My brain is totally in about a million places at the moment. I feel … overwhelmed, and everything feels surreal. On Sunday night as I watched The Temper Trap explode on the stage of the Roundhouse I felt really detached. Or, I don’t know… I can’t find the right words for it. I felt like only half of me was really feeling it, and the other half of me was abuzz with schemes, plans, ideas, worries, mental to-do lists, and dreaming. In fact this is how I feel most of the time these days. I find it difficult to really lose myself in anything; my mind providing constant background noise.
Maybe I need to try meditating a little bit? Or maybe I just have to push through this period – I’m sure this will all change quite dramatically once I finish working and have some real time with myself, and with Uri. Time to contemplate and scheme and worry, in the midst of day-to-day life. A bit of balance.
On Friday night we had our work Summer Party; which was my last work ‘do’ with QBS. It’s strange because I’ve never even liked this job, but I’ve always liked the people and having worked with them now for more than 3 years I guess they’ve become a big part of my life. And I will have to say goodbye to them in three weeks. I hate goodbyes so much… I feel like the last 4 years of my life have been full of nothing but goodbye goodbye goodbye. And yes, with endings come new beginnings; which I realise and which is fantastic and which I am excited and hopeful about. But my soul sometimes lends weight to the parting side of the scale, and the bright prospects of the future look a little dimmer in the shadow of all the leave-taking I have to go through first.
We went to the Old Ship in Hammersmith, as usual, and had a fantastic night of dinner/drinks. I actually didn’t get too drunk (yay!) because I wanted to get up early on Saturday morning and go to Bikram yoga – which I did. After that, I came home and had lunch, mucked about and did a bit of tidying before Uri came home and we caught the bus to Wembley Stadium for the Oasis gig! Upon entering the stadium and looking for our seats, we looked up to the big screen and saw a terrible notice: ‘The Enemy Will Not Be Performing Tonight. Other support acts will play slightly longer sets in recompense.’ The line up was supposed to be Reverend & The Makers, The Enemy, Kasabian and Oasis. But instead, no Enemy! Apparently they were sick. Uri and I were devastated, but decided not to let it dampen our spirits too much. When we found our seats they were soaked from the rain that had been incessantly falling all afternoon. We decided that although our bums were damp, we still wouldn’t let our spirits be dampened. Then we sat down and looked up – at the back of a food/merch stall. Our view of the stage was almost entirely blocked by the big construction in the standing area. That was it for me, my spirits were dampened. Actually they were more soaked through. Uri wandered off to get beers and I sat there, bum getting colder, feeling disappointed and miserable.
When Uri came trundling back down the stairs, he told me that he’d seen a couple of people who had been sitting in front of us go up to the Information desk and get their tickets swapped. The Information desk man was cheerful and swapped our tickets immediately, offering us first tickets for the standing area (which we considered but declined) and then seats in the first tier to the left-hand side of the stage. We had a pretty side-on view so could only really see the front of the stage, but it was 10 times better than where we’d been sitting before! And there was a roof over us, so we didn’t get wet for the rest of the night, whereas people in the standing area were drenched!
Kasabian were phenomenal; their songs are so huge they deserve to be performed in a stadium. Watching the crowd throb and pulsate to every beat was hypnotic; thousands and thousands of bodies and minds lost to the music. The great, awesome, unifying power of a fucking amazing riff, a big fat bass line, and some simplistic lyrics infused with attitude. They played for about an hour to a geared-up crowd and then, finally, Oasis took the stage and belted out some classics. I have to say, it was more interesting watching the crowd than the stage – Oasis don’t really DO much. They just kind of stood there and played their instruments. It speaks volumes for their music, I think, that it stands alone, without performance and showmanship, to entertain 95,000 people for 2 hours. Wonderwall was excellent, Roll With It also, and for the encore Liam kind of walked up to the mic and said “I can’t really be arsed singing this song again. So, I’ll just count you in.” and he started playing Don’t Look Back in Anger. The crowd sang it, beginning to end, the whole thing. That was actually pretty cool, although somehow sliiiightly irritating. And then Champagne Supernova, which is kind of me and Uri’s ‘song’, if we have a ‘song’. Bit of a personal joke really, although I am pretty sure it was playing the first time we kissed. Nawww. So that held quite a special significance for us, and we cuddled and chanted and snogged and gawped, and giggled conspiratorially all the way home.
Sunday I had my last Hebrew lesson of the term. And so began the stream of goodbyes that will be my life until, well, December I guess. We ate mini-croissants and discussed lots of things, like the best places to go in Tel Aviv, and what kind of classes I might find in Sydney. I bade Rina goodbye with controlled distraction. I really need to work on my farewell technique – I tend to dread it so much that I breeze through it without thinking about anything but getting it over with, and don’t get to say everything I want to say. I don’t know why…
Later that night I headed to Camden all by myself and went to the Roundhouse for the iTunes festival. Stephen Fry did an hour of spoken word, and then I watched The Temper Trap do an amazing set that I tried to get more lost in, because it was incredibly intense, but I found myself highly distracted. I left before Mumford & Sons played, because I was tired as hell and hadn’t heard of them and the tickets were free. Probably I’ll regret it someday. But oh well. I did get a little card that entitles me to 10 free songs on iTunes though. Any recommendations?
Tomorrow night we’re going to see Jesca Hoop, and on Thursday I’m going to another China Miéville reading. Yes, I am stalking him. So what?
( I am well aware that my roots are TERRIBLE, and will be doing something about it shortly. )
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