Adventure of the Week - South Hampton, Ben Howard

Well hello there. Firstly, happy belated beginning of advent! November has flown by leaving us with frosty, sparkly December - Christmas here we come!? Whose excited yet? I still can't believe it is coming quite so soon...

Anyway, getting back to the point of today's post; my "adventure of the week". This is to be a weekly post, to ensure regular blogging and to have an excuse to ramble on about the minor excitements in my life as well as larger ones. After all, every explorer needs some form of adventure to get her through each week.

So here we go - adventure of the week #1: My (long awaited) trip to see Ben Howard, Southampton.



hues of gold



Waiting in anticipation!!!





 For this wonderful outing I was accompanied by mon pere as we set off to Southampton Guild Hall. On arrival (after a little difficulty in entering the car park) we fell out of the van and straight into a que - and a rather lengthy one at that. Despite being at the tail end of those entering, we still managed to wheedle our way into the front third of the crowd.

The support act was the stupendous Willy Mason. Admittedly I had not heard of him before entering the building however I shall definitely be investing in a song or two of his beautiful bluesy riffs and husky voice. This one is called 'we can be stong' and is one of my current favourites. To the left are a few snaps I managed to grab frantically waving the camera above my head (it's not easy being a short girl in a seemingly extraordinarily tall crowd).

Here you can see you're very own "small girl" in comparison to some of the loftier members of this audience. A lot of tip-toeing and jumping was done on this fine evening it must be said. It was however, most definitely worth it as Devonshire Ben delivered a cracking performance displaying incredible skill, especially for someone so new to the music scene - he has just one album!

Around the stage hung individual spot lights, framing Ben like little stars.

One of my favourite songs of the evening was Black Flies, the dynamics were just incredible. Ben has this awesome ability not only to project his music, but to fill every inch of the room with it. I love live music and it's safe to say from a skills level, Ben Howard is definitely one of the best performers I have seen along with his brilliant band (I particularly like the crazy female bassist). Even the lighting and graphics were superb, with images of waves and Devonshire roads projected onto a large moon-like shape hung at the back of the shape as the lights switched between shades of blue, amber and gold.





To conclude, I have placed my favourite photo of the evening above. You can't see the band very clearly, but you can see a little of the effect of the lighting as Ben broke into one of his heavier instrumental sections. Overall, the evening was a delicious blend of delicate acoustic guitar, all the way to full blown prog-rock explosions. A unique and incredible style of music and definitely an artist I would love to see again.

Rainbows and hailstorms.

Alas, half term has already drawn to a close for us college students and its time for us to go back to work feeling rested and refreshed (supposedly...) Though what a lovely week half term has been - finally having an opportunity to do some travelling, even if it was only in country, to visit the lovely beaches of Devon and some brilliant friends who have settled down there. And oh boy can I see why! Leaving the beach to go back home and to work on Friday evening was a hard task, even with the atrocious weather! Better a rainy day at the beach than a rainy day at home I say.

I also got a chance to get in for a few much needed surfs - the first of the winter season! Little bit chilly to say the least, being November, but as an avid surfer I could not resist getting in. We surfed Putsborough beach which is one of my favourites with its long stretch of golden sand and rugged rocks to scramble over. Our second surf brought much excitement due to the sighting of a rainbow and a furious hail storm whilst we were in the water - we felt pretty hardcore it must be said, especially I, wearing only my summer thickness wetsuit. Many hot beverages were required after that experience in attempt to warm us up and restore our body temperature to somewhere vaguely around normal.

We also got exploring in some of Devon's stunning countryside with Jess the lovely Labrador, sighting some impressive wind turbines causing some heated arguments about green energy vs. nuclear power...just your standard conversation for a family walk.

All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable and much needed break to relax and feed my insatiable desire to travel...well for a little while at least.