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I went to see Wir sind Helden at Institute of Contemporary Arts tonight, part of the iTunes Festivals in London. It’s a German band. Playing in London. I live in London. I was obliged to go.

But I couldn’t, because I didn’t manage to win a ticket. Here I have to mention how good it is to work for Last.fm. Let me compare this to being a baker. Or, by popular demand, maybe a butcher. You work in meat. You are surrounded by meat. You live for meat. If you want a sausage, you can just grab one. Now substitute a sausage for a ticket and do the math. Or grammar. Or whatever.

The tickets being sorted, the whole thing almost blew up like a snorting nose when all the people who wanted to come became ill. But a story with a German wouldn’t be a proper story if there wasn’t an Austrian to the rescue. So our very own Elias condescended from the highs of the Austrian mountains to accompany me to the gig tonight.

After spelling our Germanic names letter by letter to get in (Twice. And then they realised they’d only written down the first names. Oh my.), we were greeted by some free iTunes download coupons. Standing behind them, I vaguely remember, a guy handing them out. We also got fancy red wristbands and stamps on our hands. All for free. Then Elias bought us some beer. £7.50.

The first band to play was called ‘Leash’. I won’t link them because they started off really bad and got progressively worse from there. And that shall be all I write about them. If you wanna hear them, go and download the festival recording when it comes out.

Then Wir sind Helden started playing, and singing, and generally being awesome. With the whole world of cross-cultural and language jokes at their disposal, the pauses between songs were almost as good as the songs themselves. Which were way better than on any of their CDs. Which are better than quite some other CDs. The only two things I feel sorry about are the British people at the event and the people who weren’t there. The former, by the way, must have been shocked when everyone was laughing at Wir sind Helden speaking English in best Otto Waalkes tradition.

Lots of jokes later, after two encores and comparing themselves to Schwarzbrot (they are so right about that) and real, proper rolls (Which is a whole entry by itself. Another time.), they finally left to fly back to the hometown of The Scorpions, rock-city, Hannover.

As .mov: Feist – My Moon My Man

And, last but not least, the video for ‘1234’.

Oh, and check out the outfit from 2:10 on:

I kicked off my shoes, leaned back and had an idea for a distinguished journal entry. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere—but most likely from behind my back—oblivion descended upon me.

As I will embark on a trans-federal journey tomorrow I’m afraid I have to save all my willpower and energy to battle with the German train system. Dear, I have fond memories. Thus, I cannot create a journal entry as original as usual, with sparkling use of bon-mots, enabling the pitiful English language to acquire a new dynamic range, a higher fidelity—to reach new highs and,—I give you that—lows.

Instead, I will tell the world that just a couple of hours ago, I had the first Bratwurst in about five months. And I will eat more. In fact, I think will eat them all. And on the way to obesity, I hope to take some pictures of Julian and some proper Wurst.

Another thing I would like to mention is my theory on the origin of the name of Supermassive Black Hole. First of all, of course I would have liked to construct the previous sentence in a more elegant and elaborate manner, yet the giant computer brain behind Last.fm prevents us users from entering albums in the nicest form there is, the highest height of writing, the Mont Blanc (Sorry, but I like Europe. I believe in Europe. And the ideas it stands for. I believe in the Greek idea of democracy. I support (passively) the Swiss idea of punctuality (though I wholeheartedly disagree with their music taste, especially DJ BoBo). I believe in the British idea of playing football without hands. I totally subscribe to the German idea of sausages. And I’m absolutely in awe of the French idea of how to pronounce the words of the English language. (Or German. Or just about any language, for that matter.)), from doing to writing what ballet is to dancing; from writing album names like this: ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ by Muse. Anyway, I digress.

Back to my theory. After having watched ‘Mystery of the Milky Way’ in HD on a big, fat, enormous, obscenely large TV that made me want to chain myself to the sofa in front of it, I came up with a theory as to why they named their album as they did. In the documentary, the word ‘supermassive black whole’ was tossed around a lot. So I’d almost bet—not knowing Muse at all or having heard any of their music—that they watched the documentary as well.

On the other hand there is another possibility. Even though Jonty wasn’t very convinced I still think that their album title may just a drastic reference to this image.

What is it that makes everything sound so much better when read/said/spoken with a French accent? Why am I more likely to listen to Aurélie, reading the phone book, than to Mary-Elizabeth, reading something, uh, really interesting, like, say, Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby?

Why do I answer to French girls asking me for directions, even though I don’t know them—yet just shrug in acknowledgement of not having the slightest idea when some English girl asks me?

And, above all, why does Charlotte Gainsbourg sing in this—for the lack of better words—awesome French-accented British English so I have to keep listening to her?

Bonus question: Why do Apple not include a French-accented voice in their Voiceover Utility? And, more importantly, could that be the hidden secret feature of Leopard?

PS: After intensive studies, it seems from my extensive research that a French accent is paramount linguistic seduction. Whereas a German accent usually works worse than not saying anything.

As I think there aren’t enough event reviews on Last.fm, here’s one:

I just came back from the House Industries show at the Apple Store Regent Street. One of their founders had prepared some slides of their work all the way from 1993 to now. Great for a young innocent country boy like me to catch up on some things. Anyone who has the chance to see something by House Industries should definitely go. Even if he or she isn’t interested in design, it happens to be a great show for car-lovers as well.

My favourite thing is the fact that House Industries package their fonts beautifully. A couple of fonts based on the works of a guy who made model cars were shipped in packaging that looked just like goofy model car packages. It was then bought by people who collected and build model cars. Lots of them were then confused by the contents of the page.

After the show ended, everyone could snatch a type catalogue and a House Industries brochure that is just breath-takingly stunning. I put some pictures of it on flickr.

On the way back, I took the 8 as the nearest tube station recently developed the habit of being closed on weekends. What I didn’t know so far is that the 8 drives by St. Paul’s Cathedral, one of my favourite spots in London. It doesn’t just drive by, though. I drives around it in a circle. Twice.

Okay, so, I need to do some inline flash play button jiggery pokery. Here’s some to test stuff with: Oregano Gentle Threat. Apart from that, maybe I should include some of my favourite prose, the Lorem Ipsum: Litterarum formas humanitatis per seacula quarta decima et quinta decima eodem modo typi. Claritatem insitam est usus legentis in iis qui facit eorum claritatem Investigationes. Vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum! Consectetuer adipiscing elit Oregano sed diam, nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut. Qui sequitur mutationem consuetudium lectorum mirum, est notare quam littera.

I got it. A lot of things changed from Civ III. Everything is weird. Suddenly there is religion. And stuff. And other stuff. And even more stuff. It’s complicated and overwhelming. And it’s awesome.

My arse will so be kicked in the next Last.fm office game.

I just came back from this event: Fri 22 Dec – Holly Golightly, The Bongolian, Pete Molinari

I only realised I was gonna go there until one hour after the gig started. After a frantic search for the ticket, I arrived another hour later. (That’s two hours in total.)

So I think I missed The Bongolian but saw the second half of Pete Molinari’s performance. I didn’t see RNR, though. Question: were you there?

Holly Golightly was awesome. All her band wore jelly bag caps (If that’s the right word—I’m afraid I’m not sober enough to look it up properly.)

For the first hour or so, stood next to some other guy, both of us waiting for people who didn’t show up, if I got it right. Got closer to the stage later and even started to dance a little, which is very unusual for me.

Other memorable things that happened, in no particular order: Walked into the wrong venue and wondered why there was no live music. Danced only a little—I swear it, really little movements, in comparison to all the others I was petrified—and suddenly some girl starts dancing with me. Not that she was weird or anything (but well over tipsy, I suppose)—I just don’t like complete strangers rubbing parts of their body against me and… anyway. Took me two hours on various London bus lines and loads of guessing and luck to get back home.

Took a massive two pictures. Too lazy to upload them, though. And my hands are two cold for that as well. British flats must be the worst insulated buildings on the whole planet, including Chernobyl. I think the temperature is well below 10°C (or ‘just over the freezing point’, respectively) and the heating always takes a while to kick in. So a thick duvet cover is my last resort against the winter.

Good night, good morning, or whatever.