Dateline Sunday ... Bart arrives in the afternoon from Pisa and settles into his hostel. Simon and I have previously arranged to meet at Picadilly Square and I arrive to find our guest there too. Tom soon joined us, and we headed to Balans for a little light noshing followed by the darkening of Escape's doors. However, for some bizarre reason it was closed, so we moved on to the Friendly Society (where Iain joined us) and began the evening's drinking session there. Followed by the Village, and then Mantos. Ya know ... the whole big Soho "experience-for-the-inexperienced" thang. I'm sure our guest thought we were the biggest bunch of freaks there were. Unfortunately, if he had, he wouldn't have been particularly far from the truth.
The following day, it was time for yours truly to don his tourist hat and escort Bart and Simon around one of my favourite chunks of London (Simon having covered much of this ground before though, in previous trips to The Big Smoke). The day was started at St. Paul's Cathedral, then went something like this - the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the Golden Hind, lunch at The Old Thameside, The Globe, Tate Modern, the Millenium Bridge, the London Eye, Westminster Bridge, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Whitehall, Trafalgar Square, the Mall, Buckingham Palace and Green Park. Phew! Amazingly, our progress wasn't particularly hindered by the Queen Mother's funeral arrangements, although we boggled at the queue which started almost at Gabriel's Wharf, and at the log-jam which surrounded the Abbey. Simon departed early evening and Bart and I caught a quick bite at Pret before headed to Hackney for ...
Garbage! Finally, I had the chance to see one of the bands that I'd aimed to catch while I was in London ... and with only a week to spare! L.A. five-piece Phantom Planet (a good set - keep an eye on those boys) and My Vitriol (very very very shouty!) provided the warm-up and then it was on to the main event. The band emerged to a loud cheer, with a bigger one for Shirley - resplendent in a white tank-top, white pants and coiffed white hairdo - before launching into "Push It", "I Think I'm Paranoid" (my fave) and "Androgyny" (Bart's fave). As the gig was being filmed for MTV's Five Night Stand, I'd feared that their turn would be a short one and/or only recent material ... I'm happy to report though that I was proved well and truly wrong. The band produced a truly rocking set, that lasted for the better part of an hour and a half and included a good mix of material from all three of their albums. Much kudos to Ms Manson and the lads for their stirling efforts!
‹ 10.4.02
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