The Boy did return in one piece. I'm told that if we wait six months we will hear all the horror stories one by one. So far he has mentioned "there is only one night I don't remember'. Contrary to our text conversations during the week, I now discover they were essentially leaving their apartment at midnight to go and enjoy themselves...and there was I thinking they were all safely tucked up in bed by then. According to him 'Geordies are a different breed'. He means it in a negative way. I agree with him, but mean it in a positive way!
The Cat's Mother and I went to see Goldfrapp on Saturday evening at Somerset House. It's a beautiful location, and no band ever sounds bad there. The Boy's first concert was at Somerset House...we saw Turin Brakes there, and the group remains one of our favourites. As for Goldfrapp though, oh dear. She has a beautiful, intoxicating voice and there was no doubting the performance (I think she just about made 50 minutes) sounded glorious. But the set started off with some slow numbers that nobody knew, and you could see the thumbs twiddling...it wasn't until the last twenty minutes that that the favourites were played. Good for her for not pandering to our lowest common denominator, but really we're a shallow lot and needed her to kick the gig off with something more lively. She did suffer from a touch of the Kings of Leon too...long breaks between songs when they seemed to be deciding what they were going to play next...so even when the songs were lively, there was no real momentum. Anyway, a bit of a disappointment...but that won't stop me from buying the new album in September.
I'll skip over the two days spent rehearsing and performing in The Olympic Park for the 'GoLocal' event. It was quite fun to be up on the same stage that Bruce Springsteen had strutted his stuff to earlier this year, but I was there for the last time doing the choreography as a 'Working Man' from the Olympic Opening Ceremony' with the pandemonium Drummers...what I came to realise is that these things have a finite life...and that time has come and gone. I loved it at the time, I've enjoyed reprising my stuff, but time to move on...so goodbye to the 35,000 people that were watching us this time.
The absolute highlight of the last week was my run. The National Lottery Run was 5 miles, around the Olympic Park finishing in the stadium itself. I really don't enjoy running at all, so have found it a challenge to get 'race fit', but as I suspected lining up with 14,999 of my closest friends was a truly amazing experience. At the front were the celebs...Mel C, Victoria Pendleton, Paula Radcliffe and we were started by Chris Hoy. Round the park we went until we entered the stadium to the waiting audience (we had all been given two tickets for spectators) to enormous roars and cheers. Amazingly I was able to spot The Cat's Mother and The Boy and waved happily back as they cheered and whooped. I loved it. I may even do some more running...not too much as it will shake my body to bits, but just enough to keep me in shape.
