The Blackout!

I went to see The Blackout for the 13th time on Wednesday and as always they were amazing, they just never get boring. I could go see them everyday and it would never get old.
They were supported by The Proxies and Sonic Boom Six. The Proxies were quite good and I've heard some of their songs before so I knew what to expect. But then Sonic Boom Six were awful, their songs just sounded so messy and all of the place. They really weren't my cup of tea.
Before the gig The Blackout did a signing so I got to meet them again for the third time, as before I'd had a backstage pass to one of their Sheffield gigs after I'd pledged money for their third album Hope, which was really cool. As usual they were really sweet to everyone and really appreciated that I'd bought the album. I also got my photo taken with Snoz :)


The intro started and everyone went wild, the band walked on except Sean and Gavin. The rest of the band started playing Start The Party and on run the front men who then blow confetti everywhere causing everyone to go a bit crazy and try and catch it as well as singing their hearts out and beaming like lunatics. As always they were so energetic and exciting. One thing I love about this band is that they always involve the crowd, if someone shouts something out they respond, or they get you to do some crazy dance and sing a long, they are always so much fun. They then went on to play We Live On; another new song from Start The Party which still got a great reaction even though not everyone had heard it before. Then they went straight into Higher and Higher which was fantastic and followed by The Devil Inside, one of my favourite songs of Hope! Sean then dedicated This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things to a little kid who was on the side balcony area, telling him to not be in a band and to "become Tony Stark and then turn into Iron Man instead". This was the first song they played from The Best In Town. They chose a great selection of songs from all their albums not concentrating too much on one album. This was followed by Running Scared which is apparently about Gavin's experience with Heroin according to Sean, showing how much they can joke around (I think anyway) and make the gig that much more enjoyable. They played another of my favourites from Hope; The Storm so I was super excited 'cause they were playing loads of my favourites :). Then straight into Shutthefuckuppercut which is a super energetic song showing just how phenomenal their stage presence is. And before going into It's High Tide Baby, which I am so glad they played, Sean said they would play a song from their old album 'cause that's when they "used to be heavy" and when they "used to be good", basically taking the piss out of everyone that says their old stuff is better. They go into The Last Goodbye and then another song from Start The Party; Radio. They then go into another much loved song Hope. They went into Children Of The Night showing that Gavin and Sean work really well together on stage and all their parts are perfectly on time. This was another great sing-a-long song, and was great to hear so many people chant "We Are The Children of The Night, We Are The Children!". After that they played my favourite from TheBlackoutTheBlackoutTheBlackout;  I'm A Riot? You're A Fucking Riot! causing everyone to go absolutely insane especially The Blackout themselves, singing/screaming their hearts out and jumping around the stage not really caring if they get hurt showing just how much they love playing. They ended on Save Our Selves (The Warning) getting everyone to crouch down on the floor, as they always do, and then leaping up in the air when after they've chanted "Going Out, Going Out, Going Out", and is just incredible to see everyone all jump up together.

Like I said before The Blackout always communicate with the audiences Sean asked everyone if they had behinds, to which most people were a bit confused as to why he was asking that. He then asked in an American accent if we had asses, and then asked us if we had bums which got the best reaction. He went on to tell us that we all needed to shake our bums on this next song even if it meant we were thrusting the person in front, saying that we shouldn't worry if they are the same sex as us 'cause all we have to do is "look up and it's not gay"... God I love this band haha. (I can't remember what song this was before. I'm useless!)
They are always so funny on stage and don't take themselves too seriously which is great to see as there's nothing more boring than a band who doesn't look like they are enjoying themselves on stage!

So basically it was one of my favourite Blackout gigs. They just get better and better every time I see them. It was a great gig to start the year with, bring on the next tour!  Giving it 9/10!

Setlist:

Start The Party 

We Live On

Higher & Higher

The Devil Inside 

This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

Running Scared

The Storm 

ShutTheFuckUppercut

It’s High Tide Baby! 

The Last Goodbye

Radio

Hope (Scream It Out Loud) 

Children Of The Night

I’m A Riot? You’re A Fucking Riot!

Save Ourselves (The Warning)

Videos:

Beauty Favourites of 2012

Lancome- Teint Idole Ultra 24hr Foundation

Makeup Forever- HD Foundation

Urban Decay- Primer Potion

Makeup Forever- Aqua Cream 003 & 027

Urban Decay - 15 Year Anniversary Palette

M.A.C -  Mineralize Skin Finish Powder

M.A.C - Concealer

M.A.C - Mineralize Skin Finish Blush in Rings Of Saturn

Rimmer London- Lipstick in Asia
Rimmel London- Supeliner

Urban Decay- Stargaze Lipgloss in Andromeda

Benefit- High Beam
Benefit- BadGal Lash

Real Techniques Stipling Brush

OPI- Metallic 4 Life

Lush- Grease Lightening

Lush- Snow Globe Soap

Black XS

Clinique - Anti-Blemish Solutions Clarifying Lotion

Aussie - Miracle Moist Conditioner and Shampoo
Aussie- Curl Defining and Shine Mousse
Batiste Dry Shampoo
Eylure Dylash
L'Oreal- Superliner

These are all my beauty faves of last year. In my video I go into a bit of detail about each product and why I love it :)
I hope you guys enjoy it even though I do go on a bit haha.

Christmas Baking

 I get super excited for Christmas and went a bit mental and baked too much. I thought it would be nice to make some treats for Christmas day, so I baked some mojito cupcakes, vanilla cupcakes and a cute gingerbread house. I used the receipe from the Hummingbird Bakery book for the mojito cupcakes, which me and my brother thought tasted great but my parents weren't so keen. I then decorated them with Dr Oetkers Cupcake icing in vanilla and then used some gold flakes and some red and white chunks as well as snowmen from my White Christmas decoration pack from Lakeland.
I created a few Christmas Tree cupcakes as well just using green icing, silver and gold pearls and then a white chocolate star on the top. These were so much fun to do and I'm really happy with how they turned out.

The gingerbread house took forever but was so worth it as it tasted so good! We've still got some left two weeks later and it still tastes great. I bought a gingerbread house silicone mould from Lakeland for £11.99 which included the moulds for the tree and children. The children are a bit burnt as the gingerbread cooked faster than the recipe stated so next time I do it I won't leave it in for as long but luckily the house was fine. I decorated it with icing, jelly tots and peanut M&M's and LOADS of icing sugar to make it all snowy and cute.
I also managed to get the whole kitchen covered in icing when I tried to use the electric whisk...fail. The bowl I used wasn't deep enough so icing went every where haha.
The gingerbread took about 25mins to cook even though it said 35mins in the recipe so keep an eye on it if you're planning on making a gingerbread house and you've never done it before like me :)


I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year xxx

Clothes Show Live

About two weeks ago I went to the Clothes Show Live in Birmingham and I completely forgot to upload this! Anyway I just thought I'd share with everyone what I thought about it and also everything I bought.

I've been to the Clothes Show once before about 4 or 5 years ago I honestly can't remember and it was great, I loved it, the catwalk was fantastic and so was the selection of clothes and make-up.

This year I was a little disappointed. When we got there we were offered a clothes show bag and guide for £8 which also meant you could get two goody bags at the end of the day so me and my sister thought great! Yeah we'll deffo get that. And I really wish we hadn't bothered. What they didn't tell you was that everyone got a free goody bag at the end of the day so I effectively paid £8 for one goody bag and a guide which sounds okay I guess apart from when I got the goody bags. They both contained pretty much the same things which was tissues, toothpaste, perfume samples, free samples of BB cream, 2 bounty bars, a sample of firming cream, oh and 2 sanitary towels... Woop woop. All of the things in there were samples which company's gladly send you for free if you sign up to their mailing list or something. I've had loads of samples of toothpastes and BB creams for free before through the post so to say I paid £8 for more free samples was a little annoying.

We didn't go to the catwalk this year as no one in my family wanted to and I didn't want to go on my own which sucks as I think it would have been the best thing about the clothes show this year as most of the clothes stands were disappointing to say the least. There were some great clothes stands; the graduate stands, David and Goliath, Candy Kittens, Vero Moda, Drop Dead, Oh My Love and some of the vintage stands. But Drop Dead and Vero Moda had hardly any clothes to choose from. Most of the clothes stands were selling clothes similar to what you could buy from my local market and they all seemed to be selling the same crap! So the only clothes I bought were some PJ's and a t-shirt from David and Goliath.

The CSL did have some great make-up and accessories stands so I got loads of make-up and some jewellery and was still really enjoyable but just not as good as I hoped.

Models Own were selling goody bags for £10 which included any two of their nail varnish's which you got to choose from a HUGE selection. So effectively you got everything else for free as their nail varnish's are usually £5 anyway. The goody bag included:
Some small nail clippers,
2 powder eye shadows: Neon Blue and Metallic Olive
Black eyeliner pencil
Red lip liner
Peachy/Pink lipgloss
Hi- Definer Pro-Eyeliner in black
Nail art pen in black
4 eye shadow applicators
Nail varnish in Mushroom- grey/beige with no shimmer.
Nail varnish in Red/Black- really deep red looks black in most light.

I also go the Rimmel London goody bag in Glam Rock for £10. This included:

60 second nail varnish in 615 Fast & Fuchisia which is a hot pink/purple sort of blend but it isn't too bright.

Metal Rush nail varnish in 100 Pearly Queen- subtle pearl with green and purple undertones.

Precious Stones nail varnish in 001 Diamond Dust- Grey/gunmetal with lost of multicoloured glitter particles.

Scandaleyes Show Off Mascara

Trio Eye Shadow in 791 Sapphire Moonstone.

Lasting Finish 1000 Kisses lip tint/balm in 600 Carry on Cherry.

The Sleek goody bag was mega bargain! It was just £10 and included mainly full sized products, which were;
Sleek eyeshadow palette in Storm
Glo Body and Face highlighter in Bronze Baby (493)
False Eyelashes
Glossed lipgloss in Whisper (970)

Bronze Baby

Storm Palette

The Elle goody bag had a few cute things in and was only £2. This was a total bargain even though two of the items in it are only mini versions it's still a good price.

There was two Elle magazines as well as;
A mini Benefit Badgal Mascara,
Jemma Kid eyeliner,
St Tropez Everyday Body Moisturiser.

I also went to the Regal Rose stand and bought some jewellery as it was a lot cheaper than on their website and I had a 5% discount with my CSL magazine. It all came to about £19.95 when it should have been £27.
They have a great selection of jewellery on their website which I've gone and bought a few things from so I will probably do a post on those later as well.

All in all it was a good day and I'm happy with everything I got even though the clothes were a bit disappointing but it's still worth going to. Sorry this was such a long post I got a bit carried away.