Sunday, June 18, 2006
Foo's in the ParkBlogger is startign to piss me off. Photo's won't upload, and I posted this days ago and it mysteriously disappeared between now and then. Grrrr.
This Saturday saw the missus & I attending the Foo Fighters gig in Hyde Park.
The day dawned clear and bright. I grabbed my clean shorts, selected a suitably cool shirt, dug around in the spare room until I found my cap. We packed a small daypack with essentials- food, water, sunblock, extra food and some spare food & water, then piled into the jeep and roared off to town. I figured it'd be better without own transport, as we had no idea what time we'd be heading home... the missus had sneakily arranged for parking for us in her office parking garage. Very handy :)
Well, let me just say it got progressively hotter throughout the day. We made our way to the park, eventually found the right entrance and sat our arses down on the grass to wait for the magic opening time. 'This will be fun' thought I, thinking that two hours sitting in the park on a sunny would be a breeze. But I hadn't reckoned on being up close and personal with more spotty teenagers than I'd seen since matric. Gaah. Young people. Who needs 'em? I steadfastly ignored the heaving sea of acne about us and concentrated on not melting inwards into a pool of sweat.
I twitched. I fidgeted. My arse grew number. Ants crawled where no living thing should really go. I sweated.
We watched the fly-bys for the Queens birthday, includign my favourite- the Lancaster bomber with Spitfire escort. Always cool!
Eventually, despite having the enitre fecking morning to organise themselves (the time was instead spent milling about aimlessly in small groups, pretending to have Really Important Things to talk about on their little radios) the rocket scientists who were acting as the gatekeepers pulled finger and got their act in order. Only 15 minutes late.
The next revelation was a real peach. Despite it being 32C, you weren't allowed to take large water bottles into the grounds. Eh? Wtf? And allllll other bottles had to have their caps removed. wtf once more - the reaason given? "So you don't throw 'em onto the stage". I mean, ferchrissakes, we were about 100 yards from the stage, minimum!!! Fecking idiots. Never mind the fact that you could buy water inside and *shock!* *horror!* those bottles had caps! Oooh.
That's right up there with the smacktards who confiscate a nail clipper from someone at the airport, then offer them complementary (glass) bottles of flammable spirits after take-off.
Any how. We were in! We ambled along to the middle bit of the Berlin Wall (complete with no mans land in between each of the steel barriers) and once again felt the sticky embrace of the acne mob, complete with irritating 12 year olds trying to worm their way to the front.
One song into Juliette & The Licks set I set my shoulder into "Gentle Ramming" mode and we emigrated ourselves to a less crowded spot in front of one of the giant screens. Much, much better. We quaffed some refreshments and made ourselves comfy. Their set was pretty cool, considering I've only caught one of their tracks before. Juliette's a good stage performer, very entertaining to watch.
Next up was Angels & Airwaves, fronted by that bloke from Blink 182. It went ok, but then he went all California Hippie on us and started spouting crap about 9/11 and Iraq. I tuned him out and set to stuffing some sandwiches in my gob, and making the most of my sunglasses to throw a critical eye over some of the wobblies on parade. A little bit of the Good, the Bad & the Ugly really, but still not an unpleasant way to spend some time on a sunny day.
Queens of the Stone Age were up next. I have to say the sound quality here left a bit to be desired- Joshua's voice disappeared into the music. They didn't really do much for me, all told. What can I say? The majority of the crowd around us seemed happy enough though.
Then the big boys came out to play. Lemmy strolled out, cigarette in hand. This was whatI'd been waiting for- the chance to see Motorhead live. And I was not disappointed. Lemmy belted out the first song and the crowd started heaving. By the time he got to "Over the Top" an impromptu mosh pit had sprung into existence right behind us. He stood on that stage like a giant amongst men, a gravelly conduit for the sheer power of the gods of rock, and played that crowd man. Ace of Spades was the cherry on top. Fucking A.
The mob subsided around us a bit, people slinking off to get a drink, staunch their wounds and ready themselves for Dave Grohl & the boys. Thank god that by now the sun had dipped away and temperature eased back a couple of notches. Trying to get through to any of the refreshment stalls was suicide. Fortunately the ushers manning the berlin wall were doling out cups of water, so we managed to stay hydrated.
And then the lights dimmed. Strobes flickered to life. A mad guitar riff cut across the evening sky like a screaming phoenix. And , of course, the crowd erupted. Dave Grohl looked entirely comfortable on that stage, and gave us what we wanted- the popular tracks everyone knows & loves, mixed in with some lesser known and new stuff. He had fun with the crowd, and we loved him for it. It was goooood.
The encore was a surprise though - Taylor, the drummer, said he was dedicating a song to Freddie Mercury....then introduced Brian May and Roger Taylor! The guitar duel between Brian & Dave was pretty sweet!
But eventually the stage went dark and the Mob turned its collective herd to the exits. We hit the road, revelling in air that was actually moving and headed for the car and home, with a pit stop to grab some icy refreshments. We were in good time and sunk into a nice cool bath, accompanied by a bowl of cheerios. A good day :)
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