Kurds and Waifs - Alanis Concert 1st March 1999 Date : Wed, 10 Mar 1999 13:11:31 PST [some news : Chris Maslin who's 2 year working visa expires in the end of April is ummm...getting married soon..........] Hi everyone !! well this is my first email to you all for a very long time. I think I've been starting to feel the grind here. I get up at 7am to get ready for work, take the 40-60 min tube trip to work. Despite it being winter it is actually quite hot now so at work in the office I end up sweating a lot during the day. Work here is unlike XTRA's helpdesk in that it is more relaxed and not too many rules, plus it is much quieter ! I generally turn up late and take lunch whenever. As a result of tiredness I've not had the energy to write up those big emails - never fear as it is all in my head so I'm making sure it's kept safe until it can release all its sordid contents..... Anyway I have recovered enough to write this email and despite my original intentions it will not be of a sexually violent nature as I was pretty annoyed when I thought about what I was going to write....so no nasty words about german lesbians ! Anyway let's see what's happened recently : On Friday 26th February it was our monthly payday so as usual we planned to do a team-building activity. The plan was to go to do some ice-skating then go to a salsa bar. As it happened the company had a do so we all went to the pub and used up the bartab. I sampled a Hanleys and Hanson Ale which went down nicely though as I had not eaten much that day I was feeling a little sick and weighed down. To cut a long story short everyone got too jolly and happy at the pub so we ended up going to the salsa bar an hour late and the queue was too long and the door charge had gone from 0 to 8 pounds ! When I was going to make a bolt for it my boss grabbed me and said to wait another 15 mins. 15 minutes later as I am at the front of the queue I dash off while everyone files into the venue ;-) I wander around town from 9:30pm-10:30pm, it's been a long time since I've been down here and I still love the atmosphere ! I pop into the HMV music store and pick up a few videos on sale : Jason And The Argonauts Face Off (widescreen) Last Man Standing (widescreen) Man Bites Dog (widescreen) The Big Blue (162 minute version widescreen) The weekend passed without much incidence but I also pick up some more videos : Hard Boiled (widescreen) Just Heroes (widescreen) Marathon Man - which is one of my most favourite movies ! Monday rolls around and I am euphoric as it is the concert. It'll be explained later on in an email but somehow we managed to secure tickets to the Alanis Morrisette concert at the Shepherds Bush Empire just down the road from us! Tickets were a cheap 10 pounds for a venue with a capacity of 2600 as opposed to the large Wembley venue she'll be playing in a few months. So naturally we were all elated to be able to secure hard to get downstairs tickets ! Doors open at 7pm and we get there at 7:30pm and there is a line several hundred deep to get in, great, when we get in we'll be at the back I thought. Mark had been in the line since 2:30pm.....dunno why ! I shudder when I see the sign saying no cameras or video equipment ! I decide to chance it. I put my camera in my right pocket and push it in towards my crotch.........so it is covered by my untucked shirt (and people said I was sloppy and scruffy on purpose!) and I also pull up my pants high. I have a cd in my left pocket as a red herring and I am carrying a magazine in a plastic bag to get signed. I walk up to the bouncers and instead of going to the side to get the bag checked I hand it to them to check there is nothing in there. I walk on acting like a concert greenie and when I come to the next wave of bouncers they are about to check me again but the first bouncer says that I have been checked already so I walk on with a big smirk on my face ! We walk through the venue which I've been into so many times and am suprised that there is still a lot of free room. We make our way to the front as close as we can. With me are Leila and Emma. I am the tallest but we try to find a suitable place so the girls can see the stage. We end up about 8m from stage. Right at the front are Mark, DJ and two other hostellers. At about 8:00pm the support band STRAW come on. They are brit poppish with a Hammond organ and sound pretty good. They play probably the longest and most enjoyable support set I've ever heard for about 45 minutes. We're then waiting around for 30 mins growing restless while the roadies set up the stage. Finally the lights lower and the band and then Alanis comes on ! The crowd goes wild and she launches into 2 great songs off the new album. What has always struck me is that at a concert the lights are so bright on the performers that it almost seems unreal that you are really watching them in real life ! When she came on she walked right in front of Mark (1 metre away on a low stage) and the others and I wondered if they'd be able to take a good photo from there.... Alanis was great to watch a lot of energy and she moved around the stage a lot but very little on the between song banter ! The lighting show was the best I've ever seen, very evocative of the songs, for example the wonderful "Uninvited". The third song was "Hand In My Pocket" which naturally got the whole audience singing and hyperactive. I always seem to end up near the assholes as a whole group of young spanish guys and girls move in and start jumping around which is a pain but still bearable. Though I had to laugh as a group of south african or aussie louts muscled in on their area and tried desperately to do a crowd surf which ended in one of them being surfed towards the front into the hands of a bouncer. Suffice to say the best crowd reaction were for the songs from Jagged Little Pill. "You Outta Know" was a bass/dub driven track until the final part where it becomes very rocky ! During all this I got up the gumption to take a few photos making sure the bouncers could not see me. I had positioned myself pretty much in the middle and surrounded by people. A few other people have photos and they dared to take some as well. Every now and then someone close to stage fires one off and quickly darts back into the crowd away from the bouncers trying to grab the camera ! Mark told me of a girl in their area right up front of the stage and had an amazing zoom camera who always hid behind the tall big guy next to her so she was hidden from view from the bouncers at the side of the stage ! I cooled it off after a while with the camera as I could see the bouncers on either side of the hall looking deep into the crowd. When things started getting heated Emma and Leila got separated from me and it was later I heard about their run in with some german lesbians ! (nuff said okay) The last song was "Uninvited" then she came on for 3 more songs in the encore including "Ironic" and "Thank You". And for the final encore she did 2 more songs from the new album and that was it ! WOW ! I thought along with everyone else, we surely got our money's worth with the 2 hour concert ! I hung up front for a copy of the setlist but they were very unforthcoming. We went outside and there was plenty of bootleg tshirts on sale etc. I head to the stagedoor with Mark and others in tow to try to get an autograph. There is a concert security guy who won't let us down the alleyway. Mark asks if we can go past and the answer is naturally no ...............though he mentions that he'll be finishing in 5 minutes ! So we hang around and he goes off, but we decide to stay on the right side of the barrier. Now it was a time to catch up with the others and discuss the concert ! Jeremy who is a bouncer at the Walkabout pub next door comes and talks to us, he's just returned from Los Angeles. At the end I lead the way and the 10 of us walk on down to the stagedoor. Already there are 3-4 oldish guys and Jeremy said that one of them was her driver. So we hang with them. Among us is a very talkative canadian girl, a large indian girl who heard about the concert too late so had to buy one from the touts for 40 pounds ! There is an italian guy who did not go to the concert but is picking up some momentos for his sister. There is also an old autograph hound there who I remember from the Ronnie Spector concert. After what seemed like a short time but if our clocks are correct we were out there for over an hour a big bouncer comes out whom I recognise and a short girl holding a bouquet walks out. She walks right past me as I am beside the door and it takes a moment to realise that it is Alanis, it is the nose that gives here away ! She just keeps walking to the car and signs only about 2-3 autographs before getting into the car. It's a great laugh as Mark trips over some bushes on the ground in his haste. We head back home and all crash : work tomorrow and it is around 2am (?) when I hit the sack ! Stil buzzing from the concert but very annoyed that she didn't not stay to talk with us. Mark King had about 30 people there and he stayed on to do at least half of us ! Nevertheless we were happy we stayed on as we would never get a chance to get so close again as she'll be playing big Wembley gigs from now on. On a similar note the Cranberries are playing at the same venue next month but we can't be bothered getting tickets early. The girls would prefer seated tickets are being in the crowd was a bit too hairy ! So we're gonna turn up to the concert late and try to get cheap cheap tickets. love darryl Subject : julia's song ! Date : Wed, 17 Mar 1999 09:23:03 PST with imminent pride I awaited my sister's arrival from Paris. She had gone to Paris with her boss(es) on the 7th March and stayed in the 17th District a short walk from Eiffel Tower I believe but she never got a chance to go there and see the message I had left for her (and everyone else from New Zealand for that matter). Because of work committments she wasn't able to do much apart from checking out the Louvre and a few galleries. On the Friday 12th she was supposed to arrive in London on the Eurostar at 4:15pm but at 2pm I received a phonecall saying that she had missed the train ! The details are still muddy but it seemed she had misplaced her passport somewhere ! To cut a long story short and after a lot of furtive phonecalls it appears I did not have to bunk off work early and instead went to Waterloo station at 7:45pm. As I got off the tube the alarms went and the police started moving people out. I was worried it would be the whole station but luckily it was just the tube station. When I got there with my placard just like they do in the movies and at the airport, Emma and Liz were there already as planned. Its Fong tradition to be deliberately late. The tube is down so we take a train to the middle of London to Charing Cross station. While standing on the platform I see a redbeared guy looking at me, I look away and look back and he is looking at me intently, a face then a name comes to mind and I shout out Baz ! It is someone I knew from university back in 1988 ! We traded numbers etc and plan to meet up later. We head back to Bayswater and eat at a chinese restaurant Liz recommends. We order 5 dishes composed of chicken, duck...... With the service charge it comes to 30 pounds which I offer to pay. more to come later ! Mamma Mia - Wed 24/3/99 Date : Fri, 26 Mar 1999 09:25:59 PST Got the tickets 2 weeks ago. I was slightly sick with a sore throat so phoned up sick for work believing it to be the onset of tonsilitis again. But as is the normal case I couldn't be bothered being sick so went shopping for the day instead. Amongst my travails and trasps around the city I decided to try to get early tickets for Mamma Mia, a new musical based around ABBA songs. http://www.mamma-mia.com The previews started from Tuesday 23rd-2nd April before the grand opening on the 3rd. Best tickets were 35 UKP, I got the cheapest which were 15 UKP. I managed to get cheap tickets on the second level and right up front in the middle-ish for the Wednesday !! Come the night and as usual I run through a tube turnstile (;-) and I am racing to get to the venue on time, The Prince Charles Theatre on Old Compton Road peeking out from behind Les Miserables on Charing Cross Road. Waiting for 10 minutes before Emma turns up from visiting an old friend at Covent Garden. Outside the usual hustle of bustle of an inner soho street rotates around. In front of a large poster and placard a couple with an SLR camera are posing and modelling. At the doors some guys are checking our tickets and referring out bags to be checked for recording equipment etc, important I guess cos these are the previews and they don't want any unauthorised photos. I grab a program for 2 quid - you know I'm a sucker for souvenirs and we head up to the Grand Circle. The theatre is smaller than I imagined and we get a great view looking down onto the stage from about 20 metres up. We can see the orchestra pit underneath the stage and at the usual assortment of empty seats in the expensive seats - imagining whether the owners has perhaps been held up in traffic or were racing here on a black cab. Next to us sits a glaswegian and his daughter who his shouting him to this show for his birthday. To the right of us are some europeans. Behind are a bunch of girls (Essex ? St Johns Wood ? Nurthumberland Scrubbers ? I can't discern so easily now). A little after 7:30pm the lights dim. And behind a curtain with blue light on it mimicing waves comes down. Behind it we see Sophia posting three letters of invitation to her wedding. Then it is the first song of the evening. I have a Dream Great voice and great arrangements, very similar to the originals but a few little bits thrown in. Every now and then during the night I look down and see the xylophonist, guitarists and keyboards perform their craft. Summer Night City With this song it attempts to set the (fun) mood, a few people start clapping to the spectacle of the people on stage inside a Greek taverna dancing around and with the chairs. The clapping is shortlived as we don't try to intrude too much on the singing. The setting is on a Greek Island, a taverna is run by 70s chick Donna who has raised Sophia by herself. Just Like That This never released ABBA song was supposed to be sung here according to the program but wasn't. Maybe when the show starts for good. Money Money Money It is here that it become sort of obvious that the story is [hate to admit it] written around the songs, and the story has certain entry points written into it to perform a song which as the show continues on, it becomes bleeding obvious and we all have fun trying to guess what is coming up next. This is Donna singing about well....money. Honey Honey Sophia tells her friends that she read her Mum's diary from 21 years ago when she was born and it in it states how she have relationships with 3 men so one of them is Sophia's father. The diary entries she reads make up the lyrics to this song. Sophia has sent off wedding invitations to these three men to find out who is her father. Thank You For The Music The men arrive and one of them recalls a song he used to sing back in the 70s while on the island..... One of the actors was the guy that got killed by Darth Vader in one of the Star Wars movies, and if I recall an english guy I know helps run his fan club ! Mamma Mia Unfortunately Sophia sent off the invitations pretending they were from her mother, when all three men appear at the traverna starts to sing this song. The actress really gets to shine for first time here with a great bold voice. Chiquitita Donna is now in her room with her two old female friends. One is a Dawn French Lookalike the other looks like a blonde Belinda Todd. Donna is upset so her friends ask her to tell them what is the problem. Dancing Queen To cheer up Donna the two women sing this song to remind her of what she used to be... Lay All Your Love On Me Sophia and Fiance Sky singing on the wharfside about love. Before he is whisked off to do macho things and the stag party. Super Trouper Set in a nightclub now the girls all cheer as Donna and her old band members come on stage in (naturally) platform shoes and spangly suits. Gimme Gimme Gimme All the women now dance around and sing this song. During this the men come back from diving for a pearl necklace as a matter of tradition. Name Of The Game The three fathers are here as well and during the course of the dancing Sophia dances and talks with each of them pulling them aside. Each man now realises or mistakenly believes him to be her father and books their place to take her up the aisle. The song here is a plea for honesty. Voulez-Vous The final song sung by the whole company to leave on a big bang. ................And then a big groan as the show had an amateurish feel to it. Time is now 8:45pm. We chat with our neighbours and grab a little ice cream (for a big price) and a bottle of scottish water. After 10-15 minutes the lights dim again....... ------ Under Attack Sophia is on her bed and having a nightmare. All the cast are present and it is a terrific set. At this point I realise that the show would be good if it was only not so well known ABBA songs. Thus, the audience is not held waiting for the songs as the highlights of the show. One Of Us Mother and daughter sing together. S.O.S. And here again. About this point the crowd who I assume think the same as me, have come to this show to have fun, sing and dance, so now we become more vocal and decide to make the most of it. Does Your Mother Know One of the young black men on the island takes a shine to Donna's older woman friend and she sings this song to him while he tries on some fancy dance moves to get her interested. Knowing Me, Knowing You Donna and one of the fathers are singing about their past life together. The crowd roars as it is a pretty obvious lead in into the song. He sings in a slight monologue so imagine Michael Caine singing this song and you can get a little idea. The crowd gets into it and claps and laughs and sings 'uh huh' during the chorus. Our Last Summer Donna and one of the fathers sing this song reminiscing about lost times. Slipping Through My Fingers Mother and daughter sing about the loss. Winner Takes It All Donna singing about her life. Take A Chance On Me One of the husbands talks with one Donna's friends while setting up the church and he mentions how he will always be single....but not if Rosie can help it......cue here for a flight along the pews... I Do, I Do, I Do The wedding - and it all comes out. (Bleedin' obvious innit ?) Sophia admits it was her who invited the 3 men; Sophia understands her mother's independence and decides not to get married and she and fiance Sky decide to travel the world; Donna and a father decide to marry as the breakup was an misunderstanding; the other father admits that he is actually gay, and the other runs off with Rosie........ I Have A Dream This is listed in the program but I don't recall this as the climax. At the end they all do their bows and sing a few bars of Mamma Mia whilst we all stand and clap along. As everyone files out the theatre the band plays a little medley ending in Dancing Queen. Which receives a warm rapturous applause from the last 10 people in the theatre ;-) Heading out the waiters or whatever ask if we enjoyed it and we grin. Outside the audience mills around and swedish tv is there interviewing people ! So anyway, if you are here you will probably have to go to say you have seen it, I don't expect a long shelf life for the production, unfortunately it seems to have a feel of an amateurish production and would look great if it was put on by a college ;-) If we had a REALLY up for it crowd it may have made a difference cos it probably would have increased audience participation !!! take care y'all ! Royal Gala Premiere will probably be next week ! A chance to spot the ol' ABBA members ! yay !