More adventures

 

It's already way past frelling midnight and I still have a blog post to write.  Fiona was here today and we've been having adventures.  Two entirely separate electrifying and sensational adventures that have nothing to do with each other!

(a)    We went to a Richard Thompson concert*

(b)   I have gone over to the Dark Side.**

Fiona has been a crucial assistant (not to say abettor) to both these life-bending enterprises.***   Toward (a), she has developed the really nasty habit of sending me little emails about concerts I might be interested in.†   And she's hot off the mark too—we had front row seats again.

            This proved to be a mixed blessing.  We panted in about five minutes late††, and thirty seconds before the show started, and were confronted by stacks of amps on either end of the stage and a redoubt of more across the front.  I have got to start remembering to bring earplugs.   I stopped going to rock concerts about a quarter-century ago and haven't yet reinstated my default habits. You think oh, folk, oh, all right, folk rock, but you should be thinking electric frelling folk rock and Richard Thompson has never been the kindly, gentle end anyway.  I do not know from guitars, so any better-educated person out there, please don't yell at me, I did Google it†††, but the object Thompson was playing tonight was the classic Stratocaster type, which says 'Jimi Hendrix', 'Eric Clapton' and 'Stevie Rae Vaughan' to me.  It also says LOUD.  But Thompson is a known and venerated Guitar God and I think guitar gods are required to be LOUD.

            And it was loud.  There were five blokes up there‡ and they were all banging away like anything.  Mostly they were merely plugged in to enough hardware to raise the roof, but there was also The Biggest Saxophone You Ever Saw that made a noise like Ray Bradbury's fog horn‡‡  The drums were amazing.  The bassist had at least twelve fingers.  The violinist was adorable.  And the saxophonist played about forty-seven other instruments too.  It was fabulous.  It was all fabulous.‡‡‡  You really do have to go hear live music occasionally—I don't care how magnificent the album is, and yes, I did rush out during the break and buy the new album§ they'd played about three-quarters of in the first half—live is different.§§  Sensurround and HD-3D R2-D2 e=mc2 are all very well, but live is different. 

            And if I don't go to bed soon I will not be alive.  Oh, you want to know about (b)?  Gee . . . I guess it'll have to wait. . . .

* * *

* And we didn't get lost.  I think this may be a first.  SatNav or no SatNav.  It did lose the plot a little on the way home and ordered us to return to New Arcadia via Alabama.  Hey!  I said.  That's a dumb way to go!^  We'll go my way!  It went on making snarky remarks however till Fiona turned it off. 

^ And we'd forgotten our water wings

** No, no!  This is a whole new dark side!

*** We also got most of the PEGASUSes and assorteds posted.^  At least I think we did.  I am not having one of my scintillating-with-intelligence days and I only know about the errors that we caught.  I am expecting the 'many thanks for the signed book.  However I had asked it to be signed to my pet giraffe, Hester, and you didn't actually write JANE EYRE although it's a rather nice edition except for the corner that it looks like a hellhound puppy chewed off'^^ emails to start soon.

^  It amuses me a lot that the PRC winners are not only from three different countries but three different continents.

^^ Darkness has no idea how Near He Came to Death.

† I can't remember if I blogged about the tragedy of missing Maddy Prior—she of Steeleye Span fame—and her Carnival Band, a few days before Christmas, when the weather gods closed Hampshire.  AAAAAAUGH.  Heartbreak and calamity.  Fiona, who is a reasonably intrepid driver under most conditions, was convinced to stay home without my having to resort to threats of violence.  Although she did climb on a train to London next day and saw them at the South Bank.  Buying me a copy of the CD for Christmas is no frelling comfort. 

†† We were late because we were pursuing (b).  Mwa ha ha ha ha ha. 

††† Note that I do know there are more search engines out there than Google.  But I'm always writing these blog posts in a hurry at the last minute, when I'm already three-quarters asleep and chiefly longing to get in a hot bath and read. 

‡ Most of the time.  For at least one song there was a small, discreet, black-garbed gremlin hitherto seen only briefly carrying one or another of the fabulous array of instruments to one or another member of the band, himself playing what I think was a guitar.  The real problem with the dranglefabbing amps wasn't the noise but that they blocked my view.  What's the point of the front row if you can't SEE?

‡‡ One of his best.  I think.  http://members.fortunecity.com/ymir1/beastfro9.html  Now tell me how to find out if it's okay that it's hung on the web for free.

‡‡‡ It was all fabulous except for one crushing, diabolical playlist omission.  They didn't play 1952 Vincent Black Lightning.^  Which is a motorcycle.  And one of my favourite songs ever.^^  I almost had

I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome,

Swooping down from heaven to carry me home

for my tag line, or what you call it, the little blast of text at the bottom of your forum reply box.  And then I found out that an Ariel is a car.  I don't care how fast it is or what a miracle of engineering it is, it's ugly.  I'd rather have my angels on Vincents.^^^  Thompson has also written a really good song about a car:  http://www.richardthompson-music.com/song_o_matic.asp?id=199  Which sort of thing is pretty much why I'm a huge fan.  How many people can write a brilliant song about a car?^^^^  Or drop not just a motorcycle but a specific motorcycle into a love song?  He also does the modern with the edgy trad folk stuff like nobody else.

            But Fiona got her Wall of Death.  And I didn't get my Vincent.  Waaaah.

^ http://www.richardthompson-music.com/song_o_matic.asp?id=580

^^Right up there with Che Faro Senza Eurydice and Una Voce Poco Fa

^^^ Although I was seriously hot for Nortons in my youth. 

^^^^ That it's an MG doesn't hurt, although GTs—hardtops—are an error.  The true MG is a roadster.

§ Dream Attic  http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/aug/26/richard-thompson-dream-attic-review

And here's a concert review:  http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/richard-thompson-royal-festival-hall-london-2190275.html

§§ Live is sitting for almost three hours with your fingers in your ears.  Sigh.  The unexpected bennies of bell-ringing:  shoulders that will let you spend three hours with your fingers stuck in your ears.  Or maybe it's the hellhound wrangling.  Whatever.  I don't expect performers to see what they're looking at—when I'm giving a live performance, and I only do words, I try not to register what's happening in the front row—and in this case I hope he didn't engage with where his eyes were aiming.  But Thompson glared right at me for a good ten seconds at one point, and us front row was relentlessly well-lit.  No, no, I wanted to be in the front row!  I just forgot my earplugs!