The Glasgow ACTA protest was more or less as expected. Only around 200 people showed up, and there were internet memes everywhere. The UK pirate party showed up to do some speaking and all that, but overall it was still a bit silly.

We chanted: "...to the US government, to the big corporations, to the 1%; COME AT ME BRO!!"

Occupy got a lot of criticism, but to be fair, this one deserves a bit more. Definitly a worthy cause though!


Few hours later I returned to town to see the Dropkicks Murphys play at the Barrowland Ballroom. Now I haven't been to a lot of gigs, but this was way crazier than what I remembered from others.

Met up with a few buddies and stopped at an Irish pub for a while. I'm not into pubs so it was a bit boring, but it was still somewhat interesting to see the Irish-ness. Anyhoo, did most of my drinking on the way down to the venue, packed some jaeger into a plastic bottle and got rid of that before the bouncers kicked me out at the door. Screw paying £4 for a beer inside the venue.

So it turned out there were two support bands, and it took two and a half hours for the Dropkicks to appear. Really...? Pfffft. Luckily we missed the first 40 minutes. While things were still pretty calm we squeezed pretty near to the front. It got so crammed that you couldn't move at all, and then as soon as Dropkicks showed up and started playing, everyone started rioting and I got pushed back half way accross the hall. I could have battled my way up there, I'm a big guy, but I don't think I'd have the energy to keep it up.

I didn't see my buddies for the next two hours...

There were beer cups flying through the air the whole time. I got splashed 12 times. I counted. Would have been a lot more if I had stayed at the front. The floor was drenched and became a lot like those ball pits for kids, but with plastic cups instead of balls. Soon enough people started crowd surfing and the bouncers were constantly pulling them down. Lots of shirts and shoes flying around too.

Later I retreated some more and found water dispensers, hell yeah. They even had a first-aid area in the corner with three staff sitting around. Not surprised that people end up there...

Oh and for the last two songs, the band got VIP fans up on the stage with them. Altogether it looked like around 50+ people up there, most of them being pretty hot girls.

When the gig finally finished (almost four and a half hours after doors opened) and I met up with my buddies again, two of them had apparently stayed at the front and done some crowd surfing. They were totally drenched.

I would have died.

Anyway, as amazing as it all was, I don't think I'd like to do that more than once a year...
Wonder for how many days my ears will be ringing this time.

Here's a bit of Fields of Athenry that I recorded, I'm such a pirate: [link]
And here's the clearest photo I got overall: [link]