to see some of this on the stage. Their performance was simply awesome, they had great stage presence, really good interaction with the crowd, played really well, had really thought about use of the screens and lights which they used to great effect, displaying  images and really using the features of the lights to add to the songs and performance. Overall this gig was my arts event of the year, and so, I am going to see them again next year!

Clothes Show Live Birmingham 3/12/2011 Review

I went to the Clothes Show Live at the NEC in Birmingham on 3^rd December 2011. Clothes Show Live at the NEC is an annual fashion event that happens every December and every year they put on a spectacular Fashion Show in the Fashion Theatre. This is a one hour fashion show, but it is no normal Fashion Show where models just walk up and down the catwalk, that does still happen but is only a very small part of the show. Each year the show has a theme and this year it was A Night at the Department Store. The show includes live music and dancing too. The Show this year was separated into the different ‘levels’ of a Department store. It was amazing! The dancing and staging was astonishing, and there was a really good use of the three big screens. Music was used to great effect, as was lighting, and the whole show overall was really something!

Foster The People: HMV Institute: 21/11/2011 Review

I recently went to a Foster the People Gig, at the HMV Institute in Birmingham, on 21st Nov 2011. The band came on at 9.15 after the support act. The stage was filled with instruments and there was no artwork on stage, but it was quite packed so it was understandable. The music was incredible, the band were extremely good live which obviously always makes a gig better. The only problem was that there were quite large gaps between the songs which did disrupt the flow of the gig but the quality of the music made up for that. The band’s stage presence was very good, and the overall performance was interesting to watch whereas sometimes bands can be very static. There wasn’t much use of lighting which was disappointing as it could have been used to much better effect. Overall it was a very good gig, and it was clear that the crowd enjoyed it from their reaction. It was a shame it wasn’t longer as it was only about 1hr 15mins, but they are still quite a new band. Overall, excellent!

Foster The People: HMV Institute: 21/11/2011

Hiya!
So this is my new blog! I just started up a Beauty Blog (Daisies of the Galaxy) and loved it so much I thought I'd do an 'events' blog too. So basically, I'm lucky enough that I get to go to lots of events, such as music gigs, film previews, theatre etc, quite often and thought I'd write a blog about it.

I've been lucky enough to go to a lot of events recently, particularly music gigs such as the Wombats, so I will write about them soon even though they were a while back.

The most recent gig I've been to was Foster the People, at HMV Institute in Birmingham, on Monday (21st Nov 2011).

I first heard Foster the People on Radio 1 at the beginning of the summer and fell in love with their song Pumped Up Kicks, it was just a perfect summer song; so, I bought the album too. I wasn't disappointed and really liked the album, however the only thing I found was that it was difficult to learn the different songs as individual songs (with the exception of Pumped Up Kicks) so I would have perhaps have liked a bit more variation in the album, but I still love it nonetheless.

Then, my sister was looking on Pure HMV (The HMV loyalty points reward scheme thing) and found a pair of tickets online for not that many points. So we bought the tickets and although HMV managed to mess up yet again (they don't have a great track record of being very reliable); we got in.

I'd actually never been to the HMV Institute before and was nicely surprised! It's a really nice venue actually, and dead practical too because it's got three tiers so unless you choose to stand on the ground floor, you should be able to see from pretty much wherever you sit. We went up to sit on the balcony and got a really good view of the stage (which always makes a gig much better).


The gig 'started' at 7.00 but the support act didn't come on until about 8.15 so it was quite a wait, but it was easily filled.

The Support act were called Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and I did youtube these before I went to the gig and have to say, I thought they were quite a nice little band from the songs I listened to. However, unfortunately, on stage they didn't sound nearly as good. All their songs on youtube sound really underproduced, but to get the vocals as they are on those tracks, there had to be a fair amount of autotune going on! Either that, or the singer had something wrong with his throat at the gig! It wasn't only the singing that wasn't so great though, the songs were just boring and blurred into one another. Unfortunately for them too, the reaction from the crowd wasn't great, it wasn't bad, but there was sort of no real reaction; a few people (like me) clapped at the end as they went off, but most people just didn't bother. Overall, their performance could have been so much better, but it just made no impact on the crowd! They just needed some stage presence and a new lead singer (or to give him some lemsip or something). I have to say, I was disappointed.


There was then another wait for Foster the People to come on, they must have come on at about 9.15 ish, a good half hour after the support act had finished anyways. But again, the wait didn't really bother me.

Then when Foster the People came on, the crowd got excited. I can't remember what order they played their songs in so unfortunately I can't put that here, but they played their first song which was really, really good, then once that was over, and the crowd had cheered, they like took a break for a minute! Then they played the next song, awesome again, crowd cheers, wait another minute or two! This went on through the whole gig, and it was so frustrating! When they played their songs it was awesome, and the crowd loved it, but then they just kept putting all these breaks between songs whilst they fiddled around on stage and did all this whining stuff on guitars and keyboards in between times which was even more annoying than silence! So the whole crowd would get buzzing and dancing and hyped up throughout the song, and would cheer and clap at the end, but the breaks just allowed the buzz to die, it broke the rhythm of the gig, and the crowd were left standing around just waiting for the next song to start. It was incredibly irritating because if they'd just played without all the long breaks in between it would have been such an awesome gig, like 10/10, but the breaks just let them down so much!

Another thing was their exit, after playing all their songs except Pumped Up Kicks, they just walked off stage, no 'thank you, goodbye' or whatever, they just walked right off, which was just weird. And then, once the crowd had cheered them back on, they didn't say anything again! It was all just a little bit weird to be quite honest! But anyways, the encore song was this amazing long mix of Pumped Up Kicks, and it was just awesome! The whole crowd was obviously loving it, and you could tell the band could tell that the crowd loved it too, which you could see made them very happy, which I always think is really nice, especially when it's quite a new band because it shows that they do actually really want the audience to like their music, and do really appreciate the support as opposed to some bands who make music for the sake of making music and don't really care what anyone else thinks of it. Anyways, so this mix was just amazing, and was just such a good end to the gig.

So overall, despite all the breaks and the weird exit/entrance bit for the encore, I still thought this was a really amazing gig! I now love the album even more because hearing all the songs live gave each of them that distinguishing feature so that they all now stand out, I have managed to find a live version of  Pumped Up Kicks which is fairly similar to the awesome version they played, and I have to say, I really did enjoy the gig!

I think their next album could be amazing too, and if it is, I'll certainly be going to see them again, and will hope that next time, there won't be so many long gaps!

Hope you like the review!
Feel free to leave any comments!
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