As the first few chords of “Drop the Pilot” were played, the Royal Albert hall erupted and the audience got up off their seats and bopped in the aisles as Joan Armatrading played her second, and final, encore. It was a night to remember. The venue was packed to capacity – young, old, families – all had come to see the singer/songwriter/guitarist on the London leg of her UK tour to promote her new album This Charmed Life. A charmed life and a charmed gig as the 59-year old got a standing ovation for her 2-hour concert which saw her doing tracks from her new album and those old classics such as All the Way from America, Me, Myself, I, Love and Affection, Show Some Emotion, Willow and the aforementioned Drop the Pilot. As impressive was the fact that an hour after the concert ended, we were already home with a cuppa coffee catching the midnight news bulletin on Sky before going to bed. When public transport in London works, it works well and the Brits have perfected the art of evacuating a venue in minutes (all that health and safety training). So a short walk to South Kensington tube station, a tube to Richmond and a brief bus ride home and we were home with the music still ringing in our ears. We’re going back to the Royal Albert Hall tomorrow night to see a one-off performance of a new musical, Kristina which has been written by the two guys from Abba with lyrics by Herbie Kretzmer – the Kroonstad born chap and lyricist for Les Miserables (and that Peter Sellers/Sophia Loren song “Goodness Gracious Me” – amongst others). But that’s another blog …
Some trivia: Did you know that Joan Armatrading made a vocal cameo appearance on the Queen album A Kind of Magic on the song “Don’t Lose Your Head”? I know – vaguely interesting but ultimately useless information. But there you go.
I looove Joan A. Saw her at The House of Blues in L.A. a couple of years ago. Our audience, however, was not as varied as yours, I think there were three, maybe four, males in the room. 🙂 Thanks for the tidbit about the Queen cameo.
Yeah Caren – as my wife commented – there were a lot of women “wearing sensible shoes” in the audience. But we were very intererested to see families there and elderly couples (when I say elderly, I mean in their sixties/seventies!)