Monday, 16 November 2009
Spandau Ballet
Just a little note to say that setting aside the crap venue and awful facilities at the O2 Spandau Ballet were really very very good and far better than we all thought they would be. Tony Hadley in dark suit rambled about the stage like a demented shark alternately growling and cooing the wonderful lyrics to their beautiful anthems. Each line supported in riposte by the most fabulous sax music bringing the crowd straight back to the 80's and that haunting sound they captured so well and made their own. The brothers Kemp prowling around the stage with their guitars, menacing the other guys and rolling into each old standard with energy and charisma. This was a great night out- now think how much better it could have been at the Hammersmith Odeon rather than the plastic greenwich bubble.
The O2 Arena
Oh yes, the O2, the very pinnacle of entertainment venues we are told, the worlds most succesful concert venue, everyone wants to play there and so on and so forth. Well lets dispel the myth. It is big. It is in London. From some seats you get a good view.
From most seats the view is distant and the sound poor. The catering inside the venue is poor, formulaic rubbish at exhorbitant prices; £25 for a bottle of crap white wine, £4 for watery lager in plastic flower pots, £4 for cardboard chips in damp cardboard boxes the dilemma is which to eat? In fact don't eat any of this crap - it will kill you.
Outside the venue the choice is far greater, there is a tapas bar, a mexican, a chinese restaurant, thai food, and several formula bars. They are all crap too. Food and drink done without passion, flavour, authenticity, real ingredients and care delivered by low paid staff in low rent kiosks. Plastic food in plastic film set units with a plastic smile and a plastic table cloth. The only thing of quality is the price.
This is a good concert venue in the same way that planet hollywood is a good restuarant or that Jordan is a beautiful woman.
By the way, if you are tempted by the priority ticket offers that O2 go on about so much please think again. You see this is marketing at its finest. The priority trick assumes that tickets will be difficult to find or come by (which you don't know until they go on general sale). If you think they will be hard to get then you will be pleased to jump the queue as a valued O2 customer and get your tickets ahead of the rush. Only problem is that O2, in my experience, take this as an opportunity to get rid of all the awful tickets up the side of the arena that they could not get rid of normally to the grateful punters who think they are beating the rush. Clever stuff eh? Sell the crap tickets first to muppets who think that priority means that they are doing you a favour rather than what is obviously the other way around. By selling all of the rubbish seats it gurantees that the venue is a success and when normal punters (or more often that not glorified touts- sorry ticket agencies) come on line to buy the decent seats they do not have anything to complain about. Genius.
From most seats the view is distant and the sound poor. The catering inside the venue is poor, formulaic rubbish at exhorbitant prices; £25 for a bottle of crap white wine, £4 for watery lager in plastic flower pots, £4 for cardboard chips in damp cardboard boxes the dilemma is which to eat? In fact don't eat any of this crap - it will kill you.
Outside the venue the choice is far greater, there is a tapas bar, a mexican, a chinese restaurant, thai food, and several formula bars. They are all crap too. Food and drink done without passion, flavour, authenticity, real ingredients and care delivered by low paid staff in low rent kiosks. Plastic food in plastic film set units with a plastic smile and a plastic table cloth. The only thing of quality is the price.
This is a good concert venue in the same way that planet hollywood is a good restuarant or that Jordan is a beautiful woman.
By the way, if you are tempted by the priority ticket offers that O2 go on about so much please think again. You see this is marketing at its finest. The priority trick assumes that tickets will be difficult to find or come by (which you don't know until they go on general sale). If you think they will be hard to get then you will be pleased to jump the queue as a valued O2 customer and get your tickets ahead of the rush. Only problem is that O2, in my experience, take this as an opportunity to get rid of all the awful tickets up the side of the arena that they could not get rid of normally to the grateful punters who think they are beating the rush. Clever stuff eh? Sell the crap tickets first to muppets who think that priority means that they are doing you a favour rather than what is obviously the other way around. By selling all of the rubbish seats it gurantees that the venue is a success and when normal punters (or more often that not glorified touts- sorry ticket agencies) come on line to buy the decent seats they do not have anything to complain about. Genius.
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