It’s important in life to be a well rounded individual with a variety of interests. Otherwise, when you’re forced to rub shoulders with weird people that don’t like football, you’ll find that they’re not as interested in the subject of Spurs’ lack of cover for Wilson Palacios as you are and you’ll be left with no one to talk to.
I like to think that I have many passions in life. Football takes top priority, but there’s other things which float my boat. One of them is music and I like to attend as many gigs as I can.
Earlier this year I bought tickets to see Morrissey at the Royal Albert Hall. I’m never going to attend The Last Night Of The Proms so I figured this was the only way I’d ever see inside the grand old venue, plus I’d get to see Moz play live for the umpteenth time. All in all, the evening had the potential to be brilliant, depending of course on how much much material was played from The Smiths back catalogue.
Then came the news that the gig had been cancelled, as Morrissey was suffering from throat problems (probably on account of too much gladioli waving whilst not wearing his shirt). This was back in May and it was announced that the concert was to be rescheduled for later in the year.
They named the date. I looked it up and it was on a Tuesday night in October. ‘Unlikely that I’ll be doing much else on a Tuesday night in October’ I thought.
Then only last week, I thought I’d better check what day Spurs were playing Everton in the Carling Cup and there it was in big bold letters: Tuesday 27th October. The same night that I would be at the Albert Hall watching Morrissey.
I did consider selling my Morrissey tickets, but my gig partner is my wife, who I drag around to see people like Chas and Dave, The Specials and lots of other artists that she didn’t really listen to before she met me. Mrs TottenhamBlog is currently heavily pregnant, so I have to face the fact that this might be the last gig we go to together for a long while. By the time the kid’s grown up enough for us to be able to get a babysitter, we’ll probably be attending the John and Edward reunion tour.
So I decided to give my Everton ticket to my mates who share the season ticket next to me and attend the Morrissey gig. It would be nice for them to go to a game together and I could always check iFooty during one of Moz’s more recent album tracks.
I handed over the ticket at the match on Saturday. On Sunday I awoke still depressed from the defeat and started browsing the web to find out the reaction to our loss. Before I could get as far as the virtual sports pages, I saw the news. Morrissey collapses onstage at Swindon and has been rushed to hospital… It never rains when it could pour.
Morrissey has since left hospital, but tonight’s scheduled show in Bournemouth has been cancelled. I’m hoping that it’s just a case of 24-hour-Charming-Man-flu and everything will be fine for tomorrow. I’ve had to make the difficult ‘I might want my ticket back’ text yesterday, but as the official word is that the gig will take place, I’ve now sent the text to say that they can keep the tickets.
Cue a last minute cancellation and me frantically scrambling around for a pub near the Albert Hall that has Sky Sports.
Will be thinking of you……
As an aside – I saw Modest Mouse a few years back on the night of the Liverpool vs Milan CL final (2nd one). Had planned to go in, get stamped (or whatever) and then go out to a pub for the game, back for the main act.
As it so happened, the downstairs bar at the Albert Hall had the game on live – amazing scenes.
Have any other readers seen a former member of the Smiths performing at the Albert Hall on the night of a football game?
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that Johnny Marr was playing with MM at the time. Thanks Dan. Joke’s on me.