I cannot imagine how/why anyone would care, at this stage, but I was taken to task offline for not finishing the saga, so here is a rudimentary wrap-up.
Having decided shortly upon my glum return to New York after my Nashville work-event that inadvertantly caused me to miss that Killing Joke show that I was going to make up for my loss by flying to London for the finale of the band's 40th Anniversary “Laugh At Your Peril” tour, I booked my tickets and made my arrangements. Little did I know that on the day I was to fly to England, a sizable snowstorm was to engulf New York and ensnare traffic in and out of the city to a virtual standstill …. in friggin' November, no less.
I left my office around 2:30 pm that afternoon, and the snow was already coming down in buckets. The Uber I’d called the night before to pick me up at 4:00 pm arrived at my front door perfectly on time, but there began the trouble. In th past, the trip from my building in Greenwich Village to Newark International Airport has taken more or less 35 to 40 minutes on a normal day. On this day, the journey took an agonizing THREE HOURS. I shit you not. It took an hour to crawl to the Holland Tunnel, another hour to inch our way through that tunnel, and then a third hour to limply stagger through the un-ploughed roads to the airport. I’d planned an earlier departure than normal, but it was still fairly nerve-wracking. I gave my poor Georgian driver (as in Eastern Europe, not “The Devil Went Down To…”) a hefty tip before he turned to make the arduous slog back to Manhattan.
During the course of that drive, I kept checking my Virgin Atlantic flight’s depature time, but it was still boldly asserting 9:35, however unrealistic that was seeming. I checked in aound 7pm and helped myself to a beer.
As predicted, though, the schedule began to change. My plane’s takeoff time started to gradually get pushed back further and further, ostensibly to allow the crew scheduled to work the flight to make it to the airport through the tempest as I had just done. Eventually, what had originally been scheduled as a 9:35 pm flight turned into a 1:30 am flight.
That part didn’t really bother me so long as the flight wasn’t cancelled at the last minute (as many other flights around me had been). The wait was long and painful to the extent that even drinking beer lost its allure. I was already angry. I didn’t need to be drunk and angry. But, eventually, they let me on board and …. off we went.
The rest of the story is pretty straightforward. I was met, upon my late arrival, by two estimable members of The Gathering, a sort-of online cabal (originally a humble mailing list) of fervent KJ fans. For the first night, I traveled to the little village of Long Hanborough where my friend Rob M. resides. From there, we took the train into neighboring Oxford. After a few rapturous pints at a pub supposedly once regularly frequented by sparring storytellers J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, we met up with more of our scowly flock and adjourned to the Oxford Academy -– sort of a Bowery Ballroom-sized venue -– for a blistering gig that found the disarmingly fit foursome in feral form. We went backstage for a small bit, but backstage visits are almost always awkward. We said some quick “hello”’s and whatnot, but were soon our of their face. I never want to be that hanger-on fanboy.
We went back to Long Hanborough and stayed up until just past 2:00 watching vintage reggae videos and drinking irresponsible quantities of cider.
For Saturday, we decamped to London for the main event, the tour-closer at the historic Roundhouse, a storied venue in Camden that was formerly a massive railway facility.
Prior to the gig, we had ourselves some dinner at a sort of nouvelle fish’n’chips joint before crossing the road for a few pints at the allegedly historic Dublin Castle, a somewhat grotty bar/music venue favored by fans (and band members) of local titans like The Vibrators and Madness.
We hit a few more pubs en route (notably the eardrum-shattering World’s End and Camden Underworld) before entering the Roundhouse, which is a formidable space to the say the least.
The show itself was the stuff of legend. A blinding set from start to finish, touching on most of their sprawling catalog, albeit nary a track from certain albums --- Fire Dances, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, Outside The Gate and Hosannas from the Basements of Hell -- you assuredly cannot please everyone.
All in all, it was glorious.
Recent Comments