A personal one from me today, the ramblings of someone trying to process an amazing event and just needs to get the words out onto paper!!
There are a few things in this world that I am truly passionate about, photography is of course one of them! I love reading and everything that comes with that, trawling around charity shops and picking up some bargains and the smell of new books from the shelves of a chain store. Do you ever do that, walk into a book store and just take a lovely big whiff of the air? No? Ok, moving on! I also collect fridge magnets, I looooove fridge magnets! We have a rather large fridge which is covered in magnets from all around the world. We have magnets from every place that we have been to, I can not walk past a gift shop... It's a weakness. When my family go on holiday they bring me one back so I have magnets from far off locations that we haven't visited which allows me to live vicariously through my display!
My other great passion is the subject of this blog, and I hope you enjoy the ride.
I have been a Queen fan for many, many years and this passion is the reason I have my best friend in my life. Annie & I started writing to each other way back when we were in high school and Queen was our common ground and was always there as we grew. Marriages, children, happiness and sadness.... letters through the mail changed to text messages, Facebook Messenger, Facetime and eventually in person holidays. I was fortunate enough to see Queen with Paul Rogers in 2008 at Wembley Arena and it was amazing. I never thought I would see them live and I loved every second.
Then all of a sudden this chap called Adam Lambert showed up and bam, live shows were suddenly a thing again! Annie managed to get tickets to a show at The O2 with another friend from where she lives and I was so happy for her, and also very jealous!
Then...... Covid.
The shows were all postponed and the world ground to a halt.
The day finally came when the rescheduled dates were finally announced and as it turns out, the friend that Annie was going with couldn't go so... in steps me!! Whooop!! Annie lives in Devon and used to live on a farm... I know, cool right.. but it did mean that my little country bumpkin needed a little helping hand. I arranged the hotel and both of our travel arrangements so my train will get in before her coach and leave after her when we go home.
The day finally arrived and I made my way to the train station after taking Grace to school. After almost missing the train as I was chatting with a very nice woman, I settled in for first part of the journey to Ipswich. I was unsettled to opted to listen to a podcast than try and read my book, I couldn't concentrate yet! The connecting train to Liverpool Street wasn't as quiet as the one to Ipswich, but that meant that I had the chance to chat more with Jennifer (the lovely woman I met at Lowestoft) and we sat opposite Shirley. Now, Shirley had a wonderful story tell. She is visiting from Canada and travelling around Europe spending time with family We are now following each other on social media and I hope to keep in touch xx
Annie was coming up from Devon and my train got in 3 1/2 hours before her coach, luckily it was a glorious day and I could chill. Well, chill as much as you could in that heat! I went to Finsbury Circus Gardens and sat watching the world go by. People in suits and lanyards having their lunch breaks, groups of people waiting for trains and some random bloke skipping for like 45 minutes!
I made my way over to Victoria Coach Station and waited for Annie to get in and watched hundreds of people get off the coaches before hers. When hers finally arrived we had the biggest hug and swiftly headed over to our hotel in Canning Town. There wasn't a lot of time to settle in and luckily the hotel is only one stop away from The O2 on the tube. With our tummies full of Maccy D's we jumped off the tube for the short journey to The O2 and yup, it still blows my tiny little brain every time I see it up close.
Merch, merch and even more merch!! I love a tour t-shirt and thanks to my bestie you can see me proudly strutting around in a bright purple t-shirt!
After this we headed into the arena to find our entrance only to find that there was a slight issue with the tickets! Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
Our entrance was right around the other side of the building so we had to go all the way outside again to the box office to sort it. It was touch and go for a while but the lovely customer service chappy managed to sort our problem and we made our way back to the entrance. Sadly we had lost about 20 or so minutes and we would of been so much further into the line.
We found ourselves walking into the arena and seeing this amazing stage set up and being totally blown away by it. We found a spot to stand and waited in anticipation for around an hour and a half. Even though we lost our place in the queue with the ticket problem we still ended up with a great spot. Then the moment we had been waiting for happened.......
ERGH MY GAAAAAWWWDDDDD!!!!!!!!!
I was going live on Facebook as much as I could and filming a lot of videos. Yes, I did see quite a lot of the show through my phone but I needed to document as much of it as I could.
We laughed, we cried and reveled in joy.
As they played hit after hit 20,000 of us sang and cheered along loving every second. Now, I have to admit that coming to the show I wasn't the biggest Adam Lambert fan. I could take him or leave him, I was there to see Brian & Roger over anyone else. But I must say that Mr Lambert has gained a new fan, he was truly amazing and commanded that stage. He had every one of the 20,000 of us eating out of the palm of his hand as he strutted that stage. He didn't try to "be Freddie", he was giving the performance of a lifetime and honouring the great man himself. I was floored by Adam's performance of "Who Wants To Live Forever" I can pin point that as the moment it changed for me!
The show was two and a half hours of total amazingness and then it was time to head out to the tube. After another stop by the merch shop we headed down to North Grenwich station and managed to get on a train pretty quickly.
We grabbed some food from the 24hr McDonalds next to the hotel and watched Kitchen Nightmares while tucking into nuggets and a caramel McFlurry!
The next day saw Annie's first Nandos... It's a good job the drinks are bottomless and we sat near the fountain cause I was dehydrated and drank that puppy dry! We made our way back over to Victoria Coach Station but stopped at Westminister to see a few sights. Big ben, The London Eye, The houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey to name just a few. The Abbey gift shop was open and I am now the proud owner of a new fridge magnet. Did I mention I am a total sucker for a gift shop!! This time it was Annie's turn to wait as her coach left a few hours after my train. We said our goodbyes and I headed over to Liverpool Street station to get the train to Norwich. This was the day that Elton John played Carrow Road so the train was pretty full.
I spent most of the journey back staring into space trying to process the previous 24 hours, and to be honest, I am still doing that now. I still catch myself daydreaming and thinking back to those two and a half hours...
Annie, Thank You for inviting me to share this with you
Love you x
Tasha x