The Unholy Alliance Tour featuring Slayer, Slipknot, Mastodon and Hatebreed

Cardiff International Arena - 8th October 2004

As soon as I heard that Slayer and Slipknot were playing this gig I bought my ticket straight away. I was so excited that our Tom was playing a gig with the talented Slipknot.

I started to save £50 a week coz it was in Cardiff and we all know how much a pint is in the CIA.

A week before the gig I attended my local aikido class and took the warm up, then we got down to some techniques. My instructor done a technique which involved me doing a projection breakfall in front of the class. He threw me like a dwarf across the dojo and I landed between the floor mats. My left foot was between them and I fell the other way - SNAP! went my ankle.

I was screaming like a man being tea-bagged by Esther Rantzen. After nearly spewing on the floor for an hour, Puddle, who is also a ninja, took me to the local hospital, Devil Hall in Abergavenny. Puddle wheeled me in and we waited like Lou and Andy in A&E. While we were waiting I was looking at some of the people who were in the waiting room: There was one boy spewing all the time, another boy who was about 13 and had a scratch on his knee, an old women who smelled like a festival shithouse, a vending machine that didn't sell any Mars Bars....and me and Puddle. Everyone was looking at me and Puddle a bit strange - I don't know why. I mean, hasn't anyone seen a 17 stone fat bastard in a white judo suit with a red mohican pushing around a boy in a white judo suit and a black hakama (aikido skirt) doing Lou and Andy from Little Britain impressions before?

The time had come, it was my turn to see the doctor. Now this doctor was a woman who was about 25 and about 4ft tall. She looked at me in my skirt and asked me what I had done, so I told her that I had done a projection breakfall from an aikido technique and she said "okay," and started to examine my foot. I was screaming when she started to touch my ankle and told that was where the pain was. She then told me that I had torn a ligament in my foot. I told her that it was my ankle and not my foot but she wasn't having any of it and told me that I had to have an x-ray on the front part of my foot.

I gave in and went to the x-ray departmant for the photoshoot on my foot. An hour went by and they came back with the results of my foot x-ray. The little doctor told me I had bruised it badly. She then bandaged me up and told me to keep walking on it to build up the strength so that I could walk properly again. So, me and Puddle went back to my house and we both got pissed and had a kebab.

The next day I got out of bed, put some weight on my foot and fell over screaming - there was something wrong, I was in agony. But I really needed to build up the strength in my foot cos in a week's time I was gonna watch my bands.

The days went on and I still couldn't walk. So, on the Thursday, the day before the gig, I went back to Devil Hall to see a different doctor. He was a really nice man, he removed my bandage and couldn't believe how swollen and bruised my ankle was. He asked me how long had it been like this and I told him from day one, but the little woman doctor told me it was my foot. I was taken back down to the x-ray department to have another x-ray, but this time on my ankle. I was waiting for the results and singing some Slayer songs in my head, getting ready for the next day's gig. The doctor came in the room where I was waiting and said to me that my ankle was broken in two places and I needed an emergency operation.

I was fucking gutted. For the first time since 1986 I was gonna miss Slayer, my favourite band.

That little woman doctor should have listened to me. I asked when I would be having the op and he said tomorrow evening....right when the mighty Slayer would be playing.

After an hour's sobbing my friends and family came down to see if I was okay. I was linked up to a morphine machine and I was off my tits. They were all laughing at me. The next day I had Slipknot on my iPod and I was gutted I was gonna miss them too. Puddle came to visit me and I gave him my ticket to go and watch the bands (twat). I was then wheeled into theatre where they injected me and asked me to count to ten. I got to one and that was it, I was gone with the fairies. When I woke up my foot was up in the air and I was in agony. They took me back to the ward and I wanted a piss so I filled up a piss bottle and left it by my food, the food was that bad I was gonna add my piss for taste.

I had a text from Puddle and he said he was in Cardiff getting pissed - he was really kicking me in the bollocks. The nurses brought a tramp into the ward I was on and he went to bed with his clothes and bobble hat on. The nurses asked him to take off his clothes but he wasn't having any of it. He fucking stunk. Every time the nurses walked past they kept spraying air freshener in the air to hide the smell. He smelled like an Albright fart.

Later that night I fell asleep but was woken up by another text from Puddle saying that the gig was great and he had bought me a t-shirt. I was pleased about that. Puddle came to visit me in the afternoon with the t-shirt and I had it on in bed. He told me all about the gig and what went on. He then mentioned that it wasn't the same without me there.

I went home the following day and me and Puddle got kunted and had a chinese. I never got anywhere later on in life with my martial art skills but Puddle is now doing really well. He has now hit Hollywood and his new film will be out next year. Keep an eye out for it, it's called Slouching Tiger Drunken Bastard.

Connect with Zoot 24/7 on his Official Facebook Page where he will be able to point you in the direction of cheap fireworks.