Back to the UK! Part 3: Edinburgh, London, and Soccer Aid

While the Robbie show in Stoke-on-Trent may have been the catalyst for my (triumphant?) return to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the bulk of my time there was spent just generally hanging out in two of the cities that I most missed while I wasn't able to travel.

Edinburgh

From Stoke, I took the train north to Edinburgh, where I'd rented a flat for a few days. I figured it would give me a break from hotels in the middle of my trip, letting me do laundry and cook my own food for a bit. But really it just made it like the old days when I made the city home for a while, every other month or so.

Because Embra's felt like home to me for so many years, I act more like a resident than a tourist, and there's not really much to tell about my time there. I went out walking every day, visiting places I'd missed, eating food I can only get in Scotland, and just generally feeling happy and relaxed... until the night before I was supposed to leave, when my train to London got cancelled. 

After having been on British trains so overbooked that I had to stand or sit on the floor, I always buy advanced tickets for a specific train with a reserved seat when I can. But of course, that can backfire when you find out about 16 hours before travelling that what you booked is cancelled and it's up to you to figure it out, with no help from the rail company. 

Upon seeing the cancellation, I found that the only train I could change my ticket for was earlier in the morning than I really wanted to leave, and despite being only about 12 hours away, didn't show that it was confirmed to travel like the other routes did. As I sat wondering what I'd do if it got cancelled as well, I decided to check flights, just in case. There were lots of flights to London the following day, most costing only a couple hundred bucks, so... sold. Forget the train. And the flight went off without a hitch. 

London

In London, I stayed at my usual hotel in a neighbourhood I know very well by now, so it was also homey in its own way. I'm a bit better at doing touristy things in London, so my days there included a visit to the Buckingham Palace shop for some official Platinum Jubilee swag, and wandering the Victoria & Albert Museum, where I checked out their Fashioning Masculinity exhibit, all about menswear. Fantastic. 

On the homey side, I also did a lot of walking just to enjoy the city, made a couple visits to my usual kebab shop, and did some record shopping (but sadly not buying), including my first visit to the Rough Trade in Notting Hill.

Oh, and also in London, I went to...

Soccer Aid

After my trip was already somewhat planned, Soccer Aid 2022 was announced, happening at the London Olympic Stadium only a day or two after I was supposed to leave there. So I figured I might as well extend my visit to go to the game -- it's a charity event, always a good time, decent football, and this year had a bonus halftime show from my very own popstar (and Soccer Aid co-founder), Robbie Williams. But because I didn't feel like waking up in the middle of the night to get tickets the moment they went on sale, all that was left when I looked was 'premium tickets' up high in the luxury area. So that's what I got -- why not? It's more money for UNICEF.

But when I arrived and was ushered in the VIP door -- where the actual on-air talent was also entering the stadium to be whisked down to the field -- I wasn't so sure about my ticket decision. Luckily, once I got past all the high-brow concessions and staff buzzing around cleaning up after us (because this was the part of the stadium too fancy for anyone to be forced to throw away their own trash), the environment was pretty much normal. And I did appreciate being in a section where the seats were more spread out and comfy than in the cheap, knees-smashed-up-to-your-chin areas.

The game was decent, tied at 1 at the half, when they pulled out the stage for Rob's performance... which was him in what looked like a sparkly tracksuit from up high where I was sitting (but which the big screen showed to be a rhinestone-covered Canadian tuxedo), a few members of his band, and a junior orchestra, performing Angels. Just Angels. I mean, it's a televised charity event with a halftime almost as long as one of the halves, so I was expecting a few songs or a medley like at the Super Bowl, but nope. Oh well. As it turned out the most memorable part of halftime for me was when they played a clip of Eddie Izzard asking us to donate more to UNICEF, getting all emotional about kids in war-torn areas, saying, "No child should be fearful of being shot while walking down the street, or going to school...." And I thought, that sounds like where I come from. When's the international community coming to deal with the humanitarian crisis in my country?

Anyway. As the second half got underway, I started thinking about the sardine-packed subway cars I normally experience after events like Soccer Aid, and how I was literally the ONLY person I'd seen around the entire packed stadium wearing a mask. For those who don't know, Soccer Aid is played between a team of English celebrities and retired footballers against the same from everywhere else. Because I'm a Scotland supporter normally, I'm physically unable to root for England in any sport and cheer for the World squad in Soccer Aid. But when it really comes down to it, I'm not bothered about who wins, there are no real stakes. So around the 73rd minute when the game was 2-2 and my bladder was full, I went to the bathroom and then bailed. 

Turned out the train was still very busy, unfortunately, both because others had the same idea as I did, and because a nearby Abba show let out just as I took off. The Abba bit I found out from a Swedish guy on the tube platform, who got very chatty after I helped direct him to the right train back to his hotel. He told me all about the Abba gig (beyond words), why it's only a one-off show (they're getting old), and all his upcoming travel plans now that flight bans have been lifted. Now, I'm normally not all that amenable to having long discussions with strangers in public places, but I couldn't help feeling a kinship to this guy who flew to another country, on his own, just to see a band he loved. Plus, Sweden's one of my top five countries!

It's now a week later, and after a very long, delayed flight, I've been back home a few days, getting into the swing of normal life again. And planning the next trip...

Back to the UK! Part 2: Robbie Williams Homecoming

Even though it came at the beginning, the highlight of my trip — and the whole reason it happened, to be fair — was seeing my popstar at his hometown football stadium.

Rob’s a proud native of Stoke-on-Trent, and an avid Port Vale supporter, but had never played a show there, despite always dreaming of it. And so he planned the Robbie Williams is Coming Home (an annoying English football reference that I choose not to dwell on) charity show, for June 2020. I, of course, got a ticket and planned my trip to Stoke right away.

But then for some reason, the show got postponed until this June. And after much waiting and replanning, I was there.

The gig was on a Saturday night, so I took the train up from London on Friday to ensure I had plenty of time for any travel disruptions (although, thankfully there were none), and spent most of Saturday just getting ready for the show.

I’d booked a hotel in Hanley — probably the farthest I could have gotten from the stadium in Burslem — but figured hey, it’s a stadium, there have to be a ton of great public transport options to get me there. Not so much. Every online route planner I checked pretty much just frowned and told me I should walk for 45 minutes, especially on the way back, given that the show would end about half an hour after the last bus of the night. So on the night, I decided to walk over to the show instead of taking the bus, just to see how it was, and be able to have some landmarks in case I was stuck trekking back in the dark.

We’d been sent information that the show started at 6:40, but Rob’s dad also posted that the main show wouldn’t start until 9:00. I normally wouldn’t go to any General Admission event any earlier than I have to, because my middle-aged body abhors standing for longer than a couple of hours, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss the opening act, Lufthaus* so I left the hotel around 5:30. With the long hike and giant queue outside the stadium, I got in the doors around 6:45… to find that what had started at 6:40 was a couple of local radio DJs trying to hype up the crowd, and Lufthaus wouldn’t be on until 7:45. Ouch, my joints!

At least I had plenty of time before the big show to wait in lines for things, of which there were plenty. The longest was for merch, so I watched the queue and went to buy my t-shirt when it was only about 20 people deep, instead of stretching the entire length of the pitch (seriously). When I was walking away with my purchase, a guy kept grinning at me like he knew me. I figured it was mistaken identity, but turned out he was just friendly. He said hello, so I acknowledged him politely.

Him: “How long did you have to queue for that?”
Me: “Just a few minutes, not that long actually.”
Him, upon hearing my accent: “Where are you from?”
Me: “Seattle.”
Him: “Seattle?! And you came all this way for this?”
Me: “Of course, anywhere for Rob.”
He then got the attention of a group of folks nearby, announced: “She came all the way from Seattle for this!”
They all gave me a big cheer, and I gave them their prize for finding the American in the crowd.
Not really.

Anyway, much as I love the original Lufthaus music I’ve heard so far, their set wasn’t all that exciting. It was just Tim and Flynn (the other 2/3 of the group) DJing for 45 minutes, playing a bit of their own stuff, plus some standard dance tracks and a remix or two. And despite being the evening of a warm sunny June day, it was windy and freezing in the stadium by that time. We were a tough crowd.

Finally, at 9pm on the dot, Mr Williams and the band came on stage. And as usual, I can’t come up with good enough words to describe it. He was clearly having a blast and felt very at home on his… erm… home turf, because he killed it. Some of the show was just a normal set, and some was a musical biography, complete with some Take That (Could it be Magic), Don’t Look Back in Anger (because Take That sacked him for going to Knebworth with Oasis), the much loved among Friendlies but rarely played Karma Killer, No Regrets, and Love My Life.

The audience was certainly very supportive, although toward the middle of the crowd where I was standing, there seemed to be a lot of folks there to celebrate the local boy made good, and not so much his music. They knew all the words to Oasis and Angels, but totally lost interest during the lesser known songs that made me most excited. Not that I begrudge them being there, it’s fantastic to have a whole community so completely behind our guy that they’ll stand on a freezing pitch in a sea of 20,000 humans, despite the still very real risk of Covid, without even knowing the guy's songs.

I feel like Rob knew the crowd would be a mix, though, including the rabid Port Vale fans, and the encore started with him coming out wearing (and officially unveiling) their new ’22-23 strip, carrying the trophy they’d just won the week before. And then before finishing with his standard Robbie-encore-hits, he did Glad All Over, which I assumed (and Google confirmed) is affiliated with the club, given the crowd’s over the top reaction to a cheesy 1960’s Dave Clark 5 song.

In the end, my body was aching in completely unexpected places from the long walk and standing for so many hours, but I still smiled on every step of the 45 minutes back to the hotel. It was a perfect way to see Robbie on stage for the first time in 2 1/2 years, and I loved every second of it.


*Rob’s EDM side project that he’s pretending publicly not to be a part of, but has been talking about and playing us songs from for a couple years already, because the man can never keep a secret when he’s excited

Back to the UK! Part 1: Getting Here

Funny thing about taking a 2 ½ year break from international travel, you forget all your routines… including things like taking photos (never mind posting them!), and putting blogs out into the world. 

 

Which is why I’m just now writing about the beginning of my trip when I only have a couple days left of it. Oops… oh well.   

 

But all that aside… Didja hear? I left the country! For the first time since December of 2019!

I can’t say that travel has lost its Covid-era hassles yet, much like the world hasn’t actually exited the days of the ‘Rona, no matter how much people like to pretend everything’s back to normal. I was originally supposed to fly into Manchester on June 2^nd, and spend a night there before taking the short train to Stoke on Friday for the Robbie Williams Homecoming gig. But a few weeks before, my Manchester flight got cancelled, and my only change options were to land into Heathrow, then go across town and fly to Manchester out of Gatwick, or change to a different flight out of Seattle that had no seats available. I said no to both, which meant I had to cancel and rebook my flights to leave Seattle a day early, and stay in London for 2 days instead of Manchester for one. And that was only the first wrench thrown in my carefully planned itinerary.

The other funny thing about getting back to international travel after a long hiatus is that some things never change. Heathrow is still a giant misery, everything takes longer than it should, and 9 of 10 travellers appear to have taken an IQ-reducing pill prior to arriving at the airport.

And going away to known and unknown far-off places is still my very favourite thing.

There’s not really much to say about my roughly 48 hours in London at the start of the trip. Despite having my first class sleeper pod, I didn’t get much sleep on the long haul flight, as usual. Which meant my first afternoon and evening was nothing but me trying to stay awake as long as possible to try to adjust to the time, as usual. My extra day was also largely unmemorable, just sleeping late, doing a bit of shopping, and getting excited about heading to my popstar’s hometown for the weekend. 

Before I knew it, it was Friday and I caught a train up to Stoke-on-Trent for Robbie’s 2 year delayed Saturday night show at Port Vale. 

But more on that in Part 2…

Rock! Rock! [Till You Drop]

Recently I was on the Discogs, buying a cheap 45 from the UK, when I realised that with the price of the international shipping, I'd might as well buy something else at the same time, get my money's worth. I scrolled through the person's vinyl for sale, not much impressed, until I stumbled upon the perfect item, an album I must have.

It was Pyromania, by Def Leppard.

Ever since it arrived yesterday, I can't stop listening to it, remembering the joy I've been brought by the English rockers who were once (or twice, or three times), my favourite band.

From my earliest days, I've always had my radar up, looking for new music. Even when I was a really little kid, if someone around me was listening to music, I wanted to hear it, to know more about it. If someone in my family, be it a parent, grandparent, cousin, whoever, left a record or tape lying around, I picked it up and put it on my stereo, like a musical magpie. I didn't bother to ask permission, or let them know I'd borrowed their album... unless I got caught. I just soaked up the music from wherever I could get it.

Then in 1983, I met my teenaged half siblings for the first time -- it's a long story that's irrelevant here. The upshot is that I had a new brother come to visit that summer, and he was listening to music unlike anything I'd previously snagged from anybody else in the family. I loved it, couldn't get enough of it.

It was Pyromania, by Def Leppard.

As soon as I could, I got my own copy of the tape and nearly wore it out, listening so much. By the time I was in middle school and all but dropped Def Leppard for other bands considered cooler by my fellow tweens, they released Hysteria, which my friends and I went... well... hysterical over. They were my favourite band once again. I watched MTV endlessly waiting for their videos. I put their posters on my wall. And I saw them live.

In the fall of 1988, Def Leppard brought their tour to the local coliseum. I was too young to go see them on my own, but luckily one of my best childhood friends had the Cool Dad of our group. You remember Cool Dad from your childhood -- the only parent in your circle of friends who wore a leather jacket, drove a Turbo Z, had a vague knowledge of the stuff you were interested in... OK, the car and apparel may be different based on your age, but Cool Dad was the same. He never changes.

Photo from Halloween 2011, T-shirt from 1988

Anyway, Cool Dad had called around to the Coliseum a day or two before the show, to see if any production tickets had been released. If you're not familiar with this concept, when a band does a big tour of arenas, the facilities they book sell tickets based on how they think the travelling stage setup will work in their space, erring on the side of fewer seats, to avoid a fan riot. Once the crew arrives and gets the whole shebang configured, they're often able to add extra seats in the gaps near the stage, and sell them last minute to Cool Dads in the know. This was how we got our Def Leppard tickets, and our Cool Dad chaperone, in the 3rd row... of seats that were on the floor, but well back from the stage with equipment in front of us. But it was our first concert, and there were only 2 rows of other fans between us and the stage, so as far as we were concerned, we were practically able to reach out and touch Joe Elliott's mullet. It was awesome. And 32 years later, I still have the concert t-shirt with our tour date on the back.

But despite that experience, I was a kid. I got older, and different things became cool. By the next year I was into post-modern music, preferring Sinéad O'Connor live over the previous year's hair bands (yeah, Cool Dad took us to Bon Jovi too). I didn't really think about Def Leppard much for the rest of middle school, until I got a call in 1991 from the same friend I'd been to the gig with. She and I were the kind of pals who'd spent countless hours on the phone over the years, talking, not talking, watching TV together, but I only remember one of those conversations now. And I remember it vividly. I picked up, and she said, "Steve Clark died." The news had just come out, so I remember us talking about how we didn't really know any of the facts beyond that. I remember, shock, sadness, and fear that this great band might break up with the loss of their guitarist.

Of course, they didn't break up; they found Vivian Campbell, and kept on keeping on. As did I, through alt rock, local bands, Brit pop, R&B, and more, until I became close with a new friend late in high school who, unlike me, had never stopped loving Def Leppard. Because of him, I found their new music, and tacked on another couple years of fandom in the mid-90s.

But that didn't last either. College brought all manner of new music to my life, and the rock of my youth never quite dominated my album collection the way it had in the past.

The last run-in I had with my Def Leppard fanaticism was a few years ago, at Heathrow airport. I was travelling around the holiday season, when the place was a madhouse. As I rushed out of the overcrowded lounge to catch my plane, I narrowly missed bumping into a very familiar looking man with his family. I bustled on, and within seconds realised it was Rick Allen, Def Leppard's drummer... the drummer who's been with them since 1977, even after he lost an arm and had to get a special drum kit made and learn new techniques to keep on rockin' -- he's incredible to watch live, by the way. Anyway, at that moment I went right back to being a starstruck kid, like when I first heard Pyromania, unable to believe I'd been so lucky as to see one of my heroes.

I've seen various celebrities in air travel over the years, but only Rick Allen has ever given me that feeling.

While I know the guys are still out there doing their thing - making music, playing gigs, my relationship with them remains in the 80s and 90s. I still listen to the old albums occasionally, and back when I did karaoke I'd sing Def Leppard songs on the regular. Maybe it's all just nostalgia, but the music is still great. The music will always be great.

And hey, maybe now with this record purchase, I will get Def Leppard back in heavy rotation. I really have been enjoying it the last couple days. I should see what they've been up to in the last couple decades. Hey, Google...

Holidaze

Normally I'd never use punny wordplay in a blog title, but this one was inspired by a holiday themed song by Bootsy Collins, so I'll allow it. Just this once.

By all accounts I was well ahead of the game this holiday season. I started listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving (but only Robbie Williams' new record The Christmas Present, because it came out in November), had my tree up and all gifts wrapped up under it by mid-December. So why am I only writing about the holidays now, in February?

The cool answer would be that my holiday season goes through the end of January, so it can include my birthday. But as we all know, I'm not cool. In reality, there were a series of times that I meant to write over the last couple of months, and then I just didn't.

First, I went to London for a few days, in mid-December. When Rob's aforementioned Christmas album was released, he also announced a one-off show in London to support it: The Robbie Williams Christmas Party. So I dutifully woke up at 2am (for the 10am GMT opening of the ticket presale window), and got my ticket... but only after fighting with Ticketmaster online for a good 30-40 minutes. Evidently the site's issues were because of overwhelming demand, so when tickets sold out in a few minutes, RW and team added a second show the following night. Despite my flight & hotel booking keeping me in London for both days, I decided one show was enough.

Until I landed at Heathrow and got excited for the show. And decided to just look online to see if any tickets were still available for the second show, out of curiosity. There were some, including better seats than I had for the original gig, for a lower price... so the decision was made: I'd go to both nights!

Of course I was glad that I did. I never regret joining the Robbie Williams live experience, even for essentially the same show multiple times. Sadly, not all of the audience members were as stoked as I was. Normally the whole crowd stands for the 90-120 minutes the Man is onstage. Not this time. Both nights, while I spent the whole time out of my seat, singing and dancing along to every song, almost everyone around me sat, annoyed that they couldn't see through me. They would get up and show some enthusiasm for the hits and the covers of Christmas classics, but spent the other half of the set slumped bored in their chairs, scrolling through their phones.

Look, I know the majority of folk at Rob's shows aren't going to be maniacs like me -- he needs the casual fans who only know 6 songs to show up, since the small number of us devotees aren't going to pay his mortgage. I don't begrudge their presence, and normally I'll never complain about the set lists catering to their limited interests.

But come on... this was a show called The Robbie Williams Christmas Party, where it was very specifically stated as promoting the new Christmas album, and most of the tickets were only available to people with codes they got by purchasing said new Christmas album. Don't be irritated when the majority of the show is new songs, from the new Christmas album. I mean, what did you think you were buying a ticket for?!?!

Ahem. What was I saying? Oh. So the show was great, as always. Nothing like it. I had a fantastic time, regardless of the disinterested masses. And so did the other Friendlies, and Rob, per what he told us the next day. That's what matters.

Anyway, I didn't write about all this while I was in London because I wanted to wait until after the second show to do it, and I was off to the airport with the beginning of a cold less than 12 hours later. When I got home, I was fully taken over by the miserable Tube virus (yeah, I blame my getting sick on having to touch things in the London Underground full of sniffly, coughing people and forgetting to coat myself with hand sanitizer immediately afterward). And it left me doing nothing but lying around feeling sorry for myself the next few days.

The cold was improved but still hanging around at Christmas, when my mom came to visit and I went into hostess mode. With the loss of both my dad and grandma this September, two big figures in the Christmas traditions were gone and I was more than happy to do something very different. We tried to plan the holiday at my brother's farm, but it turns out travelling to remote parts of Alaska in the middle of winter is easier said than done. There were other travel challenges, and in the end we stayed at my place and had a very quiet time. It was nice.

By Hogmanay I'd been hit with a bit of the winter greys and couldn't be bothered to write. Not the blues, nowhere near depression -- nothing of concern -- just the general state of blah laziness that strikes all of us living in a place where the darkness and grey skies roll in mid-November and don't roll out again until April. I pretty much spent January there, and did nothing but work too late on my birthday, so nothing much to report.

But now blue skies are smilin' at me, so here I am. I'll try not to type your ear off.