A Rollicking Good Show (long entry approaching....)

We got to London just after middayish, after a couple of hours on the train.  Not a bad journey and no delays, which was good news.  (Obviously crossing those fingers helped!! Thanks peeps :-)  We’d heard of delays and services not working on the tubes before hand so with a route mapped out we made our way to Vauxhall to find our hotel.  This didn’t take too long, thanks to the instructions and the trusty A-Z!!  We stayed at a place called the Comfort Inn and from the outside you wouldn’t have thought it was gonna be very comforting.  It was actually quite nice inside even though our room had orange walls lol…….After a quick sort out of bags we left to find the academy.  Someone we’d met in London at WWRY in january called Cat, had been texting Trina during most of our journey and was already at the venue with Sarah and their gang and said that we could join them in the queue.  I also got to meet Brigitte from the website I go on :-)  which was nice!!

 

As we got off the tube at Brixton we noticed two people wearing Queen t-shirts.  We both thought ‘must walk quicker and get there before them’.  This soon left our minds when Trina couldn’t find her tube ticket to get through the barrier and we didn’t actually know where the academy is and I didn’t take the A-Z with me!!  Good ol’ Brixton had it signposted though.  So we managed to get to the venue by 2pm.  Doors were due to open at 7pm.  There must’ve been about 20/30 people in front of us, (maybe even not that many!!)  If we weren’t gonna get to the front row, we were certainly gonna be 2nd row and that wasn’t bad!!  I won’t go into too much detail about the queueing time, (yeah right Jen).  I mean that would just be boring for you to read, 5 hours of waiting!!  Trina and Sarah went round to the back at around 3 (or was it 4??) and saw Brian arrive.  Apparently Roger had his car drive up to the doorway so that he could just go into the venue without being seen.  Made me feel glad I didn’t go around.  By 5.30pm the queue was growing stretching almost the entire length of the academy.  By about 6.30pm it was ¾ of the way around.  The security bloke said that if it grows any bigger they’d let us in.  We all silently wished it would!!  The excitement was growing for me!!  Although I have been to big gigs before such as, Royal Albert Hall and Cardiff Millenium Stadium, I had been sitting at those gigs.  This one had a sense of difference about it and I wondered what I was in for!!  In the meantime we were being entertained by some Japanese bloke dressed as Freddie and singing, (not very good but not as bad as the blokes a few people behind us!!)   Also whilst standing with Sarah and her friends (Gavin, Cat, Rosie and Becky,) there was an awful lot of distasteful jokes about Roger and his age!!  I’m even ashamed to admit I made some of them………………..

 

Anyway I don’t remember what time they actually let us in but there was chaos after this.  All the people (apart from Gavin) I had been standing with in the queue had bags so they had to go to the left.  As I didn’t I went in a different door, when I got through I couldn’t see Trina but spotted Gavin so went and stood next to him by yet another set of doors!!!!  There was one bloke on this door checking tickets and he wasn’t going very fast.  I managed to stand behind Trina (who was in the 2nd row) but unfortunately I also had Gavin in front and he’s a tall bloke!!  Mind you there was some kid behind me who was moaning, ‘why don’t they make tall people stand at the back?’  If only it worked that way........

 

They weren’t due on till 8.45pm, so that meant another hour and 45 minute wait.  By 8pm I was ready to pack it in and go home LOL……By around 10 past 8 the lights dimmed and music started so the crowd started to build the excitement.  Little did we know it was Track 13 from the Made In Heaven album which goes on for ½ an hour.  Nearer the end of it I was learning not to cheer as the music got louder.  At 8.45pm the music changed to Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’.  Wasn’t sure what I thought about this choice of song but decided when you listen to the lyrics it’s not that bad a choice.  Eventually Paul emerged on his own and sung ‘Reachin’ Out.’  I don’t know it but it was good!!  The crowd warmed to him immediately, then when everyone was ready they belted out Tie Your Mother Down.  The crowd went mental, jumping and singing along, the atmosphere was electric for this and I knew the rest of the evening was gonna be a buzz.  The band was up for this and so were we!!  Paul was good but he is not Freddie and neither did he try to be in my opinion.  He did go for audience participation which I was glad about.  The crowd sung most of I want to Break Free.  Then Brian took to the front of the stage and was playing around on his guitar.  He did a few chords of ’39 and much to his annoyance the crowd started singing it…..so we did the whole song, even though he says it wasn’t on the set list.  If that was true it surely will be next time LOL……………….He then did Love of My Life (Sandra I sung it really loudly for you!:-)  Paul did a song called Seagull and Roger came to the front to play his bongos.  It was a lovely song and Roger apparently liked it coz he was mouthing all the words.  According to Trina anyway!!  I was impressed, I stood up during a guitar solo but wasn’t so amused when Brian went into his solo song Last Horizon.  I just kept thinking ‘I hope Roger does a solo song or at least I think I’m watching the Brian May Band with Roger on drums’…………..

 

He didn’t do a solo song but sung These Are The days, he didn’t finish it with the line ‘I still love you’ which I thought was cool coz that’s Freddie’s line.  Rog also sung Radio Ga Ga (part of it anyway) and I’m In Love With My Car.  Bless him……he was really pounding those drums, putting to shame all those people who had bad mouthed him before.  Towards the end his son sat by his drum kit.

 

Paul did All Right Now, Feel Like Making Love, and Can’t Get Enough, (and another one which Trina and I didn’t recognise!)  They all rocked!!  They also did Bo Rhap with a video clip of Freddie on piano doing the first section with Roger and Brian playing their bits live!  Wasn’t sure what to think of that, it seems a lot of people thought it was a touching moment but I just don’t know!!  After one song nearer the end Roger got off his drumkit and walked off stage, Paul and Brian were like 'where's he gone?' Trina and Sarah looked at each other wondering if he was all right.  It made me laugh coz I just assumed he wasn't supposed to leave at that point.  But apart for some hitches it was a fabulous show!

 

Afterwards Trina and I went to get a drink and stood near the merchandise stall.  I was trying to look at the hooded tops and noticed that they do hats when this foreign bloke in a hat came up to us and looked at me and said, ‘I found this, as I work here my manager wouldn’t be happy if I went so you take it but if you won’t use it pass it on to someone who will.’  So what did he give me…………………ONLY A PASS TO THE AFTERSHOW PARTY!!!!!  I couldn’t breathe but also knew there was NO way I was gonna use it!!  I mean it felt like a dream come true but I knew that if I tried to use it I was either gonna be refused entry or my illusion of the band would be shattered, coz they would probably tell me to get lost or something.  Call me selfish but I wasn’t prepared to pass it on either!!  Another reason I wasn’t going anywhere without Trina and I had a Queen t-shirt on and it would look a bit suspicious wearing a fleece top in there lol…………….

 

So instead we wandered round to the back!!  Confusion reigned and we walked away from the gates.  When we wandered back Trina’s mobile went.  It was Cat telling her Roger had just left,  we were at this point by a different door, and his car had probably gone past us, but we had our backs to the road.  So we walked back up to the gates.  We were trying to decided who was gonna come out and through which door, so we walked back to where we were before, only to find out we’d just missed Paul!!  We figured there was no point in waiting for Brian so we decided to look for food.  We did a full circle and ended up back at the gates.  Our mate Gary informed us that we’d just missed Brian.  Apparently he stopped to take pics and sign stuff as well.  Trina was not amused with me as it was me who wanted food.  So that was it they were all gone and we’d missed ‘em all!!  You’ve got to laugh really………….

 

Trina rung for a taxi and they said about ½ an hour.  So we walked down to Kentucky and wandered back up to the academy sat on the steps and ate food.  Picture the scene we’re two girls, one with a bag, sitting on the steps, in Brixton!!  Admittedly for 1am there was quite a few people about but Trina was not feeling very safe.  I wasn’t too bad but I didn’t have a bag, plus I was trying to send psychic messages to Roger to come and pick us up but it wasn’t working LOL……………….Trina rung the firm again and they swore blind that they’d stopped by the academy, rung her and the number was wrong.  They’d parked up in the bus stop (across the road from where we were) and couldn’t see us!!  Trina had a go at them and they said they’d be about 10 mins.  We crossed over the road and waited!  I was determined that I would flag down a cab if this one didn’t turn up.  It was now 2am!!  Eventually these two blokes walk past, one of them asks if we had a fag, we said no, but he started asking Trina about her fleece.  When he realised it said Queen, he started saying that he’d worked for them on their last tour in 1986.  I kept thinking ‘yeah right whatever!’ Until he mentioned that he’d stayed at Roger’s house with his mate Mike Crossley.  Mike had played keyboards on Roger’s last two solo albums and it didn’t sound anything like a blagger would mention.  He then said that Mike is a sound engineer at the Borderline and if we go and see him to mention Liverpool John.  Strange end to a fab night!!  Decided we are not selling the other tickets on ebay after all and wishing May will hurry up!!

 

Photos will be posted soon :-)