Q

Was great to see folks from out of town visiting last week. Sorry I was so snuffly. Jimmy and I went to see Electric Six for his birthday (yes, they are still going and have released 6 more albums (of varying quality) than when I last paid any attention to them) on Saturday in Birmingham. Our plans were thrown awry at several points along the way…

1. I was so ill Wednesday evening that I almost didn’t make it out for Jimmy’s birthday meal. That night I didn’t sleep a wink and was feeling far too hot but also shivering, leading me to believe I had fever. The next day I convinced myself I had swine flu, which, given the symptoms *at the time* was fairly reasonable. I got myself a useless swine flu number for England and started thinking I might not be ok for the concert.

2. I stayed off work the rest of the week, causing me to leave the tickets on my desk.

3. I decided to print out the tickets again Saturday morning, only upon arriving on campus, we discovered the entire network down, so we couldn’t use Jimmy’s computer or a 24hr computer room to get anywhere.

4. I have no key to my office, where the previously printed tickets were, so I had to get a friendly gent with a key to let us in.
First success of the day here, we get the tickets from my desk, noting the address of the venue, O2 Academy, Dale End so that I could plan a route with my phone.

5. We head back to Jimmy’s car to discover a flat tyre. He changes the wheel whilst I try to buy some lypsyl at the union shop, as my lips are still killing me from the cold. Shop is shut.

6. I get lypsyl from Morrisons in Newtown. We have a fairly uneventful journey to Brum. We go round in only a couple of circles before finding the car park to Birmingham Central Travelodge. We park. It is £6 for 24 hours, which is what we thought, and Jimmy was prepared enough to have brought it in change, the clever bunny.

7. We can’t check in until 3pm, we are told. We wander off to the german markets and I soothe my lips on some lovely mulled wine.

8. We do a bit of looking at shops and fighting through crowds and then return to our travelodge, only to be told at checkin “you’re not staying here, you’re at Newhall Street”. Whoops, my bad. Off we trot to our actual hotel, leaving the car where it is. We find our actual hotel (much nicer and closer, in fact), check in, and have about a half hour break before getting changed ready to go to Dale End for the concert at 6, as it states on our ticket.

9. We wander back out again, arrive at the venue obviously too early as it all looks shut. We go for a pint and a bit of grub, and come back at 6.

10. Venue is still shut, despite sign outside suggesting it is the correct location. Two other groups of attendees appear. Only one of these thinks they are going to see Electric Six, the other has Shed seven tickets for the same venue. We begin to feel mild panic. The Electric Six group say “Oh, it must be over at the new place” and proceed to hike across town. We follow, seeing no better option. The Shed Seven people follow too.

11. After a long walk, we discover they were right. The O2 Academy has moved to a new location, and has 2 rooms. Both Shed Seven and Electric Six are on. There are 2 shortish queues and they haven’t even opened the doors yet. We get in with no hassle, get pints in, start looking at the youth of the crowd and feel old, deride the first act, love the second act, enjoy Electric Six but feel knackered by this point and the room is like a sauna. I think I was about 2 songs away from giving in and dancing in my bra. Didn’t help that the setlist was so long!

So thanks, Ticketweb, for making our day just that little bit more complicated, by not informing me in any way that the venue on the bloody ticket was not in fact the location of the concert. If it hadn’t been for the group ahead of us, we’d probably never have found it. Genuine thanks to those knowledgeable people, whoever you are.

Despite all the aggro it was actually a nice weekend, we did a little shopping, raped Borders for cheap books as it’s closing down, and ate at the cute Mount Fuji cafe that Penny recommended to us, where I had the tastiest Miso soup and a lovely chicken bento box, whilst Jimmy had an even tastier pork bento box with delicious sticky sauce. It’s round the corner from Wagamama, good for small lunches and devoid of queues — or at least it was at 12pm on a Sunday. I want to go again already.