GIG: STATE CHAMPS, SOUND CONTROL, MANCHESTER

On the 23rd of September I finally got round to seeing one of the best pop punk bands in the business!  I have mentioned these guys in a previous favourites post, the band are called STATE CHAMPS, and I can't recommend them highly enough! The doors opened at 6:30, there was an earlier curfew because of a Freshers event later on. 

If you don't know Sound Control there are 3 floors: the basement (500 capacity club/300 capacity live room), Ground floor bar (150 capacity) and a second floor bar (450 capacity live room). For this particular gig we were on the second floor and the merch was laid out downstairs. The venue isn't the prettiest place but I can't flaw it, the staff are all so lovely, easy to get to, however drinks are rather expensive but they are at any gig!

I went with 2 of my best mates and of course ended up meeting new people there, gigs really are one the best places to meet new people!

Onto the actual gig! The first support act was Britsh Pop punk band ROAM. I had listened to these guys previously and only gelled properly with one song 'Warning Sign', however once they started to play I got more and more into there style and enthusiasm! They were a great choice to get everyone warmed up!

Setlist:

Warning sign

Over your head

Foresight

Nothing in return

Cabin fever

You never said

519

Safeguard

Head rush 

The next support act was KNUCKLE PUCK! I love these guys so I was super stoked to finally get to see them especially with my mate who got me into them! Their personalities certainly show up on stage and are great crowd warmers, luckily most people at the gig already knew who they were so circle pits were nessecary and a lot of crowd surfing! The setlist was interesting they only played 3 songs off the new album, I was hoping there would be a couple more but don't get me wrong the old stuff is just as good!

Setlist:

Disdain

But why would you care?

Oak street

Gold rush

True contrite

No good

Pretense

And the grand finale! The boys! STATE CHAMPS!! Like I said before these guys could never disappoint and they certainly didn't that night! Derek's vocals were outstanding, there was nothing I could fault! I wished their set was a little bit longer but unfortunately it had to be quick because of Freshers 😡. Everyone was fully pumped up for the set it was such a positive upbeat atmosphere, no one looked out of place, everyone was shouting the words and getting involved! It was an incredible atmosphere along with the drinking chants! For sure I am going to see these guys again when they next come round with the new album! 

Setlist:

All you are is history

Remedy

Secrets

Prepare to be noticed

Deadly conversation

Simple existence

Easy enough

Nothing's wrong

Hard to please

Losing myself

Elevated

Unfortunately I didn't get to meet anyone afterwards because of the curfew but I did grab some rad merch!

I got the standard ROAM black orange and pink hoodie 

The KNUCKLE PUCK rain hoodie 

The STATE CHAMPS secrets tshirt

And my favourite thing of all, a laminated pass to give me access to the new album a week before it's been properly released! Only 1000 of these passes were made and I managed to get one! I am so so so looking forward to this new album I know it is going to be my jam for the foreseeable future! 

I do highly recommend you all checking out each of the bands I've mentioned, and I'll be back next week with another gig review! You'll have to wait and see who it is! 

Cya later! 

FIRST DAY BACK AT COLLEGE: MAKEUP AND OUTFIT

Hey guys!

I started A2 today and the day didn't last very long but I do now have my new timetable which is slightly better than last year but I still need to get used to it.

I always wear a full face of makeup for college, and I know some people will say it's too much but it makes me feel more confident within myself.

So I thought I'd write a post about the makeup I had on at college today and the outfit I wore.

So starting with the makeup:

(Warning this will be slightly in depth) 

I started off moisturising my face with Simple Cleansing Lotion. I then went in with a mix of Soap & Glory's Hocus Pocus (very similar to the Loreal lumi magique primer) and my Mac Studio Fix, I blended this in with a  Zoeva silk finish brush. I then concealed my spots and dark circles with the Collection lasting perfection concealer. Straight a way I powdered my face with Soap & Glory One heck of a blot powder. 

I wasn't so happy with my brows today I think I just wasn't having a good day. 

I went in with my Soap & Glory archery shaping pen, and on top with MACS eyeshadow in Embark to darken up the tail end of my eyebrows. Over the top I used my Maybelline brow drama in transparent to set them in place.

                           

Onto the eyes 

I used my Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette to start with. I went in with the colour White chocolate on a large fluffy brush and washed this all over my lid. And with the fluffy end of the brush from the naked 2 palette I used semi sweet and dusted this into the crease quite messily. Then I took my Urban Decay smoky palette and the same naked 2 brush and used the shade Whiskey and put this into my crease in a more controlled manner to deepen up the colour. On the rest of my lid I took the Real techniques shading brush and MACS Amber lights eyeshadow, this is my all time favourite eyeshadow because the orange tone really brings out the blue-ness of my eyes. On the Lower lash line I took the brush out of the smoky palette and the pencil brush end and first used Whiskey from the same palette and then Dirtysweet and blended this towards the inner corner of my eye. I lined my bottom water line with Rimmels kajal eye liner pencil in sable brown, and my top water line with the Maybelline Big Eyes eye liner in black.

Now for the eyeliner, I over-exaggerate my eyeliner because it suits my face shape better, so I use my Soap & Glory Supercat for this. I curled my eyelashes and then applied a lot of coats of the Benefit Roller lash mascara to the top lashes and the Maybelline big eyes mascara to the bottom lashes. I use two mascaras because I smile and laugh a lot, the mascara on my lower lashes usually transfers onto my cheeks, and the Maybelline mascara dries really quickly so it never transfers! 

Back to the face I took the Naked Basics 2 Palette and the shade Primal on a Zoeva cream cheek brush and used this as an ashy contour shade, and went over this with the Body Shop Honey Bronzer in the shade 02 using a Lottie London blusher brush. I added Illamasqua's blush in Tremble to the apples of my cheeks using a duo fibre No7 blusher brush, and added The Balms Mary Lou-Manizer to the tops of my cheekbones, tip of the nose, brow bone, inner corners of my eyes, Cupid's bow and the chin using the zoeva luxe highlight brush.

Finally the lips! I used a mixture of two Rimmel lip liners: tiramisu and east end snob and went over the top with the Rimmel Kate nude collection lipstick in the shade 45, and over the top with the No7 high shine gloss stick which unfortunately I don't know the name of since it has rubbed off!

This is the finished makeup look ( have a silly pouting picture since it's the only one that turned out ok!)

My outfit!

I do love grunge/alternative fashion, but I do alternate and wear more "feminine" clothes every now and again, I do love a good compromise. 

Today I went for full alternative!

T-shirt: Fred Perry (brothers old t-shirt)

Blue flannel: New look 

Jeans: New look jeggings- I ripped them myself

Adidas Superstars -I got these particular ones from Foot Locker.

Scrunchie: American Apparel 

Purse: Kath Kidston (limited edition collection from 2014)

My hair by the way is completely natural, this amount of volume and curl is all natural! I hadn't used any products today. 

My bag 

I bought this bag from an online independent clothing company called Friendnfoe about 3 years ago and it has lasted me quite well since I use it everywhere I go! My badges are all from Afflecks Palace except one which is from when I went on the Eurostar to Brussels earlier this year! 

That's all for this post, I hope you enjoyed reading. Next time I do a post like this I'll make sure to get some more decent photos!

SHORT FILMS ON YOUTUBE

YouTube is home to so many different creators and is mainly inhabited by vloggers doing typical challenges and tag videos, but don't get me wrong I do like some of these videos they do have that comedic element to them, but if you're looking for something more substantial you had to go further a field, but not so much nowadays. A couple of years ago I discovered a guy called Berite Gilbert and I don't know how long he has been doing this but he has changed his whole channel and dedicated it to his own short films. His channel varies from videos that are 3 minutes long to much longer and substantial (hate to use the word again but it fits right) films around 30 minutes long.

Recently I got back into watching his films and a week ago he uploaded a 35 minute long short film titled Blue Sushi.

 I didn't watch the trailer for this because I wanted to be surprised and I really was!

The film explores the transgender community and how society reacts to this change. Granted this theme is slightly controversial but watching this film you discover other opinions outside of your own. It is eye opening. 

Of course Bertie didn't do this by himself he had his cast, his costume designers, hair and makeup team etc. This film isn't just credited under Bertie's name, Sammy Paul (ICOEPRproductions) teamed up with Bertie to create a masterpiece in essence. 

I do recommend taking the time out to watch Blue Sushi, the exploration of today's problems and disagreements make the film so relatable that it's hard to just cast it away. 

The link to Blue Sushi is below!

https://youtu.be/HHSDxH0X4T4

So it's not just Bertie on the short film scene there is also Benjamin cook who came to YouTube fame through his Becoming YouTube series. But recently he uploaded his first short film called The Imp of The Perverse. This is nowhere near as long as Blue sushi it spans 14 minutes of your time, but again explores a theme that quite a lot of people understand. That thought, of the monster in your mind that allows you to even think about doing something out of the ordinary for example jumping off a building just to see what it's like.

 This is in the actual short film so I kind of just spoiled it for you, sorry. 

The tag line to this film is "a short film about a monster that may, or may not, be trapped in a wardrobe" which sounds quite light hearted and the acting is also light hearted and comedic, but when you think about it the theme is quite important and requires a level of intelligence to completely understand it. 

Ben Cook has explored this theme so very well it works brilliantly and again it's not all down to him, Ben wrote, directed and edited the short film, but his cast were absolutely brilliant. Dan stokes (danimaticz) has that intelligence, and a very strong voice which takes over the film and really puts the message across without using such big words that no one understands. Supported by jake shiels (jakedapegg) and myles wheeler (itsamemyleo) who add the comedy to the film, the balance between the drama and sarcasm is excellent.

But that's my opinion you should see it for yourself and hope that Ben makes another short film soon!

Again the link is below!

https://youtu.be/3OC1EPWvBoc

Comedy duo Jack & Dean (Jack Howard, Dean Dobbs) make comedy sketches of around 8 minutes long, but recently they got funding from the American producer, director and actor Ron Howard. Howard has been funding some short films recently on the YouTube platform, I think but don't quote me on it but Howard also had a part in Benjamin cooks film I mentioned previously. Anyway Jack and Dean have been on the YouTube scene for quite some time now and earlier this year they released Ghost Fighting Corporation.

 This short film is quite cliche and predictable but that doesn't decrease it's popularity amongst viewers. Jack and Dean write and co-produced the films and sketches they make but also star in them. Their individual personalities come across very similar in all sketches they produce which shows continuity. Jacks sarcasm and deans innocence come together perfectly as the lamest ghost fighting partnership and along with the intelligent Sophie Wu their partnership will be sure to catch every ghost they see.

https://youtu.be/RZW6p2SfRqA

The last creator I would like to mention is a personal favourite of mine, and she is paving her path for the women in the film industry. Hazel Hayes is an incredibly talented producer, writer, actress, singer and wine drinker (watch her tipsy talk series you'll know what I mean) from Ireland. Her accent warms the soul and her vlogs and pms (pretentious monthly scrapbook) series are very enjoyable. However it is clear to see her passion is film making. And she made her first short film called Super brainy zombies over a year ago and it includes some pretty familiar faces from the YouTube platform. Hazel wrote, produced, directed and starred in the film and she does so brilliantly. Since her first film she has made a horror film Dementia which I'm genuinely scared to watch after a minute in! And septem. Septem is possibly the cleverest concept displayed in a film. I will not spoil the film one bit but it is one of the best short films I've ever watched the directing is brilliant, acting excellent and script is perfect! Again hazel called the help of good friend Sammy Paul to help write and direct Septem, but they are a match made in filmmaking heaven!

Hazel is about to release another short film titled Weapon and I am very excited to see how this falls into place with a very talented cast and the drive from hazel it's bound to be brilliant!

Watch septem below!

https://youtu.be/4NY-VaemQ7Y

This was a bit of a random post, but I love to open up discussions on any topics I seem interested in.

So I'd like to know what you think of short films being uploaded to the YouTube platform, and how do you think short films will progress in the future. Do you think the creators will expand? Do you think film creators will be more or less successful than other youtubers?

Let me know! 

IS SPOTIFY PREMIUM WORTH IT?

Hey guys so I have a very different post for you today, and as you can tell from the title this post is about Spotify.

I heard of spotify through a friend about 3 years ago and I logged in through my Facebook account purely for listening to music whilst doing my homework. But now that I have a definite taste and I am so much more serious about music, I store everything here.

For 3 full years I have used Spotify free service, this never was much of a problem until recently. Obviously with the free service you have to put up with adverts and you can't listen to music without an Internet connection. This never used to bother me because I had my iPod touch which more music from iTunes on there, but I filled up my iPod recently and instead of buying a new iPod I bought an iPad with more storage to have more music. This idea was perfectly substantial until my iPad failed to connect to my iTunes account therefore not allowing me to transfer any of my music across. So i only have Spotify free now. 

Now you'd think I'd just pay for premium £10 a month isn't too bad but I am a college student and yes I do have a job but that money is for everything, my travel costs for college and essentials I need, food and drink etc. so paying for premium is always something I've put off. 

On the other hand I upgraded my phone a year ago and got a better contract and I have 2GB of data but Spotify uses a heck of a lot of my data so again is quite inconvenient. But for the time being I have been using my data for Spotify on my phone - side note the phone version of Spotify doesn't let you choose a song you can only press shuffle and are allowed 7 skips for the whole day. 

But last week I saw an article about Spotify changing their free policy and making things a lot worse. Once the system is put in place that's if the company goes through with it you will be even more limited to what you can do. Only being allowed to save a few songs from albums and this is on top of annoying adverts and nothing available offline. Is having the free version just pointless? 

So in light of this article I caved and got the Spotify premium trial. So for a month I have Spotify premium for free and so far it is an absolute god send! I had a 6 hour car journey to Scotland this weekend and I abused premium to the max and it didn't drain my battery either!

My trial ends mid September and I'm still trying whether to carry on Premium.

Luckily one of my close friends told me about the UniDays app and it offers a 50% discount for Spotofy Premium for a year. All you have to do is tell them where you go to university/college and give them your college email address and confirm. Then you get Premium for £4.99 a month which I think is worth it! 

That's my plan of action so if any students are thinking about getting premium be sure to check out UniDays first (Disclaimer:this is not sponsored). 

I would like to know your thoughts on spotify's new policy ideas and wether you think Spotiy is overpriced considering how many people that use the service?

Let me know! 

AUGUST FAVOURITES!

Another month has come and gone, so it's time for another monthly favourites!

Beauty

This month I have re-discovered an old favourite of mine which is the Nars Audacious lipstick in the shade Julie.
I've had this lipstick since the start of the year and I used it for about a month or two none stop, but then I swapped to more brown toned lipsticks and completey forgot about it. But this month I picked it back up again since the weather was getting a lot better I wanted a brighter colour on my lips! The staying power of this lipstick is average, it lasts for about 4 hours without needing to touch up but because it's not too dark it's really not a problem to touch up when out and about and it's not drying in the slightest!

With most lipsticks I do pair them with a lipliner and this one is an old favourite, The rimmel 1000 kisses lipliner in tiramisu.

This lipliner is quite drying if i'm honest on it's own but for the price of £2.99 you can't really go wrong, although since the lipstick is quite moisturising, dryness is never a problem for me, but exfoliating your lips with a lip scrub will always be necessary. This combination has been my go to this month, the muted coral colour really suits my pale skin and blue eyes. I do highly recommend checking out the audacious lipsticks from Nars, however they are rather expensive (£24 each) so it would make the perfect luxury gift. 

This month I have explored a little more with soap & glory's makeup range. Their supercat eyeliner is my holy grail eyeliner, but I had never tried anything else. I will admit that their range is somewhat expensive compared to collection or sleek. I would say the price range is on par with revlon, and I will confidently say I prefer soap & glory's products!

This month I picked up the one heck of a blot powder, in the past I have been using no7 loose powder which works for most of my face but is incapable of setting underneath my eyes and on my nose, yet the one heck of a blot powder can do that perfectly! 

This powder gives a lovely matte finish, not cachey in slightest. As far as I'm aware I bought it for £12 but don't quote me on that! Also I think the powder only comes in one colour, so this would not be suitable for tanned/dark skin tones. Although the other powders from the brand are available in different colours but I haven't had first hand experience trying these out yet. 

The second thing I bought was the archery brow tint and shaping pen. 

I only started filling in my brows recently and as cliche as it sounds they definitely do frame your face. But I only used an eyeshadow and a clear gel, so I wanted to try something different, that is build able. So I bought archery in the shade brownie points (cutest name award!). At one end is a very light brown wax which adds more colour with more pressure, and at the other end is a very flexible and fine felt tip with a little more colour pay off, great for mimicking hair like strokes. After using this product I would trust it enough to stay in place all day but I still use a clear brow gel over the top to show texture. This product is very lightweight and smooth which is great for me because if there is too much product in my brows I start to get headaches which is why I've stopped using the loreal brow plumper since it is so coarse and stiff once dry. 

I will be experimenting more with soap & glory makeup soon I'm sure of it!

Hair

I have one hair favourite this month and it is my straighteners. My mum bought me these a few months back since I used to use a pair of stylers to make my hair straight and it just didn't last. I have avoided styling my hair at all for a couple of years because my hair admittedly is in awful condition, but since I went to the hairdressers last I've had more confidence to style my hair again. My hair is insanely thick and curly naturally, so straightening used to take for ever! But that's all changed. These straighteners are by John Freida and unfortunately I couldn't tell you the name because I've gotten rid of the box, but this is what they look like.

They are brilliant for my hair and not totally over expensive. I think they were £40 from boots. 

The cool thing about these straighteners is that they heat up to 220 degrees and have a "care" setting allowing the heat to be distributed evenly throughout the tongs and glide smoothly through the hair, decreasing the amount of split ends!

This next favourite is hair related but is a scrunchie. As I said before my hair is so thick that it always gets caught up in traditional bobbles, so I resorted to scrunchies. I had 3 from American apparel which are brilliant, but they are all dark colours. So I walked into new look and found this beautiful minty blue chiffon type scrunchie and I haven't had it out of my hair since. And for £2.99 you can't go wrong!

Music & Film

Now this month I've seen some awesome releases, and I haven't been short of anything to listen to! My spotify has drastically enlarged over the course of August!

Two albums have had me hooked this month.

First is Don Brocos second album - Automatic.

 I don't know anyone out there in the industry using musical abilities in such a funky way. Rob's vocals are like no other but combined with matt's high pitched backing vocals they are a match made in heaven. Catchy riffs and deep powerful bass lines are the perfect combination for such a feel good album like automatic. 

Songs I recommend:

- Automatic

- Superlove

- Nerve 

The second album release is by British Pop Punk stars Neck Deep. 

There second album titled Life's Not Out To Get You is a masterpiece. 

Pop punk really is the genre of the summer to get you pumped and upbeat for the rest of year. And neck deep certainly bring this to the party. Of course catchy choruses are in order, found in their lead single. The deluxe comes with a couple of beautiful raw acoustic versions of some of the songs, and they definitely didn't disappoint either!

Songs I recommend:

- Can't kick up the roots

- Gold Steps

- Lime St. 

My film favourite this month is: Bad education: the movie!

I am a massive Jack Whitehall fan I think he's a fantastic stand up comedian. When it comes to his TV shows though Fresh Meat and Bad Education never appealed to me. But I thought I'd give the movie a go, and it was exactly what I expected very cringe-worthy! But I still loved it. A lot of cringe attacks happened during the film but I was constantly laughing and smiling and that's all I could really ask from it. The character of Alfie wickers is brilliant and comedic and so naive but as frustrating as his character is he always leaves you with a smile on your face! 

I have one extra favourite this month and it is Costa Hot chocolate!

Now that summer has come to an end and the weather has turned miserable I've found myself switching from the fruit coolers to the original hot chocolate. I love the winter months wearing cosy jumpers and fluffy socks, it's my favourite and hot chocolate makes everything even better!

So that's it, that wraps up another monthly favourites! I hope you guys enjoyed reading!

I am back in college next week so I can't promise a lot of posts going up but I will try my best!