They're pacing Picadilly in packs again.
On Monday night, my friend Rach and I drove up to Bristol Carling Ac@demy to see Elbow.
Going to gigs is something I want to do more of, not only to run over the toes of young, fresh faced, wrinkle free 18 year old little tarts, but also because, I do believe there is nothing better than live music.
Hell, what a palaver we had getting there. Road works on the motorway, queues on the hard shoulder for the turning we had planned to take, it seemed the Weston carnival was on and everyone and his wife were also using that junction, apparently we failed to check that minor detail before leaving.
When we finally reached the car park just up the road from the venue, we spent a good 20 mins going roooound and roooound and upppp and doooown, looking for the disabled bays and then swiftly gave up and plonked it on the top floor. Which was all well and good, except as we had gone in Rach's car, I didn't have my power chair and had to be demoted to manual transport for the evening, which meant;
"Oh look, an almost vertical downward slope, what fun".
Followed by;
"OHH MY GOOOD, CAN NOT BRAKE FEEECKING HELL DO NOT LET GO OR WILL HIT APPROACHING SIDE OF BUILDING AND BECOME MINCEMEAT"!!
Really, I was scared out of my mind, Rach was doing that thing where her whole body weight was leant backwards and her feet were slapping hard on the pavement, faster and faster, gaining more and more momentum, holding onto the chair handles for dear life, but strangely laughing uncontrollably the whole time.
Coming back was just as problematic, this whole bunch of random strangers just started pushing the chair up the hill until they were at a running pace.... Oh yeah....it was fun....until the part where we nearly hit a tree, which resulted in me having that experience of seeing something is about to happen, opening my mouth, but find myself temporarily vocally paralysed.
To the man that stared in amazement when I stood up and held onto the bar for 5 mins so that Rach could jump in the wheelchair to rest her feet:
I am afraid to confess, that no, it was not a miracle that you saw before you.
To the lesbian couple in front of us during the gig:
Next time eat before you leave the house, then you might not have the urge to eat each other's faces off.
The gig was fantastic, I left the place with a sore throat bought on by rowdy singing, chain smoking and far too much stage dry ice. Just how it should be.
