Una grande salute ai miei cugini in Italia che guardano mio sito ogni tanto.
Mi dispiace che non ho avuto pio opportunita di trovarvi. Ma porco cane, ci sono troppi paesi da visitare qui in Europa. Se non ci vediamo quest’anno, vi giuro che veniamo durante 2007.
Madonna si mangia male qui in Inghilterra.
Baci a tutti…
The past month has been a bit of a musical feast for me. A lot of concerts that I booked tickets for over a six month period seemed to all happen over a 4 week period. Me no complain…
In the interests of keeping a tab on just how many gigs I go to see over here, I’ve put together a list of the gigs I’ve seen. So far I think I’m doing OK.
I’ve referred to my love of Radiohead on a couple of occasions on this blog. So I was over the moon to learn back in March that they would be doing a couple of gigs here in May. Tickets sold out in a matter of minutes, leaving many people paying up to £150 a ticket on Ebay. Fortunately, through being on the right mailing list I managed to find out about a presale allocation of tickets a couple of days prior to the general ticket release. So I ended up with tickets for both London gigs. After the 2nd Melbourne concert was cancelled in Melbourne back in 2004, it was great having the opportunity to see them twice… A lot of people looked at me a bit funny when I told them I was going to see the same band twice in a row. In the end I was very glad I did this – they mixed up the setlists quite alot and across the 2 nights played I think 9 new songs. Excellent stuff. I believe they’ll tour again next year when they release their next album. Can’t wait!
On the first night I had standing tickets, and being tall I had a good view for most of the night. Unfortunately Olivia struggled a little in that department and had to move in between other people as they shuffled from side to side. It was a bit like a Rubik’s cube in that regard. One person moves, and everyone elses movements either bring you closer to your desired result, or screw things up completely.
On the second night I had reserved seats and so expected that all would go smoothly in the viewing department. And for most of the night it did…. You know how at the end of a show, the crowd will generally stand up during the last 1-2 songs. I have no problem with that, as long as it’s all standing or all sitting… Things can get messy when you get the in-between scenario…
Picture if you will.. Upstairs, there is a block of 6 rows, a walkway, then the next block.. We were in the first row of the second block… Last song of the night was Karma Police. Crowd goes wild but remains seated. Two idiots in the last row of the front block decide to stand, thus blocking the view of a bunch of people including myself.. After a wonderful show this was NOT how I wanted it to end..
I was reminded of my “flag and the teabag story” and how it became relevant at the Black Crowes gig in March. O how I wished I had me a stash of wet teabags on this occasion.
Those of us whose view was blocked all looked at each other with the “what the hell can we do about this?” look. There was a metal bar at the front of our block, so it was not as simple a case as tapping the guy on the shoulder and telling him to sit down. And with all the noise he certainly could not hear the torrents of abuse being hurled his way. Determined not to have one of my favorite songs ruined, inspiration struck. I held on to one of the sleeves of my jumper and flicked the rest of it at the guy (imagine the stereotypical locker-room towel flick).. This certainly got his attention. He turned around and a bunch of us motioned him to sit the F down. Eventually he did, and we enjoyed the rest of the song as god had intended.
The postscript to the story is that the following day I was reading other people’s comments on the show on this Radiohead Fan Message Board I follow. Some people were complaining about people standing or consistently getting up to go to the bar/toilet… (Like, can’t people go without a beer or a pee for two hours in this country??) Anyway, I decided to post my jumper story to the board… And to my delight the guy who was sitting next to me at the show replied (small world, eh) and confirmed my story. He commented that I looked like I was ready for a punch on.. This was certainly not the case, but perhaps it contributed to the idiot in front sitting down more quickly than he otherwise would have.
Despite the above Radiohead put on two stunning gigs, I had a ball… In that same week I saw Kula Shaker and Eric Clapton. This weekend I’ll be seeing Zero 7, and a gig put on by Frank Zappa’s sons – featuring some of FZ’s old band members….
It’s a tough life.
A couple of weekends ago, we spent a couple of lovely days in Oxford. I had been there 10 years before. Didn’t remember much about the place, but remembered really liking it.
The first day we wandered about the centre of town and took a walking tour of the city. The itinerary for the tour had to be altered a little as their were some planned animal rights protests in Oxford that day. I did not realise that there’s quite a history to these protests. Apparently the folk at one of the Oxford university colleges are planning to build a new animal research lab. In protest, animal rights activists have protested one a month for the past few years. Sometimes things get a little out of control, so there was a very heavy police presence across the town to keep things under control. I got a photo of some of the protesters. Very full on. For some strange reason the home phone numbers and addresses of all staff at Oxford University are a matter of public record. This has allowed the protesters to have a field day. Academic and administrative staff have had their houses and cars vandalised – and have received death threats. Even the tradespeople working on the new building have not been spared. The most extreme story the tour guide told was how the grandmother of one of the staff involved recently died, and after the funeral the activists dug up the body and are refusing to return it until the researchers call the whole thing off. Frightening stuff…
Anyway, the result of all this was that some of the colleges normally on this guide’s tour were closed on the day we were there. A bit of a bummer, but it meant we got to visit Merton College which normally isn’t open to tours – or something like that. The tour went for about two hours and was very informative. We were by far the youngest in the group. Oxford is very popular with the blue-rinse set, but to be fair, it also seems to be popular with tourists of all ages from all over the world.
I’ll spare you the blow by blow account of the weekend. We wandered through Christ Church College (photo above) and the Botanic Gardens, and on the Sunday trekked out to Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Winston Churchill. Here is a link to our photos…
It was a great weekend, Oxford is a very beautiful place and we had a great time. Seeing buildings up to 900 years old was very full on. … nothing like that in Melbourne. But then there are no dim sims in Oxford (not that I could see anyway), so it all balances out.
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