Discovering that scoring a photo pass does not get you through London traffic

Last Friday night it was off to Shepherds Bush to see Love and Money for a one off show in London. I was a little bit in the doghouse with Mrs B as we were already pre-booked for a Ski reunion weekend, at an Oast house near Hastings.  What saved my bacon (apologies to any passing vegetarians) was that through a mutual acquaintance the Lead Singer organised a Photo pass for, gulp, little old me and The Beast,  allowing us to play with the big boys…..Not enough to convince Mrs B to join me but enough to take the pressure off about arriving late for our weekend...


I was so impressed that James Grant took the time and
trouble to organise this for me,  well above and beyond
 the duty of your average Lead Singer of a pop group.

Skip to the bottom if you can't wait for the results....

The concert was split into two halves – the first half was dedicated to the performing of Dogs in the traffic – Love and Money’s third album.  While the second half saw them cover their second and most commercially successful Album ”Strange Kind of Love”  - Shame on you if you have never heard of them - a most under-rated group….

Dogs in the Traffic – just happens to describe the first part of my evening – getting to the venue.

I set off from Canary Wharf at around 5pm, expecting the 11 mile journey to Shepherds Bush to take 45minutes….four miles and one hour later, I was stuck in Friday night motor misery, as a crash on the Euston Road had ground the rush hour traffic to a standstill….

Aaaaarrrgggghhhh………..

didn’t the traffic gods know I had a photo pass…?  

Of course they did, which is why I was sitting going nowhere.  This is, after all, the BlackLOG.

At least it was warm enough to have the roof down on Carruthers*  which helped to keep me a little bit calmer than I would have been.  It looks odd screaming and pulling what little hair you have left when enclosed in a car. (There may even have been some four letter words but with no witnesses coming forward, I’m admitting nothing me lud….)   

* I may have failed to mention that ElleGee has gone** and been replaced with an almost identical car, only with a 2 litre turbo diesel in place of the very underpowered 1.8 petrol engine – Yes Teach, ElleGee was a terrible name but I did manage to keep using it.…Inspired by your comment that I would not keep it up…

** Hard to believe but ElleGee reached three years of age and despite good service was discarded like an unwanted shoe.  Although to be fair we liked him enough to have the same black exterior and red leather seats on the replacement….

Once the clock struck 6pm (I have a complete aversion to paying the congestion charge and I’m normally adept at skirting around the outside of the charging zone) I managed to wriggle down a side road and tried to cut across central London,  only the Tom Tom kept trying to pull me out of the congestion zone.  I had originally set it to avoid the congestion charge but could not seem to turn this instruction off – despite my heated argument with the Tom Tom trying to explain to it that “once you have crossed the zone entrance you don’t get a rebate for leaving” and then, rather more slowly,  telling it that “you don’t actually get charged after 6pm”…. The result was me trying to guess a direction to avoid hitting the static traffic whilst still continuing to make my way in the general direction of Shepherds Bush….The upshot of this rather stuttering and haphazardly-directed journey was an average speed of less than 5 miles an hour  - I could have walked it quicker.

Some simple maths

11.5 miles / 2 and a half hours  = 4.6 miles an hour

I finally arrived at the venue at 7:30pm but since it was allocated seating this was not the end of the world.  The only issue was that my normal parking area had long since been filled up so I had to hunt around a bit and park in a different area….

The second album  “Strange kind of love” – kind of relates to the actual show itself  

As already discussed, Mrs B was otherwise engaged and my attempts to lure people along at first appeared to be successful because I had a number of initial positive responses.  One by one, however, people discovered life got in the way.  This left me and The Beast to face the evening on our own.  The upside of this: The Beast got his own seat…..

It had never been my intention to try and compete with the professional photographers, so I was happy to take pictures from my seat – which happened to be the fifth row so not too far back. After I picked up the Photo pass I was initially challenged about my Rucksack (The kitchen sink) before I entered the  auditorium – a quick flash of the photo pass and that was my first obstacle cleared.  I settled in my seat, luxuriating in the extra space that was available to me. I was next to the aisle which was a bonus as it gave me clear line of sight to the stage.  I settled back and waited for the band’s arrival.

I had decided on a couple of strategies:

Not to use flash; and

to shoot single shots rather than rely on constant shutter

This was mainly to make sure I did not annoy the people around me. 

Psht, Psht, Psht, Psht, Psht, Psht, Psht, Psht

can get pretty annoying when it is constantly in your ear….So Mrs B informs me anyway…..

The Beast can’t help getting a bit over excited at times.

The down side with single shot is that you have to work harder to get a good picture, as the light at a gig is constantly changing….The upside is you don’t have to sort through thousands of failed shots….

Part way through the Dogs in traffic set a steward came over and asked me about The Beast.

I said I had a photo pass and went to get it –

“No problem” he said as he wandered off.

I felt a bit cheated  as photo passes are not easy to come by.  I continued clicking and enjoying the show until after the interval when the group moved onto the “Strange Kind of Love Album”.

Another Steward popped up – rather like the shop keeper in Mr Ben....

Over officious steward - “Can you come with me sir?”  

Me - “It’s alright I’ve got a photo pass…”

Over officious steward - “Yes but you’ve broken the three song rule, sir.”

Me  - “What three song rule?”

Over officious steward - "The photo pass only allows you to take pictures during the first three songs of the set."

Me - “Huh?” No one told me…

My legs went all wobbly for a second, especially when he talked about having to delete some of the pictures.

But I decided it was best not to argue and to keep it nice and polite. Showing him a copy of the email from James Grant probably saved my photos from being deleted.

Phew….

But he still insisted that The Beast was going to have to go in the Sin Bin until the end of the gig.

Gulp….

Thank god I had been through the same process with the, somewhat more illegal, Mega Mini Beast a  couple of months ago….So I knew it would be stored in a nice safe warm room….

When I  got back to my seat the gruff Scottish*** guy in front of me said -

"Ah thut yud bin threwn oot man”

Thanks to Mrs B for providing the scottish accent  

*** in truth I would estimate that  90% of the audience had fairly strong Scottish accents – Damn foolish English (For once I was happy to fall back on my Scottish roots – have I mentioned that I got married in a skirt …sorry Kilt?) really don’t appreciate good music when it is set in front of you…

No Mrs B …. No Beast. How could I go on …?  (I told you it was a Strange Kind of Love….).

….Quite easily actually - I lost myself in the music.

I would love to say that the nostalgia brought memories flooding back from years ago but when I had contacted Mr Grant and said I still listened to his music on a regular basis I wasn’t kidding, Love & Money, Friends Again (an early version of the band) and James’s solo work has never been far away from the play button of first the record player, then the CD player and more recently the Ipod.

One thing that had changed in the years since I last saw Love & Money live was James.  He was a lot more relaxed with the audience - chatting to us as if we were old friends, talking about some of his experiences including:

Being thrown off the Tina Turner tour  when he introduced the band at a show by saying,

“We’re not Tina Turner. She’ll be along in a wee bit.”

Hardly the crime of the century and personally I hope it was Tina’s management who had a sense of humour loss rather than the Octogenarian.

Discussing his cold and describing his need to blow his nose on stage as not very Rock n Roll, before going on to mention the reason why rock stars never leave the stage for toilet breaks (I have a feeling that we once saw Ray Davies - Lead singer of the Kinks - leave the stage for a toilet break) was the use of incontinence pants …..I think he might just have been joking….

They announced they were releasing a new album next year and more tours  

Oh, sh*t. 

Absolutely brilliant news but I had promised Mrs B that it was a one-off and my last chance to see them….even going as far as promising Mrs B that I would join her at the ballet if they ever toured London again, something I had sworn I would never attend….Fortunately Mrs B hadn’t actually enjoyed the ballet that she failed to get me to attend and had no intentions of going again…Phew a bit of a lucky escape there…..    

 As I walked away from the gig, having retrieved The Beast, there was a mixture of elation and a certain amount of sadness…. Was this the first and last Photo pass I would ever get? I hope not….

I then had a small problem to deal with -  in my excitement and all the confusion of being stuck in traffic and running late, parking in a new street and then hurrying to the venue I kind of forgot where I had abandoned …left the car…..  

Find out next week if I actually made it to the weekend or if I really put myself in the doghouse….

  

As promised last week the return of some regular features

Show me the sunny

Monitoring our way to a fortune (or not) with our Solar Panels -

KW Produced so far –  3012 (My target was 3000 for the year, so I was delighted that we had made it with almost a month to go…)

This has earned us (including saving on electric and gas) approximately £1,500 for the year.  Not bad considering the weather has been pretty pants this summer ….The end of September and early October weather saving the day….  

Record of the week

Love And Money - Shape of things to come

Love And Money - Candybar Express (The Shep Pettibone Mix)(1986)

Love And Money - Looking for Angeline

Love & Money - Cheeseburger

Friends Again - Sunkissed

Friends Again – "State Of Art"

Love and Money – Wanderlust

Friends Again - lucky star (1984)

James Grant - Winter

I woud have loaded more songs if I could have found them - go listen to the tracks, be amazed that you have never heard them before - rush out and track the music down and add it to your collection....

Watch of the week

The regular section in support of Joe (Stunt Cock) and his growing watch business Xupes. Joe mentioned that they had been getting a number of hits via the BlackLOG.

Xupes has been trading for over 2 years and  Joe has recently developed some great contacts in the trade which enables him to pick up surplus stock and sell them at great prices. Mrs B is a regular purchaser from his jewellery section, going self service once she finally realised that her husband is not the jewellery buying type…

Tag Monaco

Video link for the watch

This is your chance to acquire an excellent condition mens automatic Tag Heuer Monaco Steve McQueen Ltd Edition Stainless steel on navy blue crocodile leather strap and stainless steel deployment buckle. The dial is blue/white. This is the mens model. The watch is in excellent condition with slight wear to strap. Complete with Box, manuals, and guarantee with original receipt dated 15th June 2002. 12 months Xupes warranty included. Also known as CAW2113.LE6183. Xupes Ref. X125

Photo Finish

Hope you enjoy The Beast properly unleashed at a gig  at last

James Grant - Lead Singer

"Candybar express"

Paul McGeechan - Keyboards

"Don't be afraid of the dark"

"Pain is a Gun"

Douglas MacIntyre- Guitar

"Temptation Man"

"Razorsedge"

Fraser Speirs on harmonica

"Papa Death"

"Keep Looking for the light"

Gordon Wilson - Drums

"Lips like ether"

"Halleluiah Man"

Ewan Vernal - Bassist

"Sometimes I want to give up"

"Axis of love"

"Pray for Love"

Douglas MacIntyre
"Cheeseburger"

"What time is the last train?"

Fortunately with two sets you get two endings,

so I could get closing shots even though I

 didn’t have The Beast at the end of the gig...

"Walk The Last Mile"

In memory of Bobby Paterson 1956 - 2006



Hope to see you next week (please remember this is a BlackLOG week, which may run for more or less than your average  run of the mill 7 days) in which we find ourselves embroiled in a murder mystery – Has Mrs B finally come to the end of her tether with me and snapped?