25 Jan 2018

PEAS AND CARROTS

It's been a long agonising wait for this tour. Years. Was worried that I wouldn't make it. But I'm still here and so I embarked on the long and difficult process of buying tix. Was all seated -which sucks when you're trying to get near the front, but is heavenly when you arrive at gigs and don't have to queue for 10+ hours.
The ticket buying fiasco didn't help - in normal countries,  you buy a ticket and they hand it to you. But not here, oh no. Here, you buy 2 tickets for 2 shows in the same place on consecutive days, and one is downloadable instantly,  the other you have to wait 3 months before they send it in the post. And it gets worse. 5 UK arenas, 5 tickets,  one instant, one 3 months later,  and the others nail-bitingly at the last bloody minute, as you are about to set off. It's a stressful business, an Alice tour....

Of course, I wasn't on my own, my dear friend and gig buddy, Steve, was there with me all the way,  it would not be the same without him, we are like peas and carrots, lol.
We decided early on that, a) Arenas are horrible, so we probably wouldn't do all 5 shows, and b), the preceding 2 shows in Dublin were bound to be much more atmospheric, and anyway, it's so close,  it would be rude not to go. A number of other Sick Things clearly felt the same way  and so I was looking forward to a gathering of the faithful in the Emerald Isle.
Of course, as we all know the original AC band then announced that they would be coming on tour with Alice to the 5Uk gigs.....so it seemed like the only thing to do would be to book all the shows, I mean, how could you not??

When I was 14 and madly in love with Alice, and his band of sequined high kicking cohorts, my dear mother (bless you Mum, I forgive you totally ) absolutely hated Alice, and refused to even contemplate letting me go to see him..... That was 1972, so the solitary gig in Glasgow was a nono, and then he didn't even come here for ages.........The first time I ever saw him was in 75 at Wembley, Welcome To My Nightmare......and I was so bloody far away, I needed binoculars (pretty bloody awesome gig tho) ....and of course the band had split by then, so I never saw them play together. So it was incredible to think they were going to play together again, and that I might actually see them at last....hence I got online and made sure we had tix for the whole thing.

Flipping long wait it, was, but eventually November arrived. And with it, the very sad death of Janice Langan, longtime fan and friend, somebody I always met up with at gigs - we used to photo/video each other at VIP's, cannot believe she missed this tour, she would've been so happy to meet up with Dennis and Mike, and see them play together again......so we made a banner with a pic of her and Alice, and took it with us to get everyone to sign it. We'll give it to her daughter Raychell after the tour.


We spent a weekend sorting out the hotels/travelling, and then we were ready to go! Set off for Dublin with Denise and Mandy at stoopid oclock, stopping on the way for a magnificent English brekkie......finally getting off the ferry and arriving at our Air B'N'B apartment - which was 2 doors down from the theatre, late afternoon. Sarah was already there, having opted to fly. What a great apartment!! Comfy beds (one each) well equipped kitchen and bathroom, AND a giant plaster sheep which we christened Pat,( after having decorated his eyes a bit).
Ok, the appartment was a little bit tired with the decor, and a couple of broken bits in the bathrooms, really needed a bit of TLC, but it was so perfect for the venue - we only had to lean out of the window to see if there was q forming!! And then, while queueing, we could pop back for the loo/tea/change of clothes etc.








This was all a couple of months ago now, so I'm a bit blurry with the details, but I think we went off to Bad Bobs (which would become a regular haunt) and had some dinner.
The following morning we set up a prescence by the door, along a couple of Germans (no not those Germans sadly, miss them!) and a guy whos name escapes me...Neil?

After a while Steve and I went a wandering, bumping into Tommy and Kyler almost immediately, what a small world! How great it was to see them again after so long! Tommy was happy to give us band passes for the evening, so we were looking forward to meeting up with all the others too.
After breakfasting at the Hard Rock - this turned out to be the band's home from home, and a place which we kept returning to, missing them every time......!
Anyway, all day queueing, blah blah, Si, Sparky, Bill, Kai and Rachael turned up, and a guy called Dave, no idea of his other name! It started raining, and the management wouldn't let us shelter under the theatre canopy, and made us wait round the corner in the wet. Sunila had sold her ticket and Michael turned up in the nick of time to collect it! I sold my balcony tic for the following day which came with the M&G online long before we arrived, got £50 for it, but Steve only managed to get a pittance for his. Shame I wasn't around, I sold another tic for Sunila, and bargained my way up to, er....25 Euros I think it was. I'm sure I could got more for Steve, sorry mate.

Anyway, what a great theatre! Tiny place, even the circle was close to the stage, absolutely loved it. And brilliant to see Little Betty back on tour, this is her third year!! Thank you for looking after her MM! And it looks like she has a friend...
After the show Nita said how great it was that we were all there, leaping about and singing etc etc - they've been playing to seated audiences in States and everybody had been a bit quiet - well, we're certainly not quiet! Think we went out with Kyler somewhere after, probably Bad Bobs again! Or it might've been their hotel - which was very posh, and the barman asked if we were all staying there otherwise we'd have to leave. At this point Tommy announced that, yes, we were all staying there, so could we have some more drinks please? Bloke clearly didn't believe him, but, hey! It's Tommy!!

So Steve and I had VIP the next day, and Mandy had to go home to work, at Stoopid o'clock, boo.....Denise slept on the couch, with Pat the Sheep keeping an eagle eye on her...
We hung about at the theatre for a while in the morning, and then went off to Grafton St, and St Stephens Green, which Steve was named after! We sorta looked out for Alice, but decided that meeting up with him was such a long shot, that we wouldn't stress about it, so we had a nice morning wandering about, not buying anything. Got too much stuff already!
Having picked up our VIP tix at 5, we waited at the theatre door for Bujie, taking some pics, and then Amber showed up to photobombed us!

Bujie turned up soon after that and let us in and gave all of us (quite a lot of peeps or the VIP!) the chat about no selfies, only 3 things to sign etc etc. Tour was the usual, got some better piccies of Frank this time, thanks to Amber.
Another great show - they dropped Dept of Youth and did Lost In America instead, just for us Sick Things, cos we'd been there the night before. Which was great, except for Sparky, whos fave track is Dept of Youth...!! I started off throwing the roses during Poison on this night, and Alice has a great way of trashing them completely by thrashing them on his knee! I usually manage to get some of the petals for my scrapbook. And it soon became a Thing that I Do.

We waited til last at the VIP as we do, and as we approached Alice, he said, 'Hey, I saw you guys out shopping earlier, in Grafton St'.........................Words failed me, although I should've said, 'Why didn't you stop us and ask for our autographs??' After I'd picked my jaw up off the floor, he signed a load of things for me, and then looked through my latest scrapbook, stopping at one pic and saying to Kyler, 'This would make a great poster'! He seemed genuinely interested  - as he always does, bless him, and we got some really lovely pics. On the way out, we agreed to meet up with Kyler afterwards for a drink, but somehow we missed him. Went to the wrong bar I think, hah, but we spent a lovely evening in Bad Bobs!
Wow, 2 brilliant 2 days, SO glad we did it! I don't think Denise got home til the wee small hours!!! Steve and I arrived back at my place for the night quite late, but both very keen to get up and go up to Leeds for the next leg of the tour.































2 comments:

  1. what amazing pics as always! you have such fun following Alice; I love to read about it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad to hear it! Major thankx for your comment ^_^

      Delete

Hello (Hurray) peeps, leave me a note, a comment or just say hi! Thanks :)