I went to this expecting to see a beautifully filmed and unusual tale. I left the theater wishing that I was a child again. Wishing that I still had the boundless imagination that you have in your youth. Nothing is off limits and everything is still so simple. If you are like me, I cannot recommend this movie enough.
Drove home to m83 with the windows down and the fragrance of a warm summer night wipping about.
It was a good night.
So I had planned on updating everyday that I’ve been in London, but as we can all see, that hasn’t happen. Well, tonight warrants a fairly lengthy post, so here goes…
Tonight was one of those nights that you’re reminded of how wonderful it is to be alive.
The conference ended today… thankfully, because it kiiiiiiinda sucked, even though I did learn a lot. BUT, this evening made this whole trip that much more incredible. We got back to the flat around 5ish. I decided that I wanted to find something to do tonight that wasn’t just a pub or something touristy. Well, I looked around online and found this club in London that has a lot of decent shows and there was one tonight. I changed clothes and jumped on the tube to head over to Kings Crossing.
The club is called Scala. Doors were at 7 and I got there a little early so just decided to walk around the neighborhood. Fast forward about an hour and I’m in, hanging out in this smoking pit area (smoking in pubs, venues and anywhere in doors is illegal here) just hanging out. While I’m down there, this British couple comes down and is just keeping to themselves. Well being that I was probably going to be the only American there tonight, I decided to strike up a conversation and ask them if the headlining band was popular around here. Well that got us talking and they introduced themselves, Kevin and Sam (yes, Sam is a girl). We ended up talking for quite a while and they ended up hanging out with me the entire night. Bought each other a few beers and just talked about everything from US and European politics, to graphic design (Kevin is a motion graphics artists), to marraige (they are getting married in October. I swear I’ll stop using parentheses now). Even bought me a beer.
As if that wasn’t enough to make this adventure worth my while… then the bands started. I’ll preface the next few paragraphs by saying that I’m not going to attempt to describe the bands sound, I’m just going to link you to a myspace page and recommend a song. If you are at all in agreement with my tastes in music, you will probably like at least one of them, so do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to listen to them all.
The first band was The Golden Silvers (Listen to “Magic Touch”, “Lily the Lover” and “Train for a Brain”). 3 guys… bass, drums and keyboards/vocals, but all 3 sang, and some beautiful harmonies. Great energy and just really fucking fun to watch. They were the second sign that tonight was going to be a good night.
Next up, Soko (Listen to “Ali Gator” and “I Will Never Love You More”). I’ll go ahead and say that the recordings on her myspace do NOT do her and the live show justice. An adorable little french girl and her guitar… and her ukelele… and stand up drum kit. The following are the exact thoughts that went through my head while watching her play… “It’s incredible to see a room full of people enjoying every act that plays. No one is acting too cool for whoever is on stage. There’s just this girl on stage with her guitar. And she just broke out a ukelele!!! She sounds like she should be in the Juno soundtrack. Even amidst all the wrong notes and mistakes, she smiled and laughed with the crowd and kept singing. I think I am having a high fidelity moment, except there’s no Peter Frampton cover and I’m in London. She just sang a song about peanut butter, I’m in love.” She was cute and funny… I’m sold.
And then the headliner, Noah and the Whale (Listen to “5 Years Time sampler” and “2 Bodies 1 Heart” and “Shape of my Heart sampler”). So much love for what they do and you can tell on stage. Singer playing guitar, bass, violin, back up girl on vocals, trumpet, trombone and drums. Just listen to it and tell me that it doesn’t make you smile just a little bit. They covered a Temptations song, “Don’t Look Back,” they asked the crowd to sing along on the chorus and after one try, stopped and told us that Manchester had done it better the night before (jokingly). Well this wasn’t well received (also jokingly) and he tried it again. The crowd was louder than the band during the chorus for the rest of the song.
Earlier in the night, I had directed four British girls to the smoking pit cause they couldn’t find it, didn’t think much of it other than the fact that as soon as I had opened my mouth, one of them said, “oh great, the American knows where to go smoke and we fucking live here.” A few hours later, as chance would have it, I’m standing near them during Noah and the Whales set. Well I ended up “dancing” with one of them a little bit during their set. I hear, “look, she’s dancing with that American bloke.” and we all had a good laugh at my expense, no doubt. But I got a dance and kiss out of it in the end, so I’m not complaining.
As if that wasn’t enough for a great night… On the tube back to Chelsea, I’m sitting down when these three girls get on the train and there are only two seats open. Being the gentleman I am (HA!), I stand up and tell the one that didn’t get a seat that she can have mine. She says, ”nonono, sit, sit, I can’t,” to which i repsonded, ”Well, I’m gonna stand, you just gonna leave that seat open?” and she sat. So then she tells me that I have to stand with her and her friends while I’m on that train, while they all proceed to get out all the clothes they had apparently bought that day and put them on over their clothes while (drunkenly) singing about the neon pink, high top reeboks one of them got. It was quite the spectacle.
So, five hours since I left and with a few pints in me, I hop on the second train back to the flat and bring this evening to a close.
Not that I haven’t been having a good time, but tonight made this trip.
So, I’m in London for the week on business. And by business I mean, we have a 2 day conference to go to and other than that we are just hanging out.
Today, we went to St. Pauls, but spent pretty much the entire day at the Tate Modern. Back at the flat right now waiting on Krysta to get home from work before going out for a pint and some dinner.
The conference starts tomorrow, hopefully it’ll be fun. We get to experience the morning tube rush for the next two mornings, so that should be interesting.
I want to write a lot more, but I’m feeling really distracted for some reason so I’ll leave this first post as a “to be continued…”
Photos to come soon!
