11/21/09

Dear Jack – DVD Review

Long term readers of this blog will know the love I have for Andrew McMahon’s band ‘Jack’s Mannequin’ having seen them live earlier this year and putting their ‘Everything in Transit’ album into my top 5 albums (and to this day it probably remains there).

Those who don’t follow the band may not be aware that after finishing the recording of Everything in Transit Andrew McMahon was diagnosed with Leukemia and spent months in hospital receiving treatment before having a bone marrow transplant and surviving.

During that time he carried a video camera and documented that time of his life, his fears and his feelings and a month ago that was released as ‘Dear Jack’ a DVD to go with his leukemia charity ‘The Dear Jack Foundation’ (link).

I ordered the DVD over the from States as it’s not released over here yet and it arrived this morning and so early this afternoon I watched it.

The documentary isn’t an easy thing to watch but is put together really well combining the excitement of Jack’s Mannequin which was going on in his life with the diagnosis of leukemia. The documentary features interviews with his (now) wife and his family (including his sister who donated bone marrow) and it’s a very moving documentary.

The DVD probably has a fairly niche market made up of primarily fans of Jack’s Mannequin or Something Corporate but gives such an insight to the experience of someone with cancer and their ups and downs making it a very eye-opening DVD to watch.

You can donate to the Dear Jack Foundation by following this link

03/12/09

Jack’s Mannequin Gig

Last night me and Jo went to Manchester to see Jack’s Mannequin on the second of their 2 UK dates on their European tour. I’ve been waiting a long time to see Jack’s Mannequin as they never made it here on their first tour and it was worth the wait!

A lot of the tracks sounded even better live than on the album and just to make the gig that little bit more awesome they even did a Something Corporate song.

It also gave me a good chance to continue to test out my camera phone so check out a couple of pictures below. I have now managed to put the video here too!

From Jack’s Mannequin – Manchester 11/03/09

Video of ‘Hammers & Strings’ Here

01/31/09

Jack’s Mannequin, Trains and C905′s…

So I’m sat on a national express train on the way back to Peterborough just passing through Newark North Gate and realised that once again my blogging life has been on the quiet side this week.

On Wednesday I learnt that Jack’s Mannequin are playing their first 2 UK dates in March so now have tickets to see them on March the 15th in Manchester which I’m pretty excited about. If you’ve never heard of them Jack’s Mannequin are the new band from the lead singer of Something Corporate, their first album ‘Everything in Transit’ stayed in my CD player for months and their new album ‘The Glass Passenger’ is in my car!

Once again there’s a grand piano involved in Jack’s Mannequin so it’s kinda piano rock on a similar lines to Something Corporate.

Secondly on tuesday Orange sent me a new phone, the Sony Ericsson C905, having been using a Samsung for 18 months I thought it was time to go back to Sony Ericsson because although the Samsung G600 is a good phone there were a lot of things I missed compared to my old Sony and so having the c905 has been great, it’s easy to use and worked straight out the box with my Mac with a simple download from the Sony Ericsson website!

I’ve hoped this week to have a chance to test the 8 megapixel camera on the phone however I’ve been busy and the weather’s been less than good so other than a few photos of Jo doing a smartie puzzle I don’t have any photos but the BBC informs me that Wednesday is a good day so I shall take a walk around Central Park and upload some photos then!

Finally I’m leading both services at church tomorrow morning, the All Age and our Evening Service, I’m looking forward to both as I haven’t led in a while but there’s so much to think about for tomorrow.