A Concert in London Part 1 – A Four and a Half Hour Trip

[If you’re really just interested in the actual show, skip this and read the entry named “pt 2”]

Who is crazy enough to travel about 928 miles, a four and a half hour journey, and spend pretty much all money (200 £) on a concert?

Yeah. That’d be me.

I travelled from the place I live, just outside Norrtälje, in Sweden to Camden Town in London, England. Just to see this band play.

Chances are you’ve never heard of them, which really is a shame because there isn’t another band out there quite like them. So I’ll give you some links, educate yourself!

Website
Myspace
Buzznet
Shawn's blog

I forgot something, didn’t I? Oh, yeah, you want to know which band I’m talking about. Right. They’re called The Matches and are a semi-local band from Oakland, California.

How long have I listen to this band you probably wonder. Funny thing is, that’s what I wondered too. It feels like forever since I first heard their music. And when I tried to remember I thought it was four years ago. But my little brother told me that we (he started to listen to them at the same time) had listen to them longer than that. It’s going on the 7th year now actually. And that’s how long I’ve waited to see them live. I’ve waited since I was, what is it now?, thirteen years I guess. If you didn’t know already I’m turning 20 the beginning of this summer. So it’s been a long wait. And perhaps it makes a little more sense to you now that I travelled to another country just for a concert.

I actually have Sara (jepha_drag_queen) to thank for my newfound obsession with The Matches. It had died down a little over the years but thanks to her I got it all back and more.

Thank you Sara. Love you almost as much as The Matches. :001:

If it hadn’t been for her I probably never had discovered that The Matches were going to play in London.

When I found out I freaked. I decided right away that I was going no matter what even though some people (like my parent for example) forgot that I’m not a kid anymore and tried to stop me from going, basically telling me I couldn’t. Which of course was ridiculous since they have no say.

I guess they just got worried that I would be going all alone though. But when I managed to talk my younger brother into coming along (getting him almost as psyched about it as me) everyone calmed down a bit since I wouldn’t be alone. And no, it’s not because I’m a girl, they’d been just as overprotective if one of my brothers had talked about going alone. That’s just they way they are.

The problems began instantly. The money that was supposed to be on my bank account wasn’t there. That made me panic slightly to be honest. Then we couldn’t order the tickets because we both have Maestro. And our cards are of course Swedish. Which meant that we couldn’t use them. So we had to ask our dad to order the tickets. But the problem was that the cardholder had to collect them. We solved that by having dad write a commission but imagine how sick I felt until my brother and I actually got in at the venue. >_>

The money problem was solved as well after I had made a few calls here and there.

Then a hotel room and flight tickets were booked and the route from the airport to Camden Town looked up and everything was set for the big day.

We had to get up at 04:30 to drive to the airport. A drive that took two hours.

Then we hade to wait another two hours before we could board the plane. And we had basically nothing to do to kill time. Well, except reciting interview with The Matches. But repeating the dialogue about “holch” and the talk about making soap can only entertain you for so long. =P

Finally we got onboard.

I slept a lot on the plane. Thankfully, because that was another two hours. In between I listened to music but my MP3 kept dying though, it ate every battery I fed it after just a few minutes. Finally I had to give up and snatched one of my brother’s earphones.

When the plane landed at Standsted it was eight hours until the concert. Getting from the airport to Camden Town only took about half an hour. So trawling time in total landed at around four and a half hours. >_>

It was easier than I thought to find the way in the London Underground. It was much harder to locate the hotel actually. But the real challenge was to find the venue. Especially since my brother, who wanted to be in charge of the map, held the damn thing wrong. :XD It took at least fifteen minutes of walking around, finding nothing, until he let me have a look. So I told him he had been holding it wrong and pointed at the street where the place oughta be. After that it only took like three minutes to find it.

Still there was some hours to go so we grabbed something to eat and headed back to the hotel to rest. Yeah, after we’d been to King’s Cross of course lol. My brother just had to go there. Don’t ask. :XD

Here's me riding a double-decker by the way x ]

When it was only half an hour left until they’d let people in we headed to the venue (named The Underworld by the way). As we were standing in line, being all bored, hyped and extremely anxious about the tickets and singing some The Matches songs I suddenly spotted someone strangely familiar walking down the street. At the same time my brother said: “Isn’t that Matt?*” and I was like “Yeah, and Jon**. Look, there’s Shawn*** and Justin**** too!”

I sort of wondered what they were doing wandering the streets of London like basically less than an hour before the concert. But I’ll never know. x ]

They walked right past us and all I could do was to smile like a dork. Jon was the only one who saw me looking and he gave me a sort of nod so I gave him a nod as well, feeling like a total moron. :XD

I watched them disappear down the sidewalk and across the street. It was quite easy to keep staring after them because Shawn had a bight yellow t-shirt and a just as bright yellow jacket.

Another fifteen minutes or so passed before we finally were let inside. And thankfully we got our tickets almost without problem and could go down stairs to the stage.

And this is the end of part one of this little tale. Next part is about the concert itself and will contain the videos and photos. Happy reading, bon appetite. Careful for bones. x ]

* Matt Whalen, Drums
** Jon Devoto - Guitar, Vox
*** Shawn Harris - Vox, Guitar
**** Justin San Souci - Bass, Vox