compare and contrast: 1. orb @ concorde2, brighton (july 2003) - the steering lock on my car broke, so i had to borrow someone else's car to get to brighton. good start. - i parked up in what i thought was an ok place on the seafront (at 8pm) and when i came out of the pub after a couple of pre-show drinkies...found i had a 30 UKP parking ticket. at 9.30pm for f*ck's sake! :-< - during the show, the power failed, and didn't come back. arse. 2. "le petite orb" @ cargo, london (september 2003) - sitting in the london traffic on the way into the gig, the radiator fan in my car broke, and the car over-heated (so we had to take a 15 minute pit-stop to let it cool down, before carrying on), and then keep the heating on full blast for the rest of the night, to take some heat away from the engine compartment - and it was warm enough as it was yesterday. good start. - i parked up in what i thought was an ok place in a local street (at 8.15pm) and when i came out after the show...found i had a *50* UKP parking ticket, as it was "permits only" until 11pm. 11pm for f*ck's sake! :-< - during the show, the mixing desk and / or the alesis ADAT unit kept breaking down. arse. after an excellent start to the set - including a blinding EDM - the first breakdown happened about 4/5 tracks in, and lx kicked in with 10-15 minutes of dj'ing (also excellent)... ...while poor simon phillips (i really felt sorry for him, as he was obviously having a crap time) tried manfully to get the equipment back up and running - and eventually did. however, it only lasted for one track before breaking down again - cue 10-15 mins of dj'ing. it worked again for one more track (which i'm sure was actually a prayerbox track), before breaking down again. after another bit of dj'ing, it worked for one last track, before they went off at 12.30pm after an hour and a half onstage. as you can imagine, this made the whole evening pretty disjointed, and as the night and problems wore on lx seemed to be less and less interested - IMHO - in filling in the gaps, and was just chucking on stuff like the kompassion ep, with minimal mixing (as far as i could tell). so, despite a really promising start, a disappointing night unfortunately. in conclusion: a. i need to get a new car b. i need to learn to park in 'legal' spots c. i need to accept the fact that maybe i'm jinxed, and should keep away from the next orb show cheers, --- Smiley