Sunday, April 01, 2007

teenage wasteland


the royal albert hall. it is an underestimation of words when one thinks of the many people and performances there. i decided i must take a tour since this was the home of the famous and in my humble opinion, revolutionary moments in modern music..."JUDAS!!!" is all i can say.

a strange yet sunny day in london and i am going inside this hall for a hour seems almost crazy but i must. i was the youngest of the 21 person group at double 4's and one of the three from the us of a. still, i was excited because i just had to take in where so much historical shows have happened. ok, mostly the dylan thingy as noted above but still, here stands the place. the guide was great and she even said people like hendrix, eric clapton have played there as well as more "iconic" performers like sinatra and liza minelli have also. LIZA? whatev. the place is phenomenal and exquisite in its beauty. we got to see the queens room, go from the top to the bottom and hear some of the soundcheck of the band which were to play later that night. who you ask? you ask correctly for it was the last half of the who performing to a sold out show later that night and yes, i got to hear a good chunk of the soundcheck!! mostly drums, then guitars then all of a sudden, the opening keyboard riff from 'baba o'riley' and i am awe struck. then the guitar part, it sounded loud and live but please note immediately, this was not pete townsend nor roger daltry at this soundcheck but still, i was felt pretty taken by the entire thing. i left feeling as though it was a good call to check it out and i refrained from yelling judas!

later that night sb and i headed out to hammersmith to have some indian food at sagar which was rated one of the finest vegetarian indian places in all of london. it did not disappoint! i saw they served dosas and that got me excited considering i only know of a place in bellevue that serves them near my place. we ordered quite a bit of stuff and not one thing was even close to uninspiring. the okra dish we had and the saag paneer was pitch perfect. i went straight into a food coma and i was so damn tired, i opted out of going and seeing damon albarn's latest nutter fest, the good, the bad and the queen. good thing too because they were coming on way too late (after midnight) and i did not want to watch john cooper clarke before them. and damn it, a mighty expensive ticket too at $80 dollars! it was also sold out and who knows what a scalper would have charged me...

give me coffee and tv instead.

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