100th Big Day Out + Muse envy

On Saturday, I went to the 100th Big Day Out in Sydney. And it was BOILING. And I mean boiling...something ridiculous like 40+ degrees!!!

Anyway, I spent the entire time I was there on the barrier waiting for Muse's set at 9pm...was absolutely worth every minute and all the pain. The set was amazing and they are an amazing band live (as proven by their numerous awards for best live band).

Muse during Supermassive Black Hole

The stage set up was a toned down version of their arena shows which believe me are amazing (see next photo), and rumour is that they will be coming back to play the arena shows in november/december.

Muse's stage set up at the O2 Arena, London

The day was capped off with an amazing present from one of my friends, who also nabbed herself Dominic Howard's drumstick. This:

Chris Wolstenholme's (Muse's bassist) set list.

Was one of the best days ever! And I can't wait to see them at the end of the year again!

muse designers

I'm a huge fan of amazing album artwork and Muse's album artwork is no exception (although I still don't get the cover design for Black holes and Revelations...but that's another story).

The cover for The Resistance, their latest album is by a design crew from London called La Boca. Who have just won the best Art Vinyl award at artvinyl.com. For those who want to see it in the flesh its on display at Selfridges from the 5th of January at the Art Vinyl gallery. Here's the BBC website article.




The other artist that I love the work of that has also done Muse covers is Jasper Goodall. He did the single covers for Black holes and Revelations. My favourite out of the five singles that were released off Black Holes and Revelations is the cover for the single Knights of Cydonia. And the great thing is that he is talking at the Semi-Permanent design conference, which I will hopefully get to go to.







Another guy that I'm a huge fan of is an illustrator named Joe Whyte. Though not strictly muse related, he does some amazing designs, mostly vector based and mostly for a lot of hardcore bands I love. This is one of my faves, and I'm itching to buy the poster for my wall.

Finished cover design

In my previous post, I talked about my competition entry for the cover of Drum Media. Well, I've finished the design now, and here's the finished product:

Voting is up on summerfestivalguide.com.au in the BDO cover art voting section.

Go on, vote for me :)

Home again...and been keeping busy

Well my little foray living overseas has ended...and I travelled home via Japan. I love Japan...especially with their craftiness and a whole stack of other things that are too numerous to list. I will post some photos of that trip later (as I've been saying for the past year).

At the moment, been keeping busy with some illustrator drawings for a competition. These have taken a bit of getting used to, mainly as I dont have a wacom/bamboo tablet, and have been using my mouse...I really need to get a wacom/bamboo tablet..think it will be worth my while (as well as my sanity!). Anyway, the illustrator drawings are for a competition for Drum Media (a free local street press newspaper) for their Big Day Out cover. They have this competition every year, and I've been meaning to enter it but never been bothered. That is until this time round. One of the catalysts is that one of my favourite bands is headlining - Muse.

And so, I've been creating illustrator drawings of the band members. So far, I've finished Matt's portrait completely and I've done the head of Dominic.

Matt's portrait took a total of around 5 hours from start to finish...you can't really see the detail in his face from this image, but I did a lot of zooming in...his eyes were especially hard. I'm still not happy with the labaret area though.

Dominic's portrait is still not finished as its a work in progress screen grab...so he looks like a disembodied head at the moment. This one so far has been a lot quicker than Matt, around the one and half hour mark. I started his originally and then deleted all the layers because it wasn't looking right, and started all over again. I also had a different version of this photo where he had these ridiculous sunglasses on, and found this version where there was a clean shot of his face.

Now I just have to finish off Dominic and start on Chris...although I may have to find a different image of Chris as it looks completely different from the portraits of Matt and Dom, even though it's from the same photoshoot.

Ah well, no rest for the wicked :)

Tea, Geometry and Music

The weekend that just passed I had dubbed culture weekend. Well, Saturday anyway. This was due to a couple of things - first, I went to a vinyl toy signing (my first!); second, I went to an exhibition by one of my favourite street artists.
1. The vinyl signing

This was for the launch of Matt 'Lunartik' Jones' new toy - tea in a cup.


(image courtesy of Derek Bremmer's Flickr)
 
I love this toy because it combines two things I love - Tea and vinyl toys. Matt, was incredibly nice and sweet. I'll post photos up of my Tea's when I get the chance.
 
2. Exhibition
I went to the Elms Lesters Painting Rooms near St Giles Church on Saturday to have a look at an exhibition by a couple of graffiti/street artists - Dalek and Delta. 
 
I've been a huge fan of Delta (aka Boris Tellegen) ever since I saw his work in the CD booklet and DVD extra for Linkin Park's Meteroa album. He does these amazing geometric patterns and grids that Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda describes as satelites.
 
It kinda reminds me of Mondrian's work with its grids, patterns and blocks of colour. Also reminds me of computer/arcade machines...funnily enough, he did create the outer casing for one.
 
and the music part of this? Well yesterday was Muse Night on BBC radio 1 and they played the Teignmouth homecoming shows on BBC red button last night. So I've been listening and watching Muse for the last couple of days. Happy Birthday to me!

United States of Eurasia

Not sure if anyone has picked up or not, but I've been completely obsessed with Muse for the last few weeks...mainly due to the Ununited States of Eurasia treasure hunt.

For those that need recapping, it was a worldwide (well mainly Europe, Japan and Hong Kong and the USA) treasure hunt for these awesome looking USB keys (image courtesy of the awesome musewiki):



which contain an activation code to unlock parts of the song 'United States of Eurasia'. After the European/Asian countries unlocked their 'stations', they requested recognition by the USA, and of course its all been completed. And the end result is the first download off the new album 'The Resistance'.

NOW, this is a big song...starts off with a slow piano piece with some orchestra parts before breaking into a huge queen-esque build up. And the Queen comparison is pretty justified since its very similar...but it is still amazing. I can just imagine this song live and its sending shivers down my spine...and the great thing is that I will get to live this live as I've managed to get a ticket to one of their O2 shows in November. And, if all goes to the usual pattern of touring for Muse, it will mean that they will probably head to Australia either for the Big Day Out tour or at least do some shows - all of which I shall be attending.

So, if you've got the chance, head to the Ununited States of Eurasia microsite and get yourself an mp3 download of the song...mind you, you have to sing up...unless they have stopped sign up. In that case you're a little stuffed. I'm sure its up on you tube somewhere...but dont fret...I've found it for you:



All we have to do now is wait for September for the new album...which for me, after this little taster is a long wait!!!

laters,
evils