Friday night was Chains on Velvet in Norwich. The journey to Norwich from here shouldn’t be that difficult – its only an hours drive and we were going after all the traffic should have finished…..but we hadn’t counted on the A11 being closed, or the badly balanced traffic lights at RAF Lakenheath. We spent 30 minutes waiting to get through their lights – the mood was improved somewhat by some beautiful skies (and the tedium removed slightly by making LJ posts), but theres got to be a better way.
Finally we got to Norwich, where we had a quick tour of ‘the Norfolk Broads’, all dressed up for their night out on the town, and found the Waterfront after only one circuit of the city.
The venue has changed little since I was last there – which must have been something getting on for eight or nine years, the main change being the view across the river, now there are luxury riverside apartments where once there was industrial wasteland and disused railway sidings.
As for the music, it seemed pretty average for a while, nothing too bad but nothing outstanding either, there was a bunch of cheesy 80s alternative stuff that got me dancing a little, but then it swerved back toward generic EBM club fare, signalling the end….half one, last set and its not exciting, time to go…but then Ozzy pointed out that theres a noise set to come 2-3, so thats worth staying for. And it was, though it wasn’t as harsh as I was hoping – I gotta get me more noise…
It was interesting, also, to see the people – the majority are young, probably students given this is a university venue, with only a few still on the scene from the days I used to be there. Of those there were a number of familiar faces, though placing those faces and attaching names to them wasn’t happening.