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Spent Saturday night at the SECC, watching Nickelback play and they were incredible, had a great night. Support was from Black Stone Cherry, didn't

Watch Danny Adair's Drum Solo

quite match Nickelback on the night, but I'd go see them again, a great band and prolly only gonna get better n better, their album "Folklore and Superstition" is a cracker, if you haven't heard it already then get your hands on it and have a listen, but turn up the volume when you do - it's not meant to be quiet!

Play Highway to Hell video

Nickelback opened with a bang - or what sounded like a few gunshots, I was just getting back in after going for a quick drink when Black Stone Chery finished their set and I just about jumped out my skin, lol. They opened with "Something In Your Mouth", it was rocking, and the gig just got better from there, Nickelback played almost all of their latest release, "Dark Horse", and a few others, including a cover of "Highway to Hell" with Chris from Black Stone Cherry on vocals and reminding us of "How You Remind Me". Danny Adair was the star of the show (well, at least during his drum solo he was), jeez, it was awesome, I'm not usually a fan of the old drum solo, but he blew me away, it was incredible! The place was jumping by that point, the music was getting better n better, loved hearing "Animals" live, the set was pretty hot too - well, we felt the heat when the flames exploded on stage! (and that was at the back of the Hall)

All in all, a great night, really enjoyed both Nickelback and BSC.

Ever wondered how to make a transparent background/selection on an image using GIMP? I do frequently, so I saved this guide ajust as a text file on my PC, but felt it's handy to have it accessible thus this post, so you're welcome to try it and see what you think.

Here's the procedure to follow:

• Open your image. (doh!)
• Select the area you want to make transparent, this is possibly the trickiest part but using the appropriate selection tool from the Tool window (or the Tools - Selection Tools menu on the Layer window) makes it easier - I find the "magic wand/fuzzy select (Select contiguous region)" tool easiest for most purposes but you might like to give the "Select regions by color" tool a try.
• Click in the region (or colour) you want selected. Use shift-click to add more regions/colors. Sometimes it's easier to zoom in (View - Zoom menu), see finer details of exactly what you're selecting.
• In the Layer window (the one showing your image), select Layer - Transparency - Add Alpha Channel. Sometimes it's grayed out, meaning it's already done (this allows your image to store transparency data).
• Select Edit - Clear, making your selection(s) transparent.
• Save the file.
• If you save it as a PNG file, be sure to select the 'Save colour values from transparent pixels' option in the Save as PNG dialog box. IE (currently) does not support showing PNG transparencies (alpha channels) natively. There are a few work arounds for this (theres loads to be found on google). However, the simplest solution is to save the image as a GIF (which all major browers support transparencies for).
• If saving your image as a GIF from within Gimp, it will prompt you to export it, you can select either Indexed or Greyscale, however on the next screen (Save as GIF) be sure to check the 'Interlace' option.
• It's done!

This pic's got a transparent background - and if you're interested that's me in my grannies arms!

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