Counterfeit Gig | Meeting Jamie Campbell Bower | And Why They Are Going To Be Huge.

Hello you lovely lot!!! 

I hope y'all well?! I am just spiffy if you're wondering, although I have far too much to do today and so little time. I have auditions to prepare for, singing videos to do and makeup comps to do. 

I'm going to need a hella lot of E numbers! 

I am bring to you a different kind of post today compared to my usual beauty ones. 

This one is obviously 'life' related and something I feel you guys should hear about because music plays a big part in my life and this post reflects that. If you're a music lover or performer like me then you're going to be very interested in this. 

Trust me, I never lie. :)

THE LOW-DOWN 

In my previous post I mentioned that I was going to see the band Counterfeit live in Birmingham, Thursday just gone. 

If you haven't heard of them you REALLY need to research this shit because trust me you're missing out. 

More about that later. 

They are a five man band consisting of lead singer and guitarist Jamie Campbell Bower *swoon*, Tristan Marmont (guitar, vocals), Roland Johnson (bass, vocals), Sam Bower - Jamie's Brother (guitar, vocals) and last but not least Jimmy Craig on the drums. 

Jamie, is pretty well known as he was lead in a band called The Darling Buds and he is also an actor and has dabbled in some modelling. 

If you don't know who he is, where the hell have you been all your life?! You've watched, Sweeney Todd, Twilight and Mortal Instruments right? 

Talented all round. Hell yeah.

To me, I would say that their 'genre' of music (if you HAVE to categorise it) is in the realms of punk/rock - alternative. They have some hella, body shattering bass lines, some bloody catchy hooks and their overall feel is "COME GET SOME"! 

The attitude just oozes out of them and it's freaking hot!! 

If you're into this sound then read on... If you're not, give it a chance because they are addictive! 

THE GIG 

I will be honest with you, I hadn't actually heard of this band fully, until around a week before their gig. I follow Jamie on Twitter and Instagram and saw that Counterfeit were touring. 

I then watched Mortal Instruments, fell in love with Jamie and was like "I REALLY need to listen to his band". 

I am not joking you, I listened to 'Hold Fire' first and I was hooked. I actually got goosebumps instantly, for me to react like that, you have to be good. I am freaking picky when it comes to what I like. If I like something, you know it's going to be amazing. 

Each song has a meaning, each song is electric and each song is passionate.

I would also like to add, they are doing this all off their own back, no big record companies involved. It's all of their own blood, sweat and tears. 

For a band to do that and already have a big impact and following is commendable. 

Well played boys! 

I then bought a meet and greet ticket so I could actually meet them in person. If there is ever an opportunity to meet the people I admire, I am sold. 

So, it took me god damn forever to get to Birmingham because of stupid ass drivers, I mean seriously, does anyone actually know how to drive any more? "GET OUT OF MY WAY ASSHOLE"! 

I was late, on my own and really cold. I had the highest boots on, leather trousers and a drop sleeve vest. 

I made friends easily because I just talk to people and they have no choice in the matter. Ha. 

I was actually pretty nervous meeting Counterfeit, especially Jamie as I struggle to breathe when I find someone hot let alone talk to them. Ha ha. 

I spoke to Jamie and Sam first and they were lovely. But me being me, I never actually open my mouth and talk about you know... NORMAL things, I get nervous and crap comes out instead. I met the rest of the band after and again they were all perfectly lovely especially Roland. :) 

With me, when I am inspired by someone I could spend hours with them, I am NEVER the 'groupie' type. 

That night, I wanted to be on stage with them!! I was in the zone!

They are all so beautiful!! 

Totally a guys, girl me! Ha. 

THE PEFORMANCE

Okay, so my feet were freaking killing me by the time they came on stage which was around 8.45 pm, bearing in mind I have been in them since 4.30 pm. I literally couldn't feel my feet or legs at all. I had to wear them because usually I will get to the stage and BOOM a bloody tree is in front of me. "Mwahahaha not that night". In yo face! 

I am not going to lie they have some die hard fans, I did feel like I was the only 28 yr old in the room as everyone else seemed so young. Obviously they are their main demographic. Again, well played. 

They were going mental, literally mental. It made me smile, it was cool. 

As I was new to the 'gang' I only knew the five songs I had listened to.

. Hold Fire

. Come Get Some

. Enough (which is their latest single)

. Family Suicide 

. Letters To The Lost

They played around 12 songs I believe. 

I have NEVER seen so much enigma, love, passion, energy and talent coming off a stage in my life. I have been to a lot of gigs and I will tell you now, it's THE BEST one I  have been to. 

True story.

The vocals were on point, there were some brilliant instrumental licks and the music was flawless. You're just stood there wanting to full on swing your hair about. Totally intergalactic.

If you could bottle sex into music form, this would be it! Full stop.

I am a singer/performer and their music is 100% the type I love to perform. It's gritty, has depth and so god damn addictive. 

I couldn't take my eyes off Jamie, he is the show stopper, he was bouncing around the stage like a fly on shit, fully loving life!! 

And, what I loved more was how he full bodied himself with the audience. He would come off the stage and into the screaming fans and really involved himself. No pretences, never pretentious and totally engaged. I LOVED it. 

When performing 'Letters To The Lost' Jamie came into the crowd and performed the song. This song holds a melancholy meaning with a twang of saddened anger throughout. His close friend Ivan committed suicide and this song reflects his feelings on the loss. 

Now I know the meaning, I hear the song differently and it's a tear jerker. Each one of his songs are beautifully written and clever.  

'Enough' was written not long after the Paris attacks and I love the meaning behind the song, it is ballsy, full of attitude and portrays a sense of "we won't stand for any of your ball crap". 

Spread the love, not war. I heeeaaarrrr yaaaa!

No half hearted performance here. I was in awe. If I of had the chance to perform with them I would of taken it with everything I had because their music just engrossed you. 

I love dancing, flicking my hair about and losing myself. Ha. It's good for your soul! 

The night before in Manchester, Jamie crowd surfed, except no one caught him because they were too busy filming. I felt really sorry for him, I mean I go to a gig, I love taking photo's & vids but you do it in short bursts. Not to stick it on YouTube. Our night however we caught him!!! I didn't as I was just out of range but I was so happy as it ended the night on a high. 

There was a load of moshing, water spitting, sweat, Jamie's naked torso and a whole lot of love for the boys. They encored and that was that.  

My favourite picture. I love capturing a feeling/atmosphere/moment.

I was officially dead but buzzing! 

Before I left, I purchased their 'Come Get Some' tee and a signed poster as I love to support genuine talent. I also gave Sam my business card so they could keep an eye out for this post if they were interested. 

I would of loved to have spent more time with the guys and I wish I would of been able to bring my DSLR as I would of caught some epic moments!! 

They are touring in Europe now, so if you are reading this and haven't got tickets yet or are interested in seeing them click here to purchase the best night of your life.

Counterfeit are big already but I have a feeling there are bigger things to come for this band. I mean global!! Watch this space! Work hard and dream big!

My dreams are bigger than my boobs these days! Ha. 

I always start a sentence with " imagine if...". 

Pre-gig makeup. 

One thing I would say is I would love it if the boys interacted with the fans more on social media. For me, I love that, even if they follow you and don't communicate (we all know you're busy bees) it just shows that they have acknowledged you. I love promoting bands/brands and myself and when a band/musician/brand follows you/speaks to you it makes your day a little brighter. 

Don't forget to subscribe here.

And I am also over here too if you want to see some more vids of the band along with all my other crap. Ha. 

Twitter: leluroxxblogger

Instagram: leluroxxblogger

Snapchat: blackeyedfox

Thank you for reading :) 

Until Thursday...

Love 

L 

X 

   

WeArePlanes// The Intimate Planes Gig!!!

Oh hi. 

This afternoon I have another 'life' post for you, one of which is within the same genre as the last post. Music and gigs.

As you have guessed from the very obvious title to this post I will be indeed sharing my night at the Planes gig with y'all! 

Now, some of you may not of heard of the band Planes and if you haven't what are you playing at?! 

Okay, so a brief low-down. 

On my previous post I talked about the Placebo concert I went to, now the drummer Steve Forrest who used to be in Placebo left this year to focus solely on his band 'Planes'. I am SO glad he left Placebo (no offence intended) because now I have another band who I love as much. The band consist of five members, Steve, Charlotte, Ted, Dan and Ed and their new (self-released) album 'Hotfoot' is out to pre-order now. http://weareplanes.bandcamp.com/ (Go on click the link. :) 

Their music is frickin awesome, I never really knew about the band until I saw Steve on Twitter talking a lot more about them, so I thought I would listen to their stuff and oh my aren't I glad I did because their sound is very much up my street. It's melodic, energetic, thought provoking and beautiful. 

So, when I heard they were going to be doing a mini UK tour and were coming to Birmingham I had to get a ticket. 

15.04.15 was the day.

I was working on the day of the gig and I asked if I could have my lunch at the end of the day so I could get there in time. 

Dedication right there. 

Seriously now, I literally got stuck in every traffic jam going and I was getting so annoyed. Does anyone else get that, when they want to be somewhere quickly all the traffic lights go to red, you end up behind some stupid Sunday driver or you get stuck in queues? 

Well all of those happened to me. Now I believe in "everything happens for a reason" and now I know why I was stuck in all of that traffic, because when I arrived at the venue all the band members were outside. :O 

That happens to me every time I go to a gig, I seem to pull up right next to the artist(s) and then I freeze and miss my chance to talk to them. I just hate it when I see other people running up to musicians asking for pictures and autographs, because deep down I want to be one of those people but you end up falling into the 'groupie' category and that's not me. I just want to chat, hangout, get to know the person/people and yeah get a picture or autograph so I can do a blog post on them. 

Just like I am doing now. 

My parents took me the gig and my dad was like "isn't that Steve" as we pulled up to park. Ha, me being me I was like "oh I don't want to go over to them in case I invade their space" my dad literally forced me out of the car because he knows I am too polite ha ha. 

I had my massive boots on again ( I should of learnt from the Placebo gig) and strolled across the road to them hoping to god I didn't fall over. And I was SO surprised at how warm and welcoming they all were. I had been talking to Charlotte a lot on Twitter and occasionally Steve and Dan. And Charlotte gave me a lovely hug and I felt a lot more at ease. 

I turned to Steve and all I could manage at that point was a "hi" and he was so lovely and chatty I lost control of my limbs and went in for the hug. Now 'the hug' is a risky little game because you either go in for the kill and it's reciprocated or you get shot down and die right there on the spot. 

He gave me the nicest hug back and really made an effort to find out about myself and engage with me personally. I have never seen that from a band really before, I mean genuine interest and totally laidbackness. And Charlotte was talking to me like she knew me for like forever. I was really overwhelmed. 

It was very surreal and it just made me love them even more. 

I am not going to lie, as I didn't want to ask for a picture together as I was too shy, I sneakily took this shot of Steve. 

I'm like a stealth ninja ;) 

This post is going to be a long one if I don't get down to the 'gig' part. 

You ready? 

So this venue was a cute little pub in Birmingham which had this very cool walk through. 

   I went through to the staging area and YEEESSSSSS I was at the very front. I was loving life. 

The support band Jeremy & the Harlequins had flew in all the way from New York and they certainly had some character. They were so lively and raring to go. There wasn't loads and loads of people at the gig as Planes are relatively new but I found that better as you got an intimate gig and it felt somewhat personal. I think it was one of the best gigs I have been too! No joke. 

One of the members from Jeremy & the Harlequins, Craig, introduced himself to me whilst I was waiting for them to go on and handed me his mobile phone and asked me to take some pictures of their performance for him. 

Obviously I said yes, but he was rather trusting with his belongings. Good job I wasn't a chav that would of made way with it. Ha. 

Seeing as I took A LOT of pics/video's on his phone I didn't have much time to take my own but I did get an action shot!!!

They were really good and they had an 'Elvis' vibe going on which I thought was pretty cool. The music matched that vibe too. It was nice because I was listening to stuff that wouldn't usually interest me, but I found that I actually really enjoyed it. 

A really smooth and friendly band with charisma to boot. 

Planes were now on stage and I must say they are all bloody hot. A very good looking band indeed. They have amazing chemistry, highly talented and their songs are effortlessly catchy. Charlotte's violin broke that day so she carried on with the keyboard and you wouldn't of even known that the violin was meant to be in there. Highly skilled people. 

I am a singer with, what some people say, a 'unique voice', whether that's good or bad I don't know but when I go to see people that inspire me and who I respect as an artist, it makes me want to be on that stage even more and allows me to hang on to that dream a little longer. Planes showed that night that even with a small crowd that they were still going to give it their all and put on an electrifying performance and there was so much positive energy. 

All the songs they played I loved, especially 'Legs', 'My Own Way' 'Grinding Teeth' and 'Wait It Out'. If you want to hear any clips of me singing their stuff you will find it on my Instagram https://instagram.com/anythingbutordinaryleya/ or on my Twitter account https://twitter.com/leluroxxblogger

After the concert, they came and mingled with us at the bar, took photo's with us and signed our 'merch'. I really wanted photo's with each of them for this post and for my own memories but I was far to shy to ask and didn't want to annoy anyone. I wish I had of just asked now. 

Maybe next time? 

It was a real special night, one of which I will never forget and they are THE nicest band I have met to date I didn't expect them to speak to me let alone come and sit and talk with me after the show.

Their music is very 'now' and I cannot stop listening to it. When I buy into a band I do so generously and it is the same with other bands I love such as 'The Mirror Trap' who supported Placebo. 

I will leave you with some photo's I took of the gig. :) 

Charlotte

Steve & Dan

Ted (with the hair up), Dan & Ed (on the drums)

Rock'in the stage!!

  

I hope you liked reading about my thoughts and experiences and don't forget to go check them out, it will be something you won't regret. 

Peace. 

L x