Off topic Post of the Year 2025

[HarmonicGenerator]

We don’t have a thread yet, but for posts like this, we should. @JLM in the Funerals thread.

 

Edited February 5 by HarmonicGenerator
Changing it back to avoid confusion

[SuperBacon]

This is amazing.

13 minutes ago, waters44 said:

Not sure if i've ever told this story but I was almost put off of driving for life when I was a teen

My Dad bought a new work van and we went together to go and pick it up from the garage. All good. 

We pull out of the garage, traffic is very busy and moving quite slow. Up ahead there are loads of people stood on the pavement crowding over something. The cars pull slowly forward and we get right next to where all these pedestrians are, it turns out someone is very ill on the floor and people are desperately trying to help.

An ambulance comes flying down the other side of the road and screeches to a halt two inches in front of us. Police arrive a few seconds later. Dad's been driving this van for about ten minutes and travelled about 100 feet at this point. There is a bus right behind us with countless cars behind that. Just chaos. 

The police are shouting at us to go backwards. Dad puts it in reverse, but because it's so new he hasn't got the feel for how big it is, so he's reluctant to go back in case he hits the bus. He's trying to move forward and back to get around the ambulance, literally like Austin Powers in the corridor

The situation is already so stressful but then it heads into unbearable territory. Because it's so new Dad is resting on the horn whilst manoeuvring around and doesn't realise its him. 

So picture this. Someone is half dead on the floor. Good samaritans and paramedics are trying to help them. My dad is right next to them, in a big van, with his horn in a perpetual beep. Everyone is shouting. Dad's swearing. And i'm sat in the passengers seat trying not to burst into tears with everyone looking at me. I'm shouting at Dad "Go back!" and he's shouting back "I can't son, I'm too close to the bus, I can see the whites of the driver's eyes!"

I find it really fucking funny to think back on now but at the time I didn't think I'd ever get in a car again!

 

 

[SuperBacon]

Brilliant write up by @FLips

35 minutes ago, FLips said:

I finally finished watching Miami Vice and though it definitely fizzles out over the last couple of seasons, it was a pretty fantastic and in hindsight groundbreaking show. Seasons 1-3 are mostly brilliant with just a few filler episodes, Season 4 is mostly filler with two absolute all-time stinkers and a handful of great episodes, but Season 5 is fairly missable. Nothing as bad as the lows of Season 4, but outside of a fitting finale and the episodes that bleed over from the end of Season 4's arch, there's not much to see.

It was counter productive in that where most shows start with a lead character or two and the rest of the cast grow in popularity and it becomes an ensemble, Miami Vice started about the whole team with side characters getting their own strong focused episodes but eventually it became just about Tubbs and Crocket and it started to lose the magic those first seasons had where everyone had a part to play.

They also, I imagine due to waning popularity, lose sight of what makes the show good as they get into Season 5. 1-4 are all set in the 80s so what you usually get is that Vice City aesthetic of cocaine busts, speedboat races, bright beaches and 80s pop and it works beautifully because when they go darker in some episodes, the contrast is obvious. The whole show oozes personality and it (maybe) innovated the "dramatic moment set to chart music" that a lot of later shows followed.

Season 5 stumbles though because now we're in the 90s. Jan Hammer, the composer leaves and so the whole sound aesthetic changes. Aside from the carryover from Season 4 in the first few episodes, the synth and pop is replaced by moody guitar riffs. They never make a full transition into 90s music though so there's not much character there when it comes to big moments. The episodes get much bleaker, including a "lost" episode that wasn't aired in it's original run where CCH Pounder sells her daughter to her dealer for crack. 

When it's good though, it's great. Some episodes are outstanding and the cast of actors that show up throughout the run is unbelievable. It's a who's who of character actors, pre-fame celebrities and stars. It touches on heavy subject matters and does them quite sensitively; murder, rape, child prostitution, police corruption, racism, addiction and everything between. Highlight episodes include:

• Tubbs is undercover in a corrupt prison but his cover is blown and they have to break him out before he's killed. The Miami department storm the prison to The Damned's "In Dulce Decorum"

• Gina is undercover and in an attempt to not blow it sleeps with sleazy Burt Young and has a breakdown
•  An arc between Season 4 and 5 where Crockett gets amnesia in an explosion and believes he's his undercover identity "Burnett" and completely goes off the deep end. Season 5 opens with the Death music from Shadow of The Beast 2 (which the game stole from this)

• Several that feature Dennis Farina as Crime Boss Al Lombard, who has a somewhat respectful love/hate relationship with Crockett and Tubbs
• A Pre-Sopranos episode in the Burnett Arc where Crockett is having wild dreams trying to remember who he was

• An episode where Bruce McGill plays a "wacky" retired cop who turns up to help Crockett and Tubbs find a drug lord, but it turns out McGill retired because him and his partner killed him and buried him in a wall after he got off on a technicality when they originally busted him
• An episode where Crockett gets a serial killer off Death Row because even though he's a serial killer he didn't commit the murder of a cop he's being executed for, except in a big heartbreaking twist set to Peter Gabriel's "Milgram's 37" it's revealed he did actually kill them and he manipulated Crockett.

I know the post has been video heavy, but it's sort of what Miami Vice ultimately was about. At it's best it was Top of The Pops but with car chases and guns. To explain certain plots without the music backing them often doesn't do it justice. One of the biggest scenes from the whole run was a bunch of driving set to "In The Air Tonight" and it's one of those things that isn't done justice just explaining it, but when you watch it you get a feel for what Miami Vice was all about.

And outside of the Shadow of The Beast 2 riff, it obviously massively inspired Grand Theft Auto Vice City. Phillip Michael Thomas (Tubbs in MV) voiced Lance Vance, and Crockett's Theme was played on the in-game radio station.

So yeah, all in all, really enjoyed Miami Vice. It was mostly highs and a couple of lows, but it got a good finale to send it off and oftentimes felt like I was watching something important when it came to inspiring other work I'd seen or played before this. It balanced comedy, drama, tragedy and style really well and while it definitely felt like it was ready to end and the cast weren't arsed towards the end of Season 5 due to it being cancelled and the overall feeling of the 80s being over looms. There's less chart music, less glow, less pop, and Crockett and Tubbs are disillusioned and burnt out. It does make me wonder if they leaned more into the 90s aesthetics and grunge soundtrack, could it have kept it's heart and continued? 

An excellent show (for the most part) that could have an entire thread just about the soundtrack and another thread just for the amount of character actors show up in it. Will definitely watch again at some point but likely just Seasons 1-3, and the good bits from 4 and 5. 

My next boxset is Kojak. Who loves ya, baby?

 

 

[Gus Mears]

11 hours ago, Ironic Indie Lad said:

This is probably going to be my longest post ever but I just wanted to share my thoughts after attending Back to the Beginning.

I really wanted a ticket to this as soon as I found out it was happening. The incredible demand when it on sale saw me left out. I tried to tell myself "its fine" / "it wont be that good anyway!" etc. for months but deep down I knew this was unmissable. I only managed to finally buy a ticket on the 28th of June, one week before the event.

I was up and out at 5am to make my 6:30am train from Glasgow to Birmingham. Very quick stop off at (an extremely sketchy) Hotel on Hagley Road and then taxi to Aston. 

I got inside and took my seat and it was instantly apparent that people genuinely had come from all over the world to be there. To my right were a couple of Brazilian guys, to my left a couple from Japan. I also spotted Lee Dorrian of early Napalm Death and Cathedral fame nearby and Sam Dunn who did the Headbangers Journey, Flight 666, Beyond The Lighted Stage and Metal Evolution documentaries.

MASTODON and ANTHRAX absolutely breezed by. A good sign. It was clear short, sharp sets with really short turnarounds was going to be the order of the day. I thought this worked REALLY well and made it pretty much impossible to get even slightly bored. If you didnt like a band or were not familiar with their material, no big deal, another one would be on in like 25 mins anyway. I loved Mastodons cover of Supernaut. One of the best Sabbath songs and Brann Dailor did a great job with the high vocals. 

I wasnt familiar with RIVAL SONS. This is not the kind of thing I go for at all. Reminds me of Wolfmother and I mean that as a truly massive insult. Mercifully brief.

HALESTORM I am aware of but have never knowingly heard their music. Seems like the sort of thing that's way bigger in America than in Europe? Cant say I enjoyed their own material but the Perry Mason cover was great and Lzzy Hale realistically had one of the best voices of the entire day.

LAMB OF GOD were a band I used to be a huge, huge fan of when I was younger. Ashes of the Wake and Sacrament were big records for me in the 00s and I saw them live loads of times back then. It's been a long time since I enjoyed one of their records but clearly they remain a great live band. It came off that this occasion meant a lot to Randy Blythe and he managed to speak quite a lot about it despite the brief set. Children of the Grave absolutely brought the house down and with surprisingly clean vocals too!

ALICE IN CHAINS for me are a top 10 of all time. Huge band for me for years and years. I cannot really explain why but they came on, the sun was out, everyone was absolutely belting out Man in The Box and the occasion just got to me at that point. It sounds stupid but I honestly could not believe I was there, what I was watching, what was still to come. I had tears in my eyes for the first of many times. Would? remains an all timer. Fairies Wear Boots was a great choice for them. Jerry Cantrell, if you are reading this, just know you are one of my guys. 

SUPERGROUP A could (and perhaps should) have been an absolute shambles. It definitely had the potential for a car crash. It definitely felt that way when Jake E Lee took forever to come out leaving everyone looking slightly confused. Great job by all involved on Ultimate Sin and just really nice to see Jake E Lee playing that one.

David Draiman fuck off and fuck off forvever obviously. A shite guy from a truly terrible band. 

Yungblud. I was not prepared for this at all. Incredible voice singing a song I really, really love. First half of the song just had Nuno Bettencourt with his back to the crowd with the Diogo Jota 20 Liverpool Shirt on. Crying like a baby.

As a side bar on Nuno, obviously Tom Morello was the "director" of this. There is no way Nuno didnt have a huge role in holding the entire thing every time he was on stage. The riffs, the solos, he was always giving other guys little cues etc. One of the real MVPs of the event really. 

GOJIRA. Fuck me. An incredible live band at this point. Under the Sun was maybe the best cover choice of the day to this point. What a job they did.

From here, it got mental.

I went out to to try and get some food and water beneath the lower tier seating. As anyone there knows the queues for toilets, drinks and food were truly insane the entire day. I walked around for a bit and eventually found a steward who gave me some botted water. I went back into the arena but at the section by the stage and thought I would just walk back along to my section. It was then I noticed people were just freely walking in and out of the front standing. I cant speak for the entire day but, at that time, whatever steward was there just had given up on caring about checking wristbands. In I went. Lovely stuff. 

SUPERGROUP B. This was fever dream stuff. Members of Rage Against the Machine and Tool playing Judas Priest WITH KK Downing and its Billy Corgan on vocals. What is even happening? Oh Ronnie Wood has appeared. Oh and now Steven Tyler is singing Led Zeppelin. Utter surreal carnage. I haven't the faintest idea of this was actually good but live it was an experience I wont forget. In amongst all that, Tobias Forge did a *great* job with Bark at the Moon. 

PANTERA were great. Only slightly ruined by a guy beside me. Phil said something to the effect of "Black Sabbath...one of the best of all time. Who's better?" This Bozo shouted "THE WHITE STRIPES". Ok bro. They definitely seemed to go down the best of any band so far from where I was. On a day like this, with this crowd, when you can whip out a song like Walk its going to go down a storm. 

TOOL. One of my favourite bands. Of any band on this entire bill, they were the ones I thought might get pretty weird with it so I didnt really know what to expect here. It was pretty weird to see Tool just walk out and start playing with none of the visuals that come with their own production. Also notable in that they were on the stream and shown in close ups, both things they tend to avoid. Forty Six and and 2 as an opener, Hand of Doom cover and then Aenima. This was incredible. Maynard sang so well and Danny Carey is probably the greatest living rock drummer.

SLAYER. I count myself lucky to have seen Slayer when it was Lombardo and Hanneman still in the band. They were one of the bands where I have to be a bit wanky about as, for me, its really not the same without them. Lombardo especially is easily one of the best drummers for metal ever. I heard someone say recently that South of Heaven is the best air drumming album of all time. It just might be! Having said all that, I am a big fan of Gary Holt and he does a superb job in this line up. Tom sounds better than he probably has any right to and Kerry King still basically looks and plays the exact same. A brief Slayer set is all you need. DARKNESS OF CHRIST INTRO (!!!!) into Disciple was sooooo good. War Ensemble, South of Heaven, Raining Blood and Angel of Death. There honestly are not many bands who could whip out songs of that quality one after the other.

GNR was *baffling*. Axl looks like Jim Davidson after a huge crisis and he sounds like a Family Guy paedo. Opening with 3 straight Sabbath Covers was a bold move, especially since one was a very deep cup that nobody knew (Juniors Eyes). It was quite cool to see Sabbath Bloody Sabbath all the same. At the end of the day, its still Axl, Slash and Duff so people did go crazy for Welcome to the Jungle and Paradise City. 

METALLICA. What can you say? One of the best live bands ever. One of the best bands at covers ever. Just one of the best bands ever full stop really. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that they would rule the day and they did. When they were coming on I was standing there thinking "I have been into Metallica since the 90s, I have been going to see them for 20 years...". A long, long time loving this band. This old man was feeling emotional again ffs! Johnny Blade was a WILD choice but they made it their own like they always do. Its funny because me and a friend had a chat just last week about the absolute nailed on top 3 Metallica songs of all time. We came to an agreement that it just might be Creeping Death, Battery and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Can only assume Lars has access to my phone / mind as the bastards played all 3. Having seen Metallica 10 times now, I was fucking delighted to not hear Enter Sandman, Nothing Else Matters or Sad But True.

Honestly felt really weird at this point in the day. I had no clue what to expect from OZZY OSBOURNE. Feared it might be sad or embarrassing. I dont think I have ever been to any concert before where there was a sort of shared mood of "what the fuck are we about to see?" in the air. 

As soon as Mike Inez and Zakk Wylde walked out, I knew we were going to be fine. What a band. There was just absolutely not a single chance those lads were going to let this die on its arse and neither were the crowd. HUGE Credit to Zakk in particular. I was standing on his side of the stage near the front at this point. He was constantly just giving Ozzy these little looks to check he was ok, he was right there at the mic to chime in with some additional vocals every time he was needed and (obviously) he played the Ozzy material so fucking perfectly.

Ozzy did way more than I thought. I really thought maybe just Mama I'm Coming Home and Crazy Train. I Dont Know, Mr Crowley and Suicide Solution. What a treat. ALL THINGS CONSIDERED and with god knows what trickery and effects, the man still sounded like Ozzy Osbourne. You can really see what this meant to the man. Legs shaking from Parkinsons the entire time, clearly desperate to stand up, tears in his eyes. I have never seen anything like this and might never again.

Lets be real here, there wasn't a dry eye in the house for Mama I'm Coming Home. Unforgettable to see that live on this occasion. Really this was magical. Then to close on Crazy Train just brought the place down completely. I dont think it came off on the live stream as obviously the crowd was low in the mix but my god it was loud in there.

And then to finish it all off. After all of that. Somehow it wasn't over and we still had BLACK SABBATH to go. THE Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath. Ozzy, Tony, Geezer and Bill. The same 4 guys dating back to 1968 for one final time. Quite how this is even possible is kind of mind blowing. 

Tony Iommi is still just the most effortlessly cool guy of all time. Geezer is the man and played like a maniac. Bill Ward had his fucking top off! War Pigs, NIB (didn't expect that), Iron Man and Paranoid. Beautiful. Cried the entire time. Caught some confetti which I will frame or something. 

One of the best days of my entire life and I am beyond lucky to have been there. 

New standard has been set for how to bow out in style and I expect we will see similar events in the future.

Whole thread has been great reading last few days, but thoroughly enjoyed this in particular.

Edited July 7, 2025 by Gus Mears

[Ironic Indie Lad]

10 hours ago, Gus Mears said:

Whole thread has been great reading last few days, but thoroughly enjoyed this in particular.

Oh wow, thank you!

[Guest]

On 7/2/2025 at 12:57 PM, Gus Mears said:

Got woken up by about 15 people talking loudly outside my window at 4 in the pissing morning. Left it a few minutes and they carried on, so gave it the old, 'Do you have any idea what time it is? Some of us are trying to get some sleep.'

'Yeah, our building is on fire,' one of them replied as the fire engine rolled down the street.

 

You're unlikely to get a better post for the number of words. Made my day.

[SuperBacon]

@cobra_gordo tribute to Ozzy.

6 minutes ago, cobra_gordo said:

I was a complete mess last night, just completely derailed by the news. We so often say how shocking certain celebrity deaths are and, despite me telling my wife after Back To The Beginning I'd give Ozzy another 12 months to live, it still hit me like a ton of bricks when she told me he'd gone. I ended up knelt on our living room floor in tears, just overwhelmed.

I first discovered Ozzy in 1999 when I was 14. I'd been a classic rock fan, then in to prog, then hard rock and had started getting in to metal properly the year before when Nirvana and Metallica came crashing in to my life and opened the door for Korn, Deftones and the like. I knew who Ozzy was, I'd heard of Black Sabbath due to family members telling me how they'd seen them at Sheffield City Hall in the 70's but I'd never heard a note of his or their music. And then I heard Crazy Train for the first time on a free CD included with a guitar magazine. Who the fuck was this man? Why was his vocal style so odd yet so engaging? Who the fuck was that guitar player? I was an instant fan, the rabbit hole opened up and that was that. I was obsessed with Ozzy's solo work for a couple of years before I heard anything by Sabbath that wasn't Paranoid, War Pigs or Iron Man. And when I did, the rabbit hole opened up again.

The influence of Ozzy and Sabbath on my life as a musician and a metal fan cannot be understated. As a guitar player I've been saying for years that four of the biggest influences on my playing as a teenager and in to my early 20's were all guitarists associated with Ozzy. The man surrounded himself with the absolute best and his joy watching them play was infectious. To 18 year old me Randy Rhoades was God, Jake E Lee had these incredible flourishes that I'd try and replicate and Zakk Wylde had the swagger and pinch harmonics I've been humbly lifting from for years. And then there's Iommi. Ugh, when he goes I don't know what I'm going to do. Of the four Sabbath lads, those two were always my guys. All four are amazing in their own right but I was always drawn to Tony as the riff master and Ozzy for his energetic yet haunting vocal style.

When The Osbournes came out in 2002 I was the happiest man alive to be able to see my hero in real life and realising what a funny cunt he was. That show really made them all household names but I was just glad for the backstage insight, like the famous bit with the bubbles. I'll also never forget being on an exchange trip in February 2003 to Germany and our coach driver, a grizzled old rocker, asking if we had any requests for music to put on. I asked him if he had any Ozzy on and a girl in our class decided to accuse me infront of everybody of only liking him because of The Osbournes tv show. She cockily said there was no way I could even name three of his songs. 15 songs in to me rattling out a list of titles (which I now understand can be attributed to The Autism) she said "I get it, I get it, you're a fan. That's enough". And I said no and continued naming songs until I got bored. 

As I got more and more in to metal, the more I realised every sub-genre I loved could all be traced back to those four lads from Birmingham. This image has been my background on my works laptop since the Villa Park show. The fact that so many bands, no matter how different the musical styles ultimately may be, would simply not exist without Tony Iommi managing to chop his fingertips off and Ozzy Zig needing a gig (and happening to own his own P.A system) is simply frightening. Could we have got to this point if Zeppelin or Blue Cheer or Hawkwind or whoever had been hailed as the forefathers of metal? Maybe, but I don't think we'd have anywhere near the landscape of bands we do now.

As much as I love Ozzy and Sabbath the stars only aligned twice for me to see them live. Either I was too young and too poor or grown up and too poor or there was something I had to take our kids to or we were on holiday. And when I could go, the tours got cancelled. It felt like it was never going to happen. I finally managed to see Ozzy solo live in 2010, a couple of weeks before me and my now wife got married. There was a small article in the Metro about iTunes Festival at The Roundhouse in London and an email address to contact to win two tickets. We managed to win a pair so I postponed my stag do and the two of us set off on a 5 hour coach ride to London. Ozzy was on unreal form that night. If memory serves it had been some time since his last solo show over here and this was something of a homecoming. We were on the barrier for the full set, the highlight being him looking me and my wife dead in the eyes as he chucked a bucket of water in our faces. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect moment. The eyerolls from Gus G as Ozzy kept calling for more Sabbath songs during the encore was hilarious. The Blizzard did not want to leave the stage that night. As a sidenote, Ozzy at that show was responsible for me accidentally punching my wife in the face. Repeat, accidentally. Everybody attending the show had been given a cardboard mask of Ozzy's face on arrival at the venue. It had the eye holes cut and his mouth wide open in a scream. There was a sea of Ozzys during the gig which was both cool and unsettling. After another 5 hour coach journey home to Sheffield the next day after the gig to we flopped on the settee, chucked our bags down and turned the telly on. Ghostbusters had just started. We're just getting to the scene where the librarian goes all scary when I turn to my wife who has, without me noticing due to exhaustion, slipped the Ozzy mask on and has been staring at me from around 3 inches away from my face without me realising for around 5 minutes. Me, eventually turning to talk to her and being in a knackered, delirious state simply assumed a burglar or zombie had crept in and taken my wife's place so I punched it in the nose. She wasn't happy but shock gave way to laughter and I'm now not allowed to watch Ghostbusters anymore. We still giggle about it after 15 years of marriage so thanks for our favourite anecdote Oz.

The second time seeing him live was three weeks ago was at Back To The Beginning. I'd missed out on tickets in all four presales and the general release and had pretty much resigned myself to the fact I wouldn't be going to the show. A couple of weeks before the event a handful of tickets appeared on Ticketmaster, I panicked, bought a golden circle standing ticket and got to see so many of musical heroes on one stage. I mentioned it in my review of the show in the metal thread but Ozzy seemed to be having the time of his life. It was clear he was struggling, his voice cracking in places due to how emotional he was but the energy was there. You could tell he wanted to prowl the stage screaming COME ON an ROCK AN ROLL. The whole crow was in the palm of his hand for both his solo set an the Sabbath set. The whole day was a real tribute to him and Sabbath and you could see how much it meant to him to be able to say goodbye to the fans on his terms, it's just a shame none of us realised we were saying goodbye to him too.

I'm so, so gutted. I've been on a weird emotional rollercoaster since yesterday evening but I'm now sat at work, blasting The Ultimate Sin and smiling typing this out. Gonna miss you Oz, thanks for everything.

This is why I love the forum.

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

@Frankie Crisp's post in the 'Things that cheer you up' thread about his dad.

[HarmonicGenerator]

1 hour ago, FLips said:

Metroland! Fucking hell.

Maybe the worst school trip I ever went on was to see the newly-ish erected Angel of the North with a stop at the Metro Center after to make it sound like it was worth our while.

We were allowed to wear what we wanted so I had this horrible synthetic dragon t shirt on, made from the same polyester material as a footy shirt so it had that horrible glidy texture and unique underlying smell to it. It had a dragon on though so I suffered to impress the girls.

Up until the age of about 17 I was tremendously travel sick, so after the Angel but before the Metro, we got taken to McDonalds. Naturally I got a burger meal and a strawberry milkshake so not much long after I’m chucking up milkshake back into the cup. Nobody wanted it on the bus obviously but we couldn’t stop, so the teacher opened the side of the minibus and had me throw it out, narrowly missing a woman by about a foot and splattering all over the path in front of her as she yelled Geordie obscenities us.
We had no tissues so I had to clean my face and shirt with newspaper which because of the wet sick it just transferred ink all over my face.

So we get to the Metrocentre, ink all over my face and sick all over my dragon t shirt. HMV or whatever DVD shop (maybe Virgin?) IDs me for a Family Guy DVD and being 13 with no ID I get turned away. Later we go to Metroland before we have to go home and the rollercoaster was out of order so I’m just walking about stinking of sick in semi-blackface that wouldn’t wash off in the toilets. Not a single lass complimented my top. Absolute waste of time.

2nd worst trip was when we stayed at a hut in Carlisle and I forgot my belt so had to take the laces from the one pair of shoes I took and go bowling with my shoelace holding my jeans up like a hobo. On the way home the lass sat next to me asked to share my walkman but quickly handed it back when she put the headset on to Kurt Angle’s theme song on WWF The Music Volume 5 and didn’t speak to me again the rest of the drive home.

Kicking off 2026’s best posts with this incredible story by @FLips.

There’s mileage in a “Terrible School Trips” thread.