Fourth Installment:

Liverpool – Birmingham – Oxford

Landscape photographs to be added soon

 

To Liverpool

Since I was up until something like 2 again doing logistics and was kindly put up in a spare bed at Queensgate, sleeping in my clothes, and the hotel mistakenly sent a wakeup call at 5, I couldn't face getting up really early to get back to my hotel on the other side of the park, pack, shower, eat, then get to an appointment with yet another colleague near Victoria by 9 and Then drag it all on the tube to Euston for the train to Liverpool.  Since I had booked the Beatles tour leaving the tourist office at 2, I really had to catch the 10:15 from Euston to be safe so had to cancel the 9am meeting.  On the train I caught up on some zzzzs, on travelogues and watched the sheep and hedgerows whiz by.  This was a fast train. I was making the second of my life's pilgrimages to Liverpool, the first disappointing attempt having been in 1969, when there was no Cavern, no tours, no nothing.  I decided to do some experimentation with food onboard.  There were 3 flavors of Firefly.  I got the Wake Up version ­ Peach & Green Tea, about a third of a quart.  Sounded good and it was good.  On the back it had the lengthy list of ingredients ­ a gram of green tea, half that of Siberian ginseng root, and a bunch of other things like kola nut, yerba mate, rosemary, liquorice, not to mention the white and red grape, peach and lemon.  It was about 45% juice the rest the water and only 32 calories, no added sugar, no artificial sweeteners or anything.  We should have such lovely things.  It went nicely with the Lily OBrien's double chocolate chip cookies (chocolate chip cookies like shortbreads with an coating of chocolate on the bottom.  I also picked up a small can of Schweppes Canada Dry (I thought they were competitors?) which lists extracts of ginger as an ingredient.  I've noticed that ours doesn't include ginger anymore… I don't know how we get away with calling it ginger ale…Maybe these things will get my stomach back in business.

Just heard an accent on the train, reminded me so much of Ringo.  Makes sense!

Got to Liverpool and I'm really glad I got the earlier train.   I had over an hour to get to my hotel and then to the Magical Mystery tour.  Somehow this is one of the maps I hadn't printed for my trip bible, so even though it was just a few blocks away, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to orient myself.  And, as often happens, I encountered lots of people who didn't even know what street they were walking on, much less how to get to one a few blocks away.  Talking with the information office where I booked the tour, they couldn't understand why I couldn't see the landmarks they were referring to.  (Prolly 4 huge telephone booths in the way had something to do with it, but they assumed I was on a cell phone.)  I keep wondering if it might have been better to spend the 40 pounds on the cell phone back in Bristol.…  Liverpool is another of those cities that is being torn up in a major way, calling what they're doing the Big Dig.  In this case, they are having a 700th or 800th anniversary next year, and they were voted some other prize for something that occurs in 2008.  You can see, I'm hazy on details, and that's because I'm just trying to do too much at the moment.   

The Hanover Hotel turned out to be over a very noisy smoky pub.  The outside looked a bit dodgy, and there was construction in the street, but I went in and it was a little better.  Thankfully the Karaoke only lasted until 1.  The web writeup made it sound very neat, the official home of rock in Liverpool, etc.  They used the system of putting your key card in a slot to get the electricity going in your room.  Their wifi was not only not free, they wouldn't even give me the hotel's wifi password for money.  They said they didn't want customers to be able to look through their accounts.  Somehow I don't understand how I'd do that, but in any event, the night manager let me get onto his accounts computer while he was in the room, and for quite some time I checked emails, uploaded my cover letter for the new job from a CD I burned in my room, downloaded my c.v. from my newly acquired domain (www.maggieclarkeenvironmental.com) and set about to shortening it of less relevant bits and sending it all out. By the end of the day (actually the wee hours Again) I finished the carefully crafted cover letter and shortened resume with references that I'd been slaving over for many days.   I then saw that the cover letter had been corrupted in burning the disc, so had to go up and reburn, go down and resend.  ARgh.  Whew!  But I digress.

I had been the last one to reserve a spot on the Magical Mystery Tour bus.  It's vintage 1967 painted like the original, and they just that day got it back in service from weeks in repairs.  They had to send out over the internet for a gear box that would work with it.  It sure had trouble getting up the hills in Liverpool (not that they're That steep, but the bus was big, old, heavy, and fully loaded).  The tour guide was Neil Bannan, I believe his name was.  He's the DJ at the Cavern Club, and has had some nice experiences with Paul McCartney, even though he's quite a bit younger even than I am.  He knows all the music (singing along at times with the music they played on the cheap little 60s type radio).  I didn't even know all the stories and quiz questions that he had tho I did know the last scheduled performance was Candlestick park (he wanted the date too!)   I asked him if Paul minds fans taking pix in concert… he didn't think so and Paul usually likes to do all sorts of pointing and flashing (Macca fans know what I mean).  We went to the Dingle to see Ringo's first house, and then to George's.  They were both born in those houses, in very poor sections of town.  We passed by the roundabout near Penny Lane a few times, with the barber shop, the bank, got our pix taken with the sign (which gets stolen about six times a week) and I took a pic of the fire truck from Penny Lane which was out on call.  Then it was off past some of the schools and LIPA (Paul's baby, chief benefactor for the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, based on the Fame school in NYC for which my aunt Marjorie had been head of the drama dept. for 30 years… but I digress), Epstein's much nicer house, and stories about why Pete Best was booted (Pete had been in charge of the bookings and the business end and Brian wanted to be that… also Brian and George Martin didn't think Pete was a good drummer).  I took some video of Neil telling stories, but didn't have enough room on the camera card for all of it. 

We got to Forthlin Road where Macca lived from the age of 13 and where the backyard on the cover of his current album was shot (I didn't know that Paul's brother was / is a photographer and has his own book out on Live 8, which signed goes for 30 pounds).  Then we went to John's Aunt Mimi's house on Menlove, the same wide street with a grass median where his mother got killed in an auto accident.  I can see how cars would be going fast there.  The house has one of those blue markers with the name of the person who lived there.  You only get one of those once you're dead 20 years (just so everybody's clear you were really important).  George has some time to wait.  It was really a great tour.  We were left at narrow, winding Mathew Street and the Cavern.  The whole tiny little street was now for pedestrians.  There were ancillary shops for the Beatles and a Cavern Pub as well as a Cavern Club.  A Lucy in the Sky coffee shop was  downstairs in a new small mall, and a Beatles / Rock shop upstairs.  You get the picture.  Even a Cavern Court, which was a new office building.  Finally, they are recognizing what they've got!  I went down the two or three flights of stairs into the new Cavern that Paul had inaugurated in 1999, I believe (the old one having been filled in in 1973) and enjoyed the ambience for a while (though I'm told that after you saw a show at the original you were imbued with five scents:  I can remember four: disinfectant, hot dogs, smoke, and sweat.  After an all-nighter, the walls would be dripping.  I picked up a T-shirt, some plectra, a tea towel, and watched a video of John Lennon.  As it was now going on 7, I got back to the tourist office to see about signing up for the tour of John's and Paul's houses.  I figured Chester could wait for another tour.  But they were full up for the first morning tour.  They suggested I go over at 10:15 anyway just in case one person doesn't show up.  One hadn't shown up for today's bus tour.

Even getting to bed was an adventure.  After finalizing the job app at 1am, the noise outside with a closed window was still quite great…  drunken people yelling at each other, etc.  The whole area was full of bars and night spots.  A call downstairs just resulted in a ‘we told you so' (on the website).  I must have missed that. 

Tomorrow.. on to Birmingham NEC, either via Chester or not depending on whether I get that tour!

 

Birmingham

The Hanover Hotel decided not to honor the wakeup request of 8:30 I'd given in as I went up to my room, but thankfully I got up at 9:15, early enough to get packed, breakfast, and to the tourist office by 10:15.  Packed and dragged everything down to breakfast (the full English minus sausage ­ this time including some blood pudding…  took a bite, wasn't in the mood).  Everybody was talking about the shooting…  As I was leaving the front desk I was cautioned that there might be some cops out front and that I might have to cross some tape…  The shooting had taken place around 2 probably in the alley outside my window (I was up one flight).  How charming!  Somehow, I'm not surprised.  I'm glad I hadn't heard it.  I don't know how I would have slept through sirens tho.

I got to the tourist office and this morning they were singing a different tune.  Whereas the night before they said that even though the Lennon and McCartney homes tours for the morning were booked, that if a person who had booked didn't show up, I'd be able to get on.  Not so.  I was now told that they wouldn't sell me a ticket even if people who had booked didn't show up, and that's exactly what happened.  After talking with the van driver (who lives at Lennon's house), the van went off with 2 customers and even though the driver called his company, he wouldn't let me on.  How inflexible and stupid (and self-defeating and uneconomic for them).  Maybe this is a one-off, but I've encountered such rigidness before, often, in the UK when it comes to serving tourists or people in general.  It reminds me of the time I was in York for the Jorvik Viking festival, Feb 95 when I came on that consulting gig.  This is the biggest tourist draw that York gets, they have 2 weeks of activities every day, and at the height of the festival (the final weekend) they closed the York museum at 4pm.  A bunch of us were peering in the window shortly after 4.  There is no concept of special overtime.  To get to the Beatles Story at the Albert Dock (a nifty museum) this person at the tourist office also sent me down a street that led, just two blocks away from them, into Liverpool's big dig.  And to get to the Dock, I had to walk 3 blocks in either direction to get around this hole.  Doesn't say much for this tourist info office.  It was a damp foggy morning.  The Docks had quite a different feel from the afternoon before. 

But it was worth it going to the Beatles Story.  Though most of it was repetitive to things I already knew, there were a few new items, and the shop had some nice things that I couldn't go away without (a Revolver old style windup alarm clock, a mug with Sgt. Pepper and Rubber Soul, a Revolver wallet, and a Linda McCartney Center (for cancer research) keychain.  Julia Lennon (John's half sister) narrated the headset program, punctuated by stuff from George Martin, Paul McCartney, Gerry Marsden and others.  They had made a recreation of the Cavern (so this is the second recreation of the Cavern that Liverpool has (how stupid to have filled in the original one in 1973!)) 

Picked up my bags, ran to the station.  At this point it was 3:30 so Chester will have to be next time.  That's ok.  Got to Birmingham train station (what a mad-house around before 6).  The tourist office had closed for the weekend, so my questions about how to take a train hopping on and hopping off through the Costwolds the next day to the next gig in Oxford were met by blank expressions and incomprehension by the train info folks.  I had stood in the line for train info for quite a while to get next to nothing.  Got to one of the frequent trains to Birmingham International and the whole gang from the US was on there.  It was like a rush-hour train, so I stood, well leaned, the short ride out.  My back's been starting to talk to me for a few days now, and dragging the increasingly heavy bags up the steps at Birmingham Intl didn't help, but part-way up a nice gent offered help, which I gladly took.  I'm sure that spared my back some more damage.  I made sure to soak in the first bath I'd seen since Kyle of Lochalsh that night in the hope it would help. 

 

The Concert

The venue is huge, wide and deep, and in a huge complex that includes the airport on one end, tied in, by monorail, to the 5-track train station in the middle, adjacent to the NEC (National Exhibition Centre), and the venue and a couple of big hotels on the other end.  The NEC Arena, as it's called, holds something like 11,000, and I was told that they had 5,500 tickets sold for tonight's performance (not a bad haul for the band).  As is the case for an arena that size, there was a veritable city of fast food joints in the place, even a cafeteria and the obligatory bar.  Half the arena was closed off, as I've seen them do at the Excel Center in St. Paul and others.  Even so, the flat floor was wide and as deep or deeper than I've ever seen with the side and rear loges extending much further out.  The stage was higher than I've ever seen.  It was above my head.  If you're sitting in the front, you have to crane your head (that can't be too comfortable!)  Since there were a number of us traveling fans who started giving ovations early on, that got more of the natives into it.  There was a modicum of security.  They casually checked bags on the way in, but asked only if I had any bottles or cans (I guess they either want to sell some or view them as potential projectiles).   With the second ticket I'd purchased to sit 7 rows closer than my lousy ticket, purchased when sales began, I was still sitting way way to the left of Norda and was contemplating using the digital zoom on top of the optical, but it wasn't quite that far away.  The two ladies sitting next to me had said that they used to see the early Moodies at the M&B Brewery twice a week.  That was quite something to hear.  Renee and I moved to open seats closer to the middle for the second half and the rush to the stage was like a full run.  The security didn't mind cameras or the run.  Tonight I noticed a lot more hollering from Graeme at various points.  Rock and Roll, Babies! at the end of H&H.    Julie's getting more into developing her own style and moves (e.g. pointing to John, then Justin, then back to John and themselves for the last four lines of Singer).  Norda and she sing We're all singers in a Rock and Roll Band Too.  I continue to be pleased with the sound of John's 12-string on December Snow.  The toss was pretty flawless, except for the self-toss and when Norda looked back he didn't smile… John's taken to singing an octave lower for some of See-Saw (which I welcome).  I like his lower register, and with Ray gone, I wish he would do it more often.  The women have the high parts covered more than adequately.  At the end a few more than usual gave items or left them on the stage for Mark to pick up.  Most were simple envelopes or a single flower.

Tomorrow, it's an attempt at seeing the Cotswolds during the day and the Oxford show at night, returning to London for the night.

 

Oxford

This day started out inauspiciously what with waking up with a backache (after sleeping on a couch), with congestion and a migraine.  I later realized it might have been a result of smashing the top of my head into the front edge of a badly placed overhead cabinet at the Hanover hotel in Liverpool getting up from their computer to go to the train station the day before.  At the time, the field of vision went white briefly, as my mouth slammed shut, and it almost seemed as if my brain hit my skull.  That sure slowed me down.  But today by 10:30, after a couple of Excedrins, I was off.  I did feel odd twinges in the next days in various parts of my head that concerned me, but knock wood, the concussion was a very mild one.  The tourist centre at Birmingham International was closed ­ it's Saturday, so Naturally nobody is traveling as a tourist…  Thanks to some friends graciously bringing my 2 heaviest bags in their car to Oxford, I was relatively free to walk.  Mind you, the two I was carrying were still probably 30 pounds.  The trainman gave me a schedule to get to Moreton-in-Marsh, the largest Cotswolds town the train stops at, and I realized that I'd have to go to Oxford first and then backtrack a bit to get there.  I figured to check out the tourist office or local buses once I got to Oxford to see how to best get to the Cotswolds.  That turned out to be the best option.  I'd either be able to spend a few hours in this tiny town of Moreton-in-Marsh and not see any of Oxford, or hopping a #20 bus towards Woodstock, go to Blenheim palace (Winston Churchill's birthplace) and gardens and Woodstock for 4.50 pounds round trip and still have some time for Oxford.  That made sense.  The guy at the ice cream shop held my bags for me so I could really walk for a couple of hours, and I bought a piece of pottery and a map of English gardens at the shop.  I think what with the increasing weight of the bags, the head injury, and desire not to see the back get thrown out, I have slowed down a bit.  In fact, after a lovely walking tour of Blenheim's parks and gardens, and then a walk to and through Woodstock (the scenery is like you'd see in paintings, and the slight fog added to the ethereal feeling), I was ready to just walk the short distance to the theatre and enjoy a pub for a while with friends. 

 

Concert

In the first half someone in the audience shouted Happy Birthday to Justin and then everyone launched into the Happy Birthday song,  but after just a couple of bars of that, Justin resumed his normal routine of introducing the next song.  He clearly did not want any of it.  In fact, to put a point on diverting attention from himself, just before December Snow, Justin gave a touching remembrance for Claire Powell, one of the long-time Moodies fans who died of a brain hemorrhage a couple of weeks ago.  He went on for a little while about it, mentioning that they thought it cool that she was from Belgium where the band really got its start.  I'd met her at the Cobham meet and greet, taking a photo of her with John, which I later sent her.  Recently I saw a video of the 1996 Christmas party, which featured Ray Powles and the Leukaemia fund, since some of the band's clothes were auctioned by John (I think one of Justin's shirts fetched over 300 pounds).  John was a good auctioneer!  Incidentally, it was good to finally see Ray Powles talk about what the fund does since Moodyfest gathered thousands of dollars for his research over a 16 year period.  In the video John frequently referred to Claire by name as the auction was proceeding, when she made bids.  After the Oxford show when John was outside signing autographs, someone discussed Claire with him and he was saying what a loss it was. 

During tonight's show, Graeme was in a frisky mood, goosing Norda in the bum with his tambourine at one point as they danced together banging tambourines in sync.  Later in the dance Graeme had trouble extracating his arm from his tambourine, since one of the new parts of his dance routine is to put his arm through it and gesture provocatively (I have pix).  There was quite some energy during this concert, and the crowd had contributed to it.  I noticed how Julie and Norda have developed their choreography during Singer after John has joined with them, then left.  The two go in opposite directions beating tambourines and taking equal but opposite steps, turning at the same time and coming together.  It's very simple but effective.  But just as I'd taken what Nancy D thought was my best pic of the night (as the ending solo to Singer was just starting to heat up), one of the security ladies told me to stop…  She was sweeping the entire area, swooping in on everybody. 

Others had been stopped in the first half.  But after we clustered at the front for the last 2 songs, all the cameras were back out and security had given up.  Despite the hassle with security, I was thinking this was one of the best, if not the best show I'd seen over there this time when I walked out. 

After the show folks were running back and forth from the back to the front, and after quite some time had passed, the band came out one side to the bus in front.  I thought this might be a good opportunity to pass some photos I'd taken in the past to Gordon, Paul, and Norda.  They were all gracious, and Norda particularly thanked me.  That was nice.  I am motivated to do it again sometime.  What happened next washed away much of the good feeling I'd had about the concert up to then.  For the second time, I'd gotten close enough to John to ask for a photo.  For the second time he'd said yes.  I'd given my camera to a friend to take shots, but before we could pose for one, an English fan inserted herself and daughter and by the time that was done, the Moodies' security guy ushered John onto the bus.  What made it worse for me was that she said some cruel things to me that were so hurtful that I was at a loss for words.  (A couple of other fans had mentioned to me that they couldn't see much of the show because she had been dancing in front of them.)  The final touch was that when I'd tried to hand my program up to the same security fellow in the Moodies' bus after everyone else had already gotten their things signed, they closed the door in my face.  I frequently found myself in tears whenever I'd think about it during the bus ride home and even the next day (and as I write this days later).   I realize it's mainly the things that were said more than anything else.

The bus ride home was novel…   I don't think I've taken a bus after a show in England before.  The buses to London are still every half hour, stopping at a few towns along the way.  The driver had an interesting accent and way of speaking.  One gem:  Shepherds Boosh (Bush).  The hotel was interesting…  lots of neon used in the lighting (ick).  As it was Really late, after 3am, I really didn't want to have to get down to Southampton airport to pick up the car by 10, so figured out that if I paid 6 pounds, I could have another hour of wifi in the hotel and could modify my booking time online.  Realizing that Bournemouth wasn't that far from the next night's lodging in Lyme Regis, I went for the time change.  The rest was all good.  Tomorrow, on to Bournemouth, the last of the UK shows this time.