Gareth Harrison

Have just realised that it’s 10 years ago this week that I came to Manchester! Not bad considering that I only planned to be here for a few months!

Just thought I’d mention it!

A couple of weeks ago, me and James went down to London for two days to do a shoot with the 29th Chapter for their new music video.

It was a pretty manic couple of days – we headed down late on the Tuesday night and stayed in a Travelodge on the M1, and then arrived in Ealing for about 10 o’clock. The shooting was split into 2 blocks – the first day was a chromakey day, and the second was a live performance.

The greenscreen that had been hired for the shoot was massive! We spent the morning rigging it up, then tried to light it evenly which was easier said than done! Then the guys got into their costumes (which I won’t reveal at this stage – I’ll wait until they’ve announced what single they’re releasing!) and we spent the rest of the day filming various set pieces and individual verses. It was a pretty long day… we wrapped around 10.30pm and then had a bit of a drive to a really nice hotel in some other part of London (I have no idea where!)

Then the next day we shot a load of live performance footage using Rob’s EX1 with a Letus 35mm adapter, and the shots looked really great. It’s amazing how much difference using 35mm lenses makes – the depth of field you get makes it look so filmic. I really want to get one, but need to make sure we’d get enough use from it to justify the expense!

We finished at around 11pm on the Thursday night, and then had to drive back to Manchester, and it took forever! We were both really tired so shared the driving, and I finally managed to get to bed about 4am… but had to be up at 8am to take back the equipment we’d hired – brilliant!

Then yesterday was John Cieszynski’s stag day, which saw me try paintballing for the first time.

I didn’t realise how expensive it can be – I basically rationed the paintballs that I got as part of the basic price, but some of the others spent a fortune buying extra ammo!

It was a good laugh, although it would probably have helped if I was a bit fitter! And during the first game, I got shot in my leg by a member of my own team! And it really hurt – I’ve had quite a big bruise come up today! I also got hit on my ear and the back of my hand, so it was a day of pain!

Then in the evening we met up in town for some food, and as we were arriving the heavens opened. I’d not seen heavy rain like that for a long time – the streets of Manchester turned into rivers! It was a good day all in all, and looking forward to the wedding in a month’s time!

One not-so-good thing at the moment is that on Thursday I discovered that I may be going to the Coldplay gig on my own in September. I’m supposed to be going with James and Helen, but they’ve now found out they have a family wedding on the same day which they can’t get out of. It’s quite gutting for them, because we bought the tickets last October, and James bought Helen’s ticket as a Christmas present. For me, I was looking forward to going with both of them – obviously the gig itself will be great, but the fact I’d get to spend some time with them outside of work was definitely a bonus. I think they’re going to see if they can get there later on, but obviously with so many people there, the chances of us meeting up there would be impossible. I’ve still got a spare ticket to sell, which might mean I find someone else to go with, but I don’t really know anyone else who wants to go, so might have to just sell it to a random person. Just a real shame, because I was really looking forward to it.

Spent this weekend over at Heaton Park for Festival:Manchester which has been running in the city all week. They’d set up a big stage and skate park there, and I think they said there were around 30,000 people attending on the Sunday, so it was pretty packed there!

There were some good bands on – ones that stood out for me were Cathy Burton, bandwithnoname, Steve, Michael Tait and Toby Mac (from DC Talk), and Tim Hughes wrapped the whole thing up with the London Community Gospel Choir on the Sunday night.

29th Chapter and the band that Hope’s in (BlushUK) also did guest appearances with the Tribe which was really cool – they looked pretty comfortable up there, even in front of such a massive crowd.

On the Saturday afternoon, I went over with Michael (when I eventually found his house to pick him up!) and also bumped into a few people there who I knew as well. It actually got quite cold, and I hadn’t really taken particularly warm clothing with me, something which I rectified for the Sunday! Anyway, for the second day, I went up to Heaton Park on my own, but met up with Sarah and Emma who were there with a load of friends, and it was a really good afternoon and evening. My voice is still wrecked from Soul Survivor, but I did at least try to join in with some of the acts up on stage!

I’ve got some (slightly blurry!) photos of the weekend here.

Right… quick update on what’s happening in my life!

I moved out of my house a week ago, which was an absolute nightmare! All my stuff is now spread about at my mum and dad’s garage, my grandparents’ spare bedroom, Cathy’s cellar, Sarah’s garage, Jeb & Nicky’s back room and a storage unit in a warehouse in Stockport! I’m also currently renting a room in Emma’s house in Levenshulme with a girl from Spain and a guy who’s up in Manchester as a volunteer in the Commonwealth Games. It’s a pretty small room, with quite a lot of my things in it(!), but hopefully it should be just for a few weeks.

Actually, we’re looking to exchange contracts and have completion for around the 20th August, so that’s only a couple of weeks away. It’s worked out quite well (I hope!), ‘cos if it does get sorted that week, then I’ll be at Soul Survivor for week A – be back in Manchester during week B, which is when I should get the house – and then be back down to Soul Survivor for week C. I was originally planning on being there for week B as well, but Chris had problems booking, and by the time he applied, week B was totally full, so all the Coton Green guys are going on C.

I got into the spirit of the Commonwealth Games on Saturday – there was a spare ticket available to go and see the Rugby Sevens Quarter Finals at the City Of Manchester Stadium, so I ended up going to that. It was really cool… I thought I might not enjoy it ‘cos i’m not particularly interested in rugby, but I really got into it, and the atmosphere in the stadium was amazing! I even ended up watching the semi-finals and final on TV on Sunday afternoon – I never thought that would happen!!

Just got back from a kind of launch night for a new band produced by Zarc Porter and Mark Pennels called ‘The Band With No Name’ (www.thebandwithnoname.com) and they were pretty cool! It wasn’t exactly my taste (hip-hop/rap/dance) but I could appreciate the quality of it. My mate Jeb asked me this morning if I wanted to go ‘cos he had a couple of complimentary tickets, so I wasn’t originally planning on being there. We drove probably about 10 miles into the Cheshire countryside to this massive hotel in the middle of no-where, on a hill overlooking the whole of Manchester (was a pretty impresive sight!) and saw this band perform some tracks and outline their vision for working with kids across cities all over the UK. Andy Hawthorne was there as well, and he gave a short talk and it all sounded really exciting! I did feel like me and Jeb were the outsiders slightly ‘cos there were probably about 150 people in this function room, and I’m sure they were all reasonably important bods… I recognised quite a few faces of people from events I’ve been to. Anyway, came away with a nice goodie bag with a poster, single and t-shirt, so all in all, a good night!