A Special Time Creative

Halloween

Every year on the same day, the 31st October, creepy creatures and spooky creatures appear on the streets and chant ‘trick or treats’. It’s Halloween!

Originally, it was the Celtic New Year’s day, ‘Samhain’ that was celebrated since five hundred AD. People thought it was the time when the souls of the dead returned to take over some of the human bodies as it was their only choice to reach eternal life. They celebrated with bonfires and costumes to scare away the monsters and demons. Later the Romans started to cover the Celtic traditions with their own. The name of this special day comes from ‘All Hollows Evening’ the night before ‘All Hallows Day’ or ‘All Saints day’ which was celebrated since five hundred AD and is a Catholic tradition. Ireland has been one of the first Christian countries in Europe and brought the tradition to the USA around the 40’s and it was brought back to other European countries around the 90’s.

The pumpkin carving tradition comes from an Irish myth telling that a man called Jack Oldfield was frightened of the devil who he tricked one night by carving a cross in a tree so the devil wasn’t able to get down. He made a deal of only letting the devil down if he would never have to be afraid of the devil. However, after Jack died he was not allowed to go to heaven because of this deal and not welcome in hell as the devil was still upset. In order to walk through the darkness, he got a turnip that was lit with help of black coal. As the Irish came to the USA they recognised that there were way more pumpkins than turnips to they changed the tradition. The faces have been carved into the pumpkins to scare demons and were placed and lit with candles inside, placed in front of houses.

Another tradition of this day is children dressing mainly in characters such as vampires, ghosts, skeletons, witches, fairies, bats, zombies or something similar and knocking at doors, begging for treats. If they won’t get anything they would trick the people. This comes from ‘All Soul’s Day’, a Christian tradition to honour the dead, originated in the 9^th century where poor inhabitants walked around villages asking wealthier inhabitants for pastries called ‘soul cakes’. In exchange, they promised to pray for the souls of their dead relatives.

With many different traditions combined in one tradition, Halloween is definitely a special time of the year.

I wish you all a happy Halloween and hope it was a spooky night!

Mallory Knox – Kasbah

During my exchange semester, I saw that a club – Kasbah, very close to where I lived at that time, offered live concerts from time to time. As I really enjoy and love live music I asked a friend if she also would be interested in seeing some of the acts. After a little research, we found a few bands we would like to see but haven’t known about before. One of those bands were Mallory Knox.

Mallory Knox is a British alternative rock band from Cambridge, founded in 2009. The band consists of the five members Mikey Chapman (vocals), Joe Savins (lead guitar), Sam Douglas (bass), Dave Rawling (drums) and James Gillett (rhythm guitar) who wanted to name the band after a dark edgy film character. They found a suitable character in the Quentin Tarantino film ‘Natural Born Killers’ – Mallory Knox – who is a female mass murder and psychopath, taking out people she doesn’t like together with her boyfriend Mickey. Before choosing this character, they actually wanted to go for ‘Dorian Grey’ but didn’t choose the name as there came a cheesy Hollywood Movie at the same time.

Between their formation in 2009 and 2010 they wrote songs for their first EP called ‘Pilots’ which is a mostly alternative rock album but also consists of softer and harder styles. They mix heavy and strong choruses with soft sections that bring true and honest emotions without being too theatrical. The debut album ‘Signals’ was written, recorded and released between 2012 and early 2013. The sound was a little different but still Mallory Knox regarding the guitar and vocal styles. It developed alongside the musical preferences of the band members. It reached a peak position of 33 in the UK Album Charts 2013. The latest album – Asymmetry – was released in 2014 and reached a peak position of 16 in the UK Album Charts 2014 in the first week. With this album the lyrics were more direct than for the previous ones, mainly focusing on loss and love. After releasing ‘Ghost in the Mirror’ and ‘Shout at the Moon’ as the first singles of this album the band planned a headlining tour through the UK with Frank Lero, Fort Hope and Moose Blood as supporting acts. One of the concerts of this tour was at Kasbah in Coventry which I luckily went to.

Kasbah a small and a bigger room for concerts. The bigger room, where Mallory Knox played in fits maybe around 1000 – 1500 people and was extremely full that evening. The queue outside went around the corner of the street which unfortunately was the reason for me missing nearly all of the first supporting act Moose Blood which was quite sad as I liked their songs, listening to them previous to the show. The next band was Fort Hope which I had not heard about before but absolutely fell in love with after their show! I think they are an extremely talented and gifted alternative rock band, also from the UK, who mix light post-hardcore influences with rock and soft passages. The voice of the singer is really unique and has a huge range. The crowd also seemed to like them and started jumping moshing and clapping along.

img_8710x — Fort Hope as supporting act at Kasbah

The next act that came on the stage was Frank Iero, an American rhythm guitarist and vocalist mainly known as member of the US rock band My Chemical Romance. The new songs were produced and recorded by him after My Chemical Romance broke up in 2013. Only the drums were handled by the former drummer colleague. For live gigs a touring band was assembled and some tour dates including a co-headlining US tour with The Used were announced. Their first overseas run was an opener for Mallory Knox in the UK. Their punk and alternative rock sounds caught the crowd that grew with every supporting act.

img_8716x — Frank Lero as supporting act at Kasbah

After a great energetic gig of Frank Iero the main act – Mallory Knox – finally came on stage and they got the crowd with the first guitar riff they played. Everyone jumped, moshed, clapped and sang along. It was a really great show, not only regarding the stunning performance, but also because of the professional acoustic, technical support and lighting, which in general was not very fancy but suited perfectly to the performance without catching too much attention and taking away the focus from the bands performance.

img_8730x — Mallory Knox as main act at Kasbah

img_8735x — Mikey Chapman and Joe Savins

img_8747x — Great light creating a chilling atmosphere

After hearing the music of Fort Hope and Mallory Knox previously to the show I already found two more bands that I absolutely love which was further strengthened after their live performances! Hence, as I heard that Mallory Knox would be performing at Rock am Ring 2015, I knew that I’ll definitely would go to their gig there as well which was even better. The light show and acoustic was very good and the crowd sang along, jumped, moshed and clapped from the first second they started playing. It was an awesome feeling being part of the crowd and definitely a special time! Both of the time the band interacted with the crowd and animated them successfully to engage. They seemed to have a lot of fun themselves performing and were very energetic.

img_3669x — Mallory Knox in the Alternatent at Rock am Ring in Germany

img_3673x — Mallory Knox at Rock am Ring

img_3693x — Mallory Knox at Rock am Ring

img_3694x — Mallory Knox animating the crowd at Rock am Ring

img_3695x — Mallory Knox having fun at Rock am Ring

img_3733x — Mallory Knox enjoying the show

img_3810x — Mikey Chapman listening to the crowd singing along, Sam Douglas at the bass and James Gillett at the guitar

img_3817x — Mikey Chapman and Joe Savins

img_3979x — Mikey Chapman and drummer Dave Rawling in the back at Rock am Ring in Germany

Lake District – Buttermere and Rannerdale Knotts

The mountainous region in England’s north-west is a famous holiday area and known for its famous fells or mountains, forests and lakes. Two of the in total seven lakes are Buttermere and Crummock Water which can be found in the northern part of the Lake District. An easy walking path starts close in Buttermere by passing a small campsite and walking along a small beck which flows into the bigest of the two lakes – Crummock Water.

Buttermere

Lake Buttermere and Rannerdale Knotts

Lake Buttermere

Lake Buttermere and Rannerdale Knotts

Crummock Water and Rannerdale Knotts

After walking a short while right at the bank of Crummock Water, the path crosses the street and starts rising up the Rannerdale Knotts following the Bridlepath leading to Crummock House. Right at the beginning just before the path turns towards the mountains and becomes more rocky, loose and harder to access, there is a small view point offering a great view.

Crummock Water

Following the rocky path and a steeping hike of finally 350m on the Rannerdale Kotts opens a great view over both of the lakes and the valley as well as the mountains on the other site. Up there you wouldn’t expect to find a lot of company, but a few sheeps found the way up as well enjoying the sun and bright green grass.

Buttermere and Crummock Water

Sheep

Mountains

Valley and Mountains

Sheeps

Crummock Water

Buttermere

After a short break at the viewing point enjoying the stunning landscape, the journey continues down the hill right back to the Fish Inn, a small pub in Buttermere, where the walk started.

However, this is not yet the end of the walk. A small footpath continues behind the pub, leading to the smaller one of the two lakes – Buttermere. Passing a pedestrians’ tunnel the path leads closely aside the lake bank until the bank becomes the path itself. While the first walk let up to viewing points, the second path stays closely to the ground surrounding the lake. But that doesn’t mean that the view that is offered will be not as good. The lake, waterfalls and herds of cattles look as if they have been drawn on canvas.

Buttermere and Rannerdale Knotts

Pedestrians’ tunnel

Buttermere

Gatesgarth Farm in the valley

Waterfall and mountains

Highland cattle

Buttermere

Rannerdale Knott

After reaching the Gatesgarth Farm which marks the halftime of the final walk, the path leads back to Fish Inn, passing a small waterfall before leaving the lake’s bank and ending where the whole jurney started.

Waterfall

Mountain ridge

Mountains next to Rannerdale Knotts

Both walks were absolutely gorgeous and offered stunning panoramas which made it a special time!

Bring Me The Horizon – Alte Feuerwache

This year many of my favourite bands went on tour, so I had the pleasure to go to another concert in April – Bring Me The Horizon, a British alternative metal and rock band from Sheffield which was formed in 2004. The current members of the band are vocalist Oliver Sykes, drummer Matt Nicholls, guitarist Lee Malia, bassist Matt Kean and keyboardist Jordan Fish, who joined the formation in 2013. With Jordan Fish as a new member, the music style of the following album Sempiternal changed slightly and became more melodic with a frequent mix of screamed and sung parts. In the beginning, their music style was described as metalcore and deathcore which changed over the years to post-hardcore, technical metal, alternative metal and alternative rock. With their latest album they had a special concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London to support the Teenage Cancer Trust, featuring an orchestra conducted by Simon Dobson. Until now Bring Me The Horizon released five studio albums which are ‘Count Your Blessings’ (2006), ‘Suicide Season’ (2008), ‘There Is A Hell, Believe Me, I’ve Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let’s Keep It A Secret.’ (2010), ‘Sempiternal’ (2013) and ‘That’s The Spirit’ (2015).

The concert I went to was within their ‘That’s The Spirit’ tour in April and was supported by DON BROCO, a British rock band from Bedford, England. The venue was a smaller club for around 1500/2500 people, which I think was really great as the atmosphere is cosier and more personal. Unfortunately, there were some technical issues during the performance of the supporting act who then had a hard time animating the crowd. However, as Bring Me The Horizon entered the stage and started their show, the people immediately were banned by the musical as well as lightning show and started dancing, singing along and creating circle pits. The timing of the lights, the music and animation at the back fitted perfectly and the quality of the sound, the synth and the musical, as well as technical acoustics, were really good. The band were motivated, delivered a great and honest performance, showing their talent and experience.

The concert as a whole was really great, the performances awesome and it was definitely a special time seeing them live!

Don Broco

Bring Me The Horizon

Lake of Derwentwater

Only a short walk away from the centre of Keswick town there is a very beautiful lake fells of Cat Bells in the west, the viewpoint of Friar’s Crag in the east and the entrance to the beautiful Borrowdale valley at its southern foot. The town offers many boutiques and shops providing outdoor equipment as well as there are many pubs, café’s and restaurants in which energy levels can be reloaded after the eight miles walk around the lake. Just south of the town there is a small theatre right next to the lake.

With the beautiful light, the sparkling water and the stunning view it was definitely a special time visiting the Lake of Derwater and the cute town centre of Keswick.

Lake of Derwentwater – view from the theatre

Lake of Derwentwater – view on the Skiddaw Mountain

Lake of Derwentwater

Lake of Derwentwater – view at fells of Cat Bells

Keswick

Flora of Keswick

Keswick city centre

City centre of Keswick

Old houses in Keswick

Suicide Squad

I am normally not that much into the whole DC and Marvel superhero universe. However, as there was a lot of hype lately around the new DC film Suicide Squad (director David Ayer) I got very excited about going to the cinema and watching it right on the release day in the UK last Friday. The film has a great stunning cast including Jared Leto, Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, Joel Kinnaman and Cara Delevingne.

The basic story of the film is about Amanda (Viola Davis) who is leading a secret government agency and therefore recruits a group of the world’s most dangerous imprisoned crazy, psychic supervillains and provide them with the most powerful arsenal at the government’s disposal to execute a dangerous mission to defeat an enigmatic, insuperable entity in exchange of their remission of sentence if they are successful. If not, they’ll die.

The different roles of the characters are played very well, especially the crazy, funny, passionate and psychic character of the Joker, embodied by Jared Leto who got the creepy crazy laugh on point. Will Smith as Deadshot delivers a great performance in both the action scenes and emotional parts, creating an emotional relationship with the viewer. Margot Robbie also did a great job, playing the crazy hilarious Harley Quinn showing her psychic character, but also an emotional and breakable site. Unfortunately, as there are a lot of main characters who are only briefly introduced, not everyone gets as much attention as they would have needed to be better understood.

The main story has a good basic scenario with many psychic and dark characters, creating an entertaining, funny and creepy atmosphere. However, the story itself is not at all what I expected. With a very interesting beginning about how the villains were recruited the story was in my opinion quite straight forward and too simple with a very strange ending, especially as the trailers seemed to promise a lot of exciting actions. I was kind of disappointed by the overall turn of the story itself but enjoyed the film in total.

However, all in all, I think especially regarding the cast and funny, crazy and psychic characters and despite I’m not really into the superhero universe, I would like to see the film again, as I really enjoyed watching it and think it was a special time.

Camden Market, London

As I mentioned in the post before, I went to London, Camden for a concert. Camden Town is one of my favourite areas in London and I think it is definitely worth going there.

Camden is a borough in north-west London, part of Inner London and was founded in 1965. The borough was named after Camden Town, which itself was named by Charles Pratt who was the first Earl of Camden in 1795 and offers now a mix of markets, cuisines and live music venues. The development of the Grand Union Canal and the railway system turned it into a vivid and lively part of London which attracts not only many tourists but also locals gathering to treasure in Camden’s market, to stroll by Regent’s Canal, to listen to live music in one of the scene clubs or try different tastes of the world cuisine. It is the fourth-most popular visitor attraction in London, attracting around 100.000 visitors per weekend and even stars such as Amy Winehouse made Camden Town their home.

There are many different markets such as the Stables Market, Camden Market or Camden Lock Market which are labyrinths of open air stalls and shops, offering different kinds of crafts, food, jewellery, books, arts, second-hand articles or clothing. It began as a small crafts’ market each Sunday in 1974 and developed into this complex of different markets with the years. It was used to be opened only on Sundays with a mixture of temporarily and fixed stalls. However, with the opening of local supermarkets a few years ago, many of the traditional stalls closed and today there are no original stalls left and have been replaced.

Being a hub for London’s live music scene, there are have been many legendary venues launching big names. The KOKO, The Underworld or Electric Ballroom are great venues for seeing different kinds of bands or acts, whereas venues such as the Jazz Café or Blue’s Kitchen are more known for jazz and blues performances. Other venues also cover film, art installations, theatre, comedy or fringe performances.

With all its diversity Camden town is always an interesting, cultural, vivid and colourful place to visit and I definitely have a very special time whenever I visit the place!

Here are some impressions:

Entrance Stables Market

Camden Lock Entrance

Camden High Street

Regent’s Canal

Food stalls Camden Lock Market

Indian food selection

Regent’s Canal

Regent’s Canal view from the bridge

Camden High Street shops

Stable Market

Horse statue

Horse statue Stable Markets

Blacksmith statue

Camden High Street lights

Breaking Benjamin – KOKO Camden

A few days ago I went to another concert which took place in the KOKO – Camden London. The band was called Breaking Benjamin, as you might have already figured reading the title of the post.

Breaking Benjamin is an American post-grunge and alternative metal band from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Benjamin Burnley who is the lead singer and guitarist founded the band together with Jeremy Humme, former drummer, in 1999. The current band members are Aaron Bruch (bassist and backing vocals), Keith Wallen (guitar and backing vocals), Jasen Rauch (guitar), Shaun Foist (drummer) and the only remaining original member – Benjamin Burnley. With their musical style they are one of the few modern rock bands that can be immediately recognised listening to the mix of hooky jams, hard-edged riffs and emotional vocals.

So far the band released five albums which are ‘Saturate’ (2002), ‘We Are Not Alone’ (2004), ‘Phobia’ (2006), ‘Dear Agony’ (2009) and ‘Dark Before Dawn’.

The show in London was their first show ever overseas and was supported by Starset, an alternative metal/electronik rock band from Columbus, Ohio, who also were really good.

The concert was amazing and it was definitely a special time seeing them live!

Balcony view

Starset

Breaking Benjamin

Benjamin Burnley

Breaking Benjamin

KOKO Camden

Weekend in Edinburgh

A little while ago around the Christmas time a friend and I traveled for a weekend trip to the lovely capital of Scottland – Edinburgh.

It was an unfortunately really badly organised trip with a student travel group. The trip started on Friday with the choice of taking the bus at either 6am or 6pm. With the 6am bus we would have been able to also visit Glasgow, but as it wasn’t possible for us to get the earlier bus, we had to take the bus at 6pm and skip Glasgow. The normally 6-hour journey, after which we would have arrived around midnight at the hostel, took two hours longer because of snow on the road. As we finally arrived at the hostel the actual disaster just started. The house was really messy, noisy, strange and fully booked. Some of the other students still got relatively proper rooms, but as they tried to get us into a room there was none left. Finally, they lay some mattresses in an actual community room with no doors or beddings, so other people could just walk in as they wanted to. Hence, one of the other students was robbed.

However, after maybe 4 hours of brief sleep, as we had to get up early to join the “guided tour” around the city center, we all met in different groups to start the trip. The first stop of the trip were the Prince’s Street Gardens which are right in the center of Edinburgh’s World Heritage Site.

Moving on, the next stop was the huge and impressive Edinburgh Castle which is Scotland’s world famous icon and part of the Old and New towns of Edinburgh’s World Heritage Site. It is really impressive and has a beautiful view over Edinburgh.

The next stop was the National Museum of Scottland which we actually visited. Afterwards, we went to the St. Giles’ Cathedral which is also known as High Kirk of Edinburgh and is dedicated to Saint Giles, who is the patron Saint of Edinburgh. The distinctive crown steeple dominates in the city’s skyline. The present church dated from the late 14th century until it was extensively restored in the 19th century. Now it is protected as category A listed building.

Moving on and passing the North Bridge, built between 1894 and 1897 linking the New with the Old Town, with the tower of the Balmoral Hotel behind, we made our way to Calton Hill.

Waverley Railway Station under the North Bridge

Calton Hill is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site and located at the east end of Princes Street. It is the headquarters of the Scottish Government and carries many iconic buildings and monuments such as the National Monument of Scottland, the Nelson Monument, and the Dugald Stewart Monument.

The hill offers a beautiful view over the city skyline. One of the biggest eye-catchers is Arthur’s Seat, the main peak of the group of hills in Edingurgh. It has a high of around 251m and is very popular for hillwalking. The name might come from the myriad legends of King Arthur.

View of Edinburgh's Old Town with the North Bridge

The top of the hill was the last station of the “guided” tour. Afterwards we could explore the city our selfs and we decided to head back to the City Center to get some lunch, and then visit the beautiful Christmas Market.

For the next day, which was only half a day befor getting back with the bus, there was actually a treasure haunt planned, but we decided to again explore the city center on our own, having a little shopping tour and some food at the Christmas Market.

Allan Ramsay statue in the Princes Street Gardens

The travel back was again really adventurous, as after half of the way one of the four buses was broken and the passengers somehow had to be brought back home with the remaining three buses. But we made it finally home safely and looking at the trip after a while, it was really funny and interesting. Edinburgh is a great and lovely city with a lot of charm. The Christmas Market was beautiful delivering the Christmas feeling and inviting to try different culinary dishes or strolling around the booths. It was a really special time and Edinburgh is definitely worth visiting again!

Linkin Park – o2 Arena, London

Quite a while ago I had the chance to see one of my absolute favourite bands “Linkin Park” at the o2 Arena in London. As they just released their latest full-length record ‘The Huntington Party’, they hit the road again to support the release.

The show was absolutely stunning and both the bands and the fans burst in energy! The supporting act was “Of Mice and Men” who were great at well.

“Linkin Park” is an American nu metal / rock band from Carlifornia formed in 1996. Until now they released six main albums being ‘Hybrid Theory’ (2000), ‘Metorea’ (2003), ‘Minutes to Midnight’ (2007), ‘A Thousand Suns’ (2010), ‘Living Things’ (2012) and ‘The Hunting Party’ (2014).

They also released remixes of their songs featuring “Jay Z” and “Steve Aoki”.

The band is one of the most known rock bands worldwide who sold many songs and won a lot of awards. The members comprise Cester Bennington (lead vocals/screams), Mike Shinoda (vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards, piano), Brad Delson (lead guitar), Dave Farrell (bass), Joe Hahn (turntables, samples, keyboards, synthesizer, programming) and Rob Bourdon (drums, percussion).

I am glad that I had the chance to be part of the concert which was an unforgetable experience and of course a special time!