So I told you I was going to see The Good, the Bad & the Queen in Les Nuits de Fourvière. Finally, I won't see Elvis Costello  (I'm not that rich, you know) but I know Marc will and I hope he'll answer us about it

It was in a quite unusual place as the bands ere playing in a roman theatre (during the show Damon said it was a beautiful place. He also said Lyon was fantastic. I think so, too. I'm not from Lyon, but it's really a nice city, especially what is called "vieux Lyon", in french, the old Lyon.).
I was there for hours, waiting at the doors with some Clash fans with tee shirts, some english fans of Blur, and some people from Lyon who probably came to all concerts that sound good. There was 2 men with tee shirts from the Hammersmith concert, too (it was hard to resist to tell them "hey, I was in Hammersmith, too!!!"   )
We were given flyers for Monkey (he he, I already have my ticket! ). Then we entered the place, and I waited another hour to be in front of the stage  
We were worrying about the sky turning grey, because if it had rained, the concert could have been cancelled. Anyway, it had not.
The concert began at 9.30 PM with The Servant. Most of the people seemed not to kno them, some thought it was a stupid idea to make them play before the Good,the Bad & the Queen. Personnally, I didn't know they were playing too when I bought my ticket to the show, but when I knew it, I was really happy - I got their CDs and it's really good. The singer, Dan Black, is totally mad  :lol: , dancing everywhere in his strange way (but often on the left of the stage  ), and he's speaking french quite good (he made us laugh quite often. He's a funny young man.)
They played songs from How to destroy a relationship, like "Hey Lou Reed", but also songs from their first album.

Everyone knows Orchestra in France, but I think the song the audience liked the most was Liquefy. When they had finished and while the technicians were preparing the stage for GBQ, everyone was still singing "wo-oh-oh-oh"  

Probably they gained some new fans this evening.
Then GBQ came. From where I was, the one I was seeing the most was Paul. He often came toward our side of the stage  , I almost could have touched him, and a man behind me shouted "West London!!!" and made him smile 
Damon came once too   . The only one I couldn't see behing the battery was Tony .
They played the songs from the album, then an instrumental piece which sounds like Morricone, it seemed to me that it was telling a beautiful story. Finally Eslam Jawaad came for Mr Whippy. Behind the sun was magic just like when I saw GBQ play for the first time, but A soldier's tale was even greatest if it's possible 
At the end Damon counted to 7 in french.
Then it was almost midnight, I should have hurried to get a bus or the funicular but... I didn't   and waited at the artists' entrance. Damon came out after a while and signed some autographs, took some photos but I couldn't reach him, as his bodyguard said they had to go . Awwww... I should have told him I was coming from Toulouse and that I was going to join my hotel back on foot to see Damon, maybe he would pity me?

Anyway, it as a great concert, really.

If Damon was not Damon, he should be worried about losing his first place in my musical pantheon. Maybe I'm musically speaking a polytheist ? 

So, my new god is called Elvis Costello. I'm not gonna tell you what his real name is, that I think he's looking like Graham Coxon, or that he is now married with Diana Krall and so on. I'm just gonna let you listening to his incomparable voice, so that even when the most prestigious bands make a cover, it can't be better than the original. The only thing I have to add is that I unfortunately did not found all of my favourite songs on the web to show you...

I like him so much I'm wondering if I won't go to see him play for Les Nuits de Fourvière in Lyon (I already ordered my tickets to see TGTB&TQ there, of course )

...And God, these times it is working hard!

Maybe it's working too much anyway.

I've got some exams since wednesday, still 2 subjects on monday and tuesday, and then I'll have to wait for the results. To be honest, as I didn't pass the exams for the 1st semester, I'll surely have an additional exam because -that's how my dictionnary translates it - I'm a borderline case  I'm not sure I like to think I am a "case"  But, er, obviously, I am. Just, the french word for it is not so categorical. In french, I suppose we like to think your failure was just an accident. So finally, the english phrase is more adapted. That's not just an accident : that's what happens every year to me!!!

Now I think you know what I mean when I say I'm thinking too much. If only it was only about school... Unfortunately, I'm getting hardly unsatisfied about the way people around me are considering myself. I got a discussion with my mother about it (after worrying all night because she didn't call me for 2 days  Spring is making me really anxious. Every year I've got my angry-angsty-antisocial period. Please give me my dear autumn back!!! For God's sake, I'm a november girl!) - and she answered that was the image I was giving. At this very moment, that was the end of my little world. I used to tell myself "at least my family knows who I REALLY am" and now I realise I'm probably the only one who does (and the worst is that I'm not even sure I'm not doing enormous mistakes about myself). Even my own mother is wrong about me.

I spend my nights looking for people who are not strangers. I used not to care about what people think about me - to me, there was no point in making up who I was. That's probably why people look at me condescendingly.

But I just can't stand it anymore.

Maybe I just don't like the way I am.

blur - sunday sunday envoyé par trezz

So this is my last post about London... About THIS trip in London, because I absolutely WANT to come back there some day... Don't know what I'll say there now... I'll probably go on, just no idea for the topic... But in english of course, I need to improve my foreign languages if I want to survive next year in Germany

After a last breakfast at our hotel, we went to Buckingham Palace and Soho, because we had no time to go to the Tower of London...

To finish... Here are 4 original blogs about London in english. More links (in french) on my other blog!

A good place for a cup of tea and a think & Eggs, bacon, chips and beans : My  guide was very useful... Except when I wanted to eat or drink something (remember the Tea Palace... ). So, maybe you'll find a good place there!

George Orwell :  Here can you read an essay about british food... By 1984's author!

London underground Diary : For the ones who miss the tube  Funny.

On saturday, about 18 o'clock, I leave Yasmina and her friend to come back to Hammersmith. I'm a little afraid, cause nobody will be by my side this time to help me if I can't find my way to the Hammersmith Palais, if I can't understand what people tell me, if I can't get my ticket booked on internet (they didn't want to send it "overseas"), if, if...

Let me put you in the atmosphere : The Hammersmith Palais is one of the most ancient show room in London, which inspired the Clash for a famous song. And it has to be destroyed on the 1st of April to build workplaces without any poesy or history. Another act adding to the modernisation and banalisation upsetting this part of the City...

So, I'm going to attend to one of the last show in this mythic place, with the no less legendary Paul Simonon (should I really remain you of who he is???). It's more than a gig. It's a pilgrimage.

So I finally find the entrance. From the outside, it doesn't seem to be exceptional. Just a queue of a dozen people. I ask a man from the security staff about the way to get my ticket, he friendly answers me to wait at the end of the queue. I'm a little surprised, but well, I'm well-disciplined (and I don't want to be thrown out )

Some journalists ask us if we know about what's gonna happen to the Palais... Well, I know, but I don't dare to talk. ^^

Lucky me, I'm one of the first people who entered the Palais after a little more waiting time than what was announced (and I walked through the day), but it allows me to go just in front of the stage, yeah!!!

Still long minutes to wait for the gig to begin... So I could admire the place, too bad they destroy it. I loved the atmosphere : the big painting behind the orchestra, the purple light tainting the smokes... kinda mystical.

Then the concert began, with Tony Allen's orchestra. That was exactly what I needed to understand "Tony Allen got me dancing"!

I would probably have danced furiously if I wasn't caught between hysterical girls.

Then came John Cooper Clarke. Seemed to be funny but... Oh God, he was talking so quickly I finally gave up trying to understand what he said! Not very easy for a french person. So honestly, I was beginning to get bored.

After him, it was up to Don Letts to play a reggae version of Eleanor Rigby

He stayed behind me filming all the show ^^ There was Pennie Smith, too!!!

When he finally played "White man in the Hammersmith Palais", I couldn't help singing. Too bad GBQ didn't play a special version for the event, but however, it was great. Exactly what was required to prepare myself to the musical nirvana that was coming next...

Oh my God... I forget I was thirsty and tired, I totally gave up myself to Damon's voice, to the magical alchimy of the instruments, feeling music running in my blood, and when they played Behind the Sun, I was on 7th heaven... And surprise, when I listened to that song again later, I realised there was the same sirens you can hear all the time when night is over London...

You'll say you can buy the CD and live the same without losing your health and money in London. But come on, you wouldn't have Simon Tong just a few meters behind you, you wouldn't see Paul Simonon holding his bass like a gun, the true complicity between the members of the band, so many people loving the same music that you singing along with you (well, sometimes, I meet someone who knows what I'm talking about... That's the best I get till there)... Oh my God... Oh my Gooood! "Oh my God" is almost all that I could say during the gig.

Till Paul Simonon took his little souvenir in his way.

Maybe I should have taken my precious barrier I didn't want to give up during the whole concert  

I really thought I was not going to live something better in my life till the next gig of The Good, The Bad and the Queen.

PS : The pic comes from this page : http://www.flickr.com/photos/brownbrogues/444013131/in/set-72157600043869600/

Hope the photographer won't mind I'm using his photo, as long as I'm telling where it comes from... Anyway, thanks to him for letting us a souvenir of this wonderful night!

To complete my list with stuffs that all tourists do in London, I WANTED to go in a tearoom, to eat scones :)

I decided to try the one my guide recommended in Notting Hill, cause Yasmina wanted to see this place (well, one of the most famous place in London according to french people is Notting Hill, because of the movie)

So, I walked determined ahead the 2 unfortunate victims of my dictatorian behaviour till the end of the streets. At the corner between Portobello and Westbourne Grove, we wait at a zebra, arm under arm. Just facing ME, 2 meters behind maybe, a taxi stops. 4 men inside, one is wearing a familiar grey jacket... I just gazed :

_ Yasmina, look... It's Damon... Just there, in the taxi!!!

Please, don't ask me what I did. Nothing, of course. Would you disturb God himself if you met him by chance? (Well, I know God would never take a taxi... But, er, just suppose he would.) No, you'll just respect him. Even if you feel hysterical inside. And Damon is something similar to God to me. So I just looked at him showing something to his friends, breaking Yasmina's arm. He's got incredibly blue eyes, even more beautiful than he looks like on photos. He's got something like a holy aura surrounding him.

Then the car left. I thought it was an hallucination. I was shaking like a leaf trying to make understand Yasmina's friend why I was so upset. OK, I'm ridiculous. He's just a human. But he's the special human that wrote the songs that make me feel good everyday. And I could have met anyone else famous in London... Don't know, Hugh Grant, JK Rowling or Paul McCartney... No, the 31st of March, between 16 and 17, it was MY idole that appears my eyes, without I even willingly did something to see him.

Except looking for the Tea Palace... Where we learnt some minutes later we needed a reservation. (er... It wasn't written on the guide!!! ^^' I was looking so stupid )

Of course, I apologised to Yasmina and Vincent to make them come here in vain... But guess what? I wasn't sorry at all. I had birds singing Hallelujah in my head, stars in my eyes and a stupid smile that was going to last for hours . Ah, I'm ashamed  But it feels good

On Saturday, I dragged Yasmina to the Waterloo Station, and I must admit my only goal was to see the place one of my favourite songs was about.

Well, then we had troubles with the tube to go to the London Bridge and the Tower we absolutely wanted to see (ah ah... We didn't, and it's all because of me...  Well, Yasmina could have seen it when I was at my gig, but her friend brought her to Piccadilly again... Nice place indeed, but she had already seen it! )

But it was not a waste of time, as we saw a beautiful landscape from the Waterloo Bridge :

So I finally get my pics! OK, so remember, we're still friday, first day we spent in London. Took us some time to understand how the tube was organised ^^' so it was quite late when we arrived, however, we saw lots of beautiful things in a few hours.

I desperatly fell in love with Big Ben, which is in reality the name of the Bell in the Palace where you can find the House of Lords and the House of commons. The name Ben comes from the architect Benjamin Hall.

Walking through Westminster area by night is like a timeless ballad. The lightning is surrealist. If you are thinking like Yasmina does, you think it is more like streets where Jack the Ripper was lurking around...(but it does not disturb her to see Wendy's house and pink limousines in the same place )

Hi there!

Sorryyyyyy, you'll have to wait to see my other pics of London, they are not developped yet. But I think what happened next during our stay deserves to wait! You won't believe who I saw in Notting Hill  (a clue? I should have seen him only a few hours later.  So I saw him twice in the same day... This must have been my lucky day )

I'm going to have a driving test on the 10th of April , then we'll celebrate my mother's birthday (another aries in my life ) and finally I'll go to a figure skating gala in Paris on the 14th... Then back in Toulouse, and I can promise you you'll have news!

Till there, don't eat too much chocolate! Kisses