When I was at school, I spent my latter years as a boarder. We all had our own room, and at the end of our corridor was a kettle, a toaster, bread, milk and most importantly a record player. At home I listened to 'lovely' music. At school I was subjected to everyone else's taste...Black Sabbath, early Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and Led Zep. I kind of tolerated it, and occasionally after we'd sneaked out to the pub behind the teachers' backs I probably quite enjoyed it. Three years ago, and I can't remember why, I bought a CD by Robert Plant, lead singer of Led Zep. I was blown away...absolutely loved it, listened to it time and time again, and bought pretty much his entire back catalogue. I became desperate to see him live, in concert, but he never seemed to...until this year. A fabulous new album, a new tour. As ever tickets were almost impossible, and I just couldn't get them in London....so we bought tickets for Plymouth. A 500 mile round trip. We stayed over, of course after a six hour drive and had a nice time wandering in the old town. The concert was fantastic...it more than lived up to expectations.
But what made it all worthwhile was the next day, when getting some fresh air, we bumped into Mr Plant himself. He was very friendly indeed, and was grateful when we pointed him in the direction of the Plymouth Gin Distillery. I was as excited as a small boy in toy shop...but hey, why not!
One of my favourite songs from the album:
