yesterday, perlmonger and self threw ourselves on the mercy of Great Western Trains, and trundled up to Lunnun to partake of Dim Sum with Chris and Liz, and then all four of us set off to see Supertramp perform in Hyde Park, in the company of jonhoneyball and André. The tickets said “doors open at 4 pm”, and we foolishly thought that this meant the performance would start by 5. Not a hope – support band was on at 6.30, and the ‘Tramp at 7.45.
so we sat on the grass and shivered, watching the clouds get greyer and lower, and wondering just how wet we were going to be by the end of the evening. And when we did wander through the gates, they were searching bags; I’d already hidden my Ixus in my jacket pocket, but for some reason the security staff (and more about them later) were taking the tops from water bottles, so that “they couldn’t be used as a weapon”. They wanted you to buy the very expensive water on sale inside the arena, more likely … Mars were giving out free (huge) tubs of ice cream – I accepted one, and ate just a few spoonfuls; there’s only so many chemicals one can ingest in a given day.
the support act was Paul Carrack, one of those guys who’s been around forever in British rock music – he’s played with Squeeze, Mike and the Mechanics, Ace (and we have two copies of the Ace album in this house – both on vinyl!). I like his voice, but I have to say his stage presence isn’t great. I always feel sorry for support acts – they have to be very very good indeed to get people interested and listening – and Paul just couldn’t quite crack it. As he was singing How Long Has This Been Going On, Pete and I turned to each other, and said “seems like it’s been going on forever”.
at 7.45 on the nail, out came Supertramp – one hugely loud chord, instantly identifiable as the opening blast to Bloody Well Right, and the audience were screaming their appreciation. A good set, although I must confess I wanted to hear more of the old stuff – I’ve been listening to them for nearly thirty years (now, that’s scarey). And unlike valkyrie_k, who saw them in Edinburgh during the week, I did think they were missing Roger Hodgson. And they had decided not to use the camera guys and the big screens that were in evidence throughout Carrack’s set, so there wasn’t a lot to see apart from a rather elderly looking lighting rig. However, by then, the clouds had gone, and it was a lovely clear evening (if a little chill for what purports to be the summer), so I could watch the sky, and the constant stream of aircraft with their lights winking against the sunset, including Concorde – lovely to see her flying again.
during the second number, a guy near the front who had been dancing rather exuberantly, was suddenly accosted by a bunch of security guys, and after a bit of a scuffle, he was bundled out by eight or nine of them, who looked really rather more aggressive than the situation called for. When Pete asked “why?”, they claimed there had been a call from the stage crew, because this chap “might have been on drugs”. Yeah – him and half of the rest of the audience, from the smell of weed in the air. It put a damper on the proceedings for a while, but as the band warmed up, the audience rose to their feet and boogied as one. As I said, I don’t dance so if, by any chance you were in Hyde Park last night, and saw an elderly, overweight woman who looks like me bopping away in the ridiculous confined space that we had, it must have been someone else.
the ‘Tramp can still do the business, no doubt about it.
and if you’re at the Jools Holland concert at Audley End next Saturday, and see that person dancing again, well … that won’t be me either. Obviously.
a good day and evening – got the 23.30 train from Paddington, and got to bed just after 2 a.m., having had to explain our absence to nine cats and fourteen fish. They Were Not Pleased.