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Wonderful tonight
It cannot be said we haven’t had a lucky life. And what a treat to have been in the stalls at the Royal Albert Hall last night to see Eric Clapton in concert, for us the first time live despite having been fans since school days in the sixties.
But first the Royal Albert Hall, what a venue. Almost 250 years old, it is a London landmark, a Grade One historic building and magnificent both inside and out. The auditorium is probably smaller in circumference than the Christchurch Town Hall, but is high with a domed roof and under that, from top to bottom, a viewing gallery, a circle, three levels of boxes, the stalls and then an arena. The seating and curtains are decorated in rich, red materials, the walls adorned with ornate plaster work, and, in the stalls each chair swiveled. We liked that.
And to Clapton, it was a sublime performance, the fourth night of an eleven concert season, and he looked relaxed in black shirt and jeans backed by two of our favourite session men, Andy Fairweather-Low on guitar and Steve Gadd on drums. Two hours of sizzling electric guitar and laid back acoustics, the set ranged from hard rocking versions of old classics such as Badge and Cocaine to slower bluesy numbers including I shot the Sheriff, Anything for your Love, Nobody Knows You and Layla. Then there were the cute bits; Happy Birthday for his Aunt Sylvia who it appeared from his gestures may have been in the audience, and Somewhere over the Rainbow a regular feature of shows since the 2002 One More Car, One More Rider tour. Interestingly there was a cover version of Bob Dylan’s Not Dark Yet off the Time Out of Mind album, replete with a Dylanish rasp. No show would be complete without Wonderful Tonight, one of the songs Clapton wrote for Patti Boyd after wooing her off then Beatle husband George Harrison (He also wrote Layla for her, as did Harrison with Something). Recently Marty commented to one of our children about how special it would make you feel if someone wrote such love songs for you; jaundiced, she retorted that she had a boyfriend once who did such things and it spooked her completely, she thought him obsessive. Perhaps he just wasn’t as good as Eric.
It is easy to love London when you are here, but it is a love-hate relationship and getting into the concert typified all that which can be so exasperating about the place. We brought tickets on-line which had to be collected from the Royal Albert Hall box office, in person and with the credit card used for purchase as proof of identity apparently to limit scalping and stop fraud. Fair enough, so we called in and queued on the Saturday before the Wednesday performance, only to be told that they don’t hand tickets over until show day. On show day we arrived nice and early, intending to collect tickets and then have dinner but, after queuing again at the box office, we were told that our tickets weren’t there, but at a drop off point which didn’t open until one hour before start time. So, another queue and, with that, our intended dinner was abandoned, eventfully forcing us to find sanctuary in a sort-of cafe bar deep in the bowels of the Royal Albert. It was a tatty place with a dozen or so bar leaners, mismatched with ordinary size chairs (figure that one), and the cost for a couple of sandwiches and two glasses of red wine a staggering 17 pound ($NZ44.20 on today’s exchange rate).
As for service elsewhere, we have been out shopping for a home printer and have deduced that customers are clearly an inconvenience to retail assistants. It is yet to be determined whether looking bored, uninterested, and being unhelpful is genetic or a learned behavior but, whichever, it is an art form, and getting useful advice is more painful than a trip to the dentist. It is little wonder that English jobs are being taken in increasing numbers by Poles and other East Europeans. Quite frankly, even a non-English-speaking Hungarian shop assistant would be of more use than the locals we awoke from their daytime slumbers in Currys and PC World.
As for us, we are far from ready for our travels to end and are looking to become useful members of society, anywhere but home as Mayor Tim would say. Marty has started editing and uploading photos onto the MoodieReport website, and is coming to grips with the intricacies of travel retail publishing, while Kaelene is learning more about shopping and good housekeeping - although it is debatable whether there is anything more she can be taught on these topics.