Robbie Williams - Under the Radar Live in London

You know it's going to be a special night when pop's greatest showman gets on stage and says, "I've left Robbie at home tonight, I've only brought Rob."

And still, it was the most incredible Robbie Williams show I've seen. Every show he does is great, but this was its own special kind of amazing. There were no hits -- no Angels or Let Me Entertain You like every other show -- just a lot of songs from the three Under the Radar collections, and some 'deep cuts' from the other albums that our Robstar never gets to sing in the stadiums full of casual followers.

The big night came about as an idea a couple / few years ago, when Rob wanted to throw a concert in his garden, with just the inner circle, to sing the songs we never get to hear live. More recently, it turned into a show based on the UTR records, still invite only, but in a concert venue like a regular show. When all the plans came together, invitations went out just to specific folks, and those of us who got them were thrilled to be included in such a special, once in a lifetime, event. I woke up at 4am to ensure I got a ticket as soon as they became available, and gave up time at the RWC in Japan to make sure I could attend.

But with less than a month's notice, many of the invitees couldn't make it. Tickets were cheap, so I'm guessing the venue's more than 3000 person capacity needed to be filled for the RW team to break even. Unbeknownst to Rob (I'm not sure he didn't know, but I'm pretty sure), tickets were next offered to basic members of the RW app, then to anyone who's ever bought anything on the Robbie website, then to any rando passing by on the street. Not quite the intimate friendlies-only show originally planned, but Rob still treated it like it was. He was so relaxed and just himself -- the him we see offstage -- telling stories, smiling, laughing, having the best time. And so were we.

I heard from a few folk sat at the back that they were surrounded by stone-faced miserable people annoyed they'd paid for a bunch of songs they'd never heard before. But since they let the original invitees in first, we were all right down front, and for us it felt like it was just the inner sanctum. It was a 2 hour musical group hug between Rob and the friendlies.

Oh, and by the way, I went out in public in pajamas. In London. I rode the Tube in pajamas. Me, the world's worst joiner. I guess there was some discussion about a sleepover and pillow fight in the original gig idea, and Rob set a dress code of pajamas for the Roundhouse... himself, band, and crew included. Most everyone who showed up played along, but I'm not sure everyone knew why.

When I got back to the hotel, I was so abuzz that I was awake until 2:30am chatting with the other Rob mentals who were also unable to sleep, and am subsequently useless today. I have a gig hangover (not actually hungover, because I didn't drink, although I might be dehydrated, since the venue was boiling), physically broken and mentally useless today.

Both during the show and right after it ended, Rob kept saying he wants to do it again. Yes, please! Name a time and place, I'll drop everything and be right there.

After last night, I'm sleep deprived, my voice is croaking, my head hurts, my body aches from hours of standing, and I can't concentrate because my brain is stuck in a memory loop of the show's best moments.

I can't wait to do it again.

Tokyo to London

I woke up (way too early) yesterday morning in Tokyo, and ended my Saturday evening in London. It was a long day. Literally.

As mentioned before, I was originally supposed to be in Japan for two weeks, seeing a game in Tokyo today, and then two more in the coming few days. But Robbie Williams happened. As luck would have it, in my 20 year Robbie-versary, he finally arranged the fan-only, no hits concert he’s been talking about for the last couple of years, and I got an invitation. And had to change all my plans because it’s happening in London 5 days before I was supposed to leave Japan. So here I am, more thrilled about seeing Rob tomorrow than disappointed about missing the Rugby World Cup, but still a bit bummed.

By the time I'd reached Tokyo, I’d seen all the rugby I could and had no real agenda for my free day in the city. So I spent it shopping. Because I wasn’t willing to stand in the giant queues at the game merchandise stands, my first stop was the Rugby World Cup Megastore, which was a bit of a disappointment. From the last two RWCs, I've got a tradition of buying a mug with all the teams on it, a mini rugby ball, and then t-shirts and/or scarves for the three teams I always try to see.

The Megastore had just one of these. The only mugs were silly ones featuring the tournament mascots (in Japan, everything has a mascot), none with the teams. No mini rugby balls, only full sized. No scarves. The t-shirts for Scotland and New Zealand were all sold out, so I got magnets for them, but I was lucky that one of the 5 remaining Canada t-shirts was my size. I tried to find some other generic RWC tees, but the only sizes left in the ones I liked were XS or XXXXXL. So I grabbed a tea towel (the only item with all the team logos on it) and called it a day.

My next stop was a high end shopping area called Ginza, which is apparently Tokyo's most popular shopping district, but which I chose because it was only 2 subway stops away from my hotel and had a giant Uniqlo store. Just lucky, I guess. My luggage was already too overstuffed to shove much more in, so I spent most of the afternoon just browsing, but I did pick up a few small things. 

When I was finished with my shopping, I stopped back in at my hotel, and then went to see the 15^th century Hie Shrine right behind it, got some dinner, and went to bed early for my 5am wakeup.

I had a 10:10am flight from Tokyo to Zurich, but given that Narita airport was a 90 minute bus ride from my hotel, I had to check out by 6:30 to catch the first bus of the day heading out there. Unfortunately I'd only slept about 4 hours overnight, though, since I was so stressed that I'd get bumped off my 12 hour flight and be stuck another day. SwissAir's booking system had decided I wasn't allowed to reserve a seat before, or even during check-in, despite many being available. When I dropped my bag at the check-in desk and she handed me a boarding pass with the word standby on it, the conversation went about like this:

"Why does this say standby? I'm not flying standby, your reservation system has just been refusing to let me select one of the many open seats, for no reason."
"It's because business class is totally full. The gate agents will call your name if they can give you a seat."
"But it wasn't full when I booked it, there were a lot of seats, it just wouldn’t give me one. I shouldn't be punished because your system didn't work correctly for me."
"I'm sorry for the inconvenience, you go through security over there."

Grrrrrr...

When the gate agents showed up, they were at least helpful and got me a seat right at the front of business class... which was great until after dinner when I tried to lie down and found that the seat was broken and wouldn’t move more than a few inches. The cabin manager came and beat on it for a while, took a look around, then told me to pack up all my stuff because the only seats available were in first class. So I got to spend most of the flight in first class, which wasn’t bad at all, despite the plane being built during Jesus’ boyhood and never having been updated since. Not exactly the lap of modern luxury, but still pretty comfy. Take that, stupid booking system!

My flight from Zurich to London was delayed about half an hour, and then with the awful Saturday night traffic, I didn’t get to my hotel until nearly 8pm (already Sunday morning in the city I’d started the day in), but it didn’t matter. I’m just happy to be here, having a lazy Sunday before the big show tomorrow.

Oita

Technically I'm no longer in Oita, but I was there for such a short time that I'm only getting a moment to write about it now.

I went to Oita for just under 24 hours, to see my second game of the trip: New Zealand versus Canada. When I arrived on the train, I walked the 10 minutes over to my hotel to be told that I couldn't check in for another hour, which I kind of figured would happen, given my experience the previous day. Unfortunately the city wasn't big enough to warrant an entry in my guidebook, so despite my attempt to make a plan, I didn't have a plan... I spent the hour wandering around the shopping area between my hotel and the train station -- which was playing the anthems of the countries with games in town on repeat -- and visited the Rugby World Cup fanzone.

When I got back to the hotel at check-in time, there was a queue through the entire lobby. It took 25 minutes for me to get my key, pay the ridiculous rugby rate 3x as high as every other hotel on this trip, and get up to my room. And it was the worst hotel I've stayed in, maybe ever. Everything in the room was older than I am, and not in a cute antique way. In a shabby, falling apart way.

But at least the air conditioning worked, which was important given the ludicrous weather in Oita. I had woken up to multiple weather warnings for the area, none of which actually occurred while I was there. But it did manage to be both overcast and sunny, rainy and windy while also muggy and hot, and by the time the game ended in the evening, it was 100% humidity. Which just seems like some kind of joke. The upshot is that I dripped sweat, got rained on, and became slightly sunburnt, all at the same time.

The game was fine, the Canucks got walloped 63-0. It wasn't all that surprising, given that Canada barely qualified and the All Blacks are the All Blacks. I like both teams, so was cheering for either, but I did wear red instead of black, so I guess that's sort of picking a side. I don't have any more games to see now, which is a shame, since I originally had tickets to 5. The only one I'm really upset about missing is Scotland v Russia in Shizuoka next week. I somehow managed to get a front row ticket in the lottery, and was looking forward to seeing that pretty little city near Mount Fuji. I even tried to get a flight back just for the game, but with the time difference, there was no way to see a show Monday night in London and then a game Wednesday afternoon in Japan. Sad face.

Funnily enough, the most interesting parts of my visit to Oita happened as I was leaving it. I checked out of the hotel and walked over to the station to catch the bus to the airport, only to find that the tickets were cash only. I'd run out of cash the day before, so I went to the cash machine and discovered that the smallest bills it would give were 10,000 yen, around 100 US dollars. I didn't really need that much cash, and 2 days before payday, my account had slightly less than that in it anyway, so no cash, and no airport bus for me. As I was heading over to the taxi rank to see if any of them would take credit cards, I spotted a sign advertising currency exchange at the Information booth set up for RWC and remembered that I still had 50 pounds from Glasgow in my wallet. Easy solution! They told me they couldn't actually do an exchange, despite the signs, but that I could go to the head office of the bank... 10 minutes walk away, right around the corner from my hotel.

I had time before the next bus, so I schlepped back over there with all my luggage, to find that their currency exchange machine didn't recognize GBP from Scotland. The bank employees called the higher ups to ask for permission to exchange them, but they basically said that Scottish pounds aren't a thing. No matter how much I tried to explain that it's the exact same money as the English ones, they wouldn't do it. But the woman working at the bank wanted to help, so she walked with me over to another RWC Information booth (halfway back to the station where I'd come from) where they did currency exchange, to see if they could do it. I wish I'd gotten her name, since all told, I spent an hour with this woman, and she went WAY above and beyond good service.

At the Information booth, they couldn't figure out the notes from Scotland either -- apparently they have currency exchange books with pictures of the money in them, and it only has the English notes in it, so that's all they can exchange. But one of the employees started calling every bank in town to see if she could find any takers... she tried for about half an hour, bless her, but never succeeded. Meanwhile, the other folks at the booth started looking for ways to get me to the airport. Was I going to take the bus? Yes, but it's cash only. So they all talked about that for a while, and then someone suggested I could buy a ticket on my phone. They took my phone and pulled up the website (which I'd already tried and been stymied by). When they had no luck on my phone, three people got out their own phones and they all conferred about it for a while, but still no bus ticket. Then suddenly someone remembered that there's a hotel where you can buy the airport bus tickets at the front desk, and get picked up right outside. So the lovely bank woman walked me over to the hotel, and even spoke to the desk clerk in Japanese to explain what I needed. I got my ticket, and was on the bus 30 minutes later.

If I'd known the hotel (3 doors down from where I'd stayed) was able to do the bus tickets, I could have saved myself the sweaty hour and a half of dragging my bags all over town in 30 degrees C, and just gone there in the first place. But what an adventure in amazing customer service to get me there. It takes a village.

Once I finally got to the airport, who should come through security right behind me? The All Blacks. All the players (who are giants, by the way) and the staff. In all my celebrity sightings during travel, I've never seen anyone get so mobbed by fans as these guys. That is a whole other level of fame. They were on my flight (yep, the most famous rugby team in the world flies commercial!). I was stuck between two businessmen in a business class middle seat, but the entire row behind me was 5 giant men in matching blue tops. It was nice being surrounded by Kiwi accents, too... I love it, and don't hear it enough.

The flight was quiet -- the giants pretty much all slept through it -- and the entire Aussie team was at the gate when we disembarked. Enormous rugby men everywhere!!

This has gotten really long for such a short trip to a city, but before I go, I will include my Third Lesson from Japan: Stand right, walk left is not universal

It's been rocking my world to ride escalators in what feels like the wrong way all week. I had to share. That is all.

Fukuoka

It's Wednesday morning here in Fukuoka, and I'm almost finished with my quick visit. I was originally supposed to see a game here tonight, between the USA and France -- really just a filler game to take me to another city; I'm not particularly invested in how the Americans do in international competitions. But when my time in Japan got cut short, I sold the ticket for the game here and replaced it with a different game in Oita. Because the two cities aren't too far apart on the same island, I figured I'd take one night in each.

My only option for a flight to Fukuoka got me to the hotel around noon, where the very nice lady said, "Your check-in time is 2:00. I will hold your luggage, when will you be back?" I didn't have a plan for being told that early check-in on a Tuesday was a no-go... it's always possible to check in early on weekdays... So I consulted Maps for the nearest Starbucks, where I could drink a coffee and figure out what to do with myself for 2 hours.

It wasn't much. On top of the online guides not having a lot to offer inside the city, I had used up most of my remaining cash on the taxi from the airport, because Google erroneously told me my hotel was on the other side of town, not right next to a station where I could have cheaply taken the subway. So I wandered around for a while, sat and ate in a park, visited a shrine, strolled through a mall, and did some people watching, until I could get into my room and regroup.

After charging my phone and checking the guidebook, I decided to set out for the castle ruins, supposedly 15 minutes walk from my hotel. When I'd already been walking for close to 15 minutes, I came to Maizuru park and a sign that the castle ruins were 800 meters away. I kept going - it was a decent walk, along a lake or marshy area with tall plants growing all through it, and a crane (I think?) hanging out on the bank.

What an expert. Sign me up to host the nature programs.

Then after another several minutes walk, I came to Ohori park with lovely scenery, and a sign that it was still another 300 meters (uphill) to the castle. The humidity was 85% and the temperature about the same, and at this point I felt like I was becoming siu mai in the steamy air. So I took photos and trudged back to find some dinner and take a shower -- the view I got was good enough for me.

Today, the weather is about the same, only even hotter with thunderstorm warnings. I'm off to Oita next, which has the same forecast plus gale and high wave warnings, hooray! The sky currently looks calm and the trains are on schedule, though, so here's hoping the rugby goes on as planned...