Hey Jeff, what are you going to England for?
Uh, it's you again, bold imaginary question person. I should have expected you. I am going to England for a concert.
Cool! What band are you seeing, is it One Direction? They are awesome!
You have terrible musical taste BIQP. No, it is not One Direction. Though as an aside, I really have a hard time picking which member of One Direction has the most ridiculous hair:
Screw you. What band is it then?
The Stone Roses
Oh, cool. Wait who?
The Stone Roses. In this article, their first album was named Best British Album of All Time, just ahead of a little band called the Beatles. NME, a major British music publication, also named it the best album of all time in this article.
That's crazy, it should have been Take That!
That's not a question.
Oh, OK, tell me about this band, are they a boy band?
They are all boys in the band, but they are not a boy band. They came out with the Best British Album Ever in 1989, spent 6 years making the second album, which you won't find on any best album lists (though I still like it). Then they broke up. Last year they announced they were reuniting and playing three shows in their hometown of Manchester.
Lovely story, how did you become a fan of theirs?
Well, their first album came out in 1989, like I said. That was when I was a goofy 14 year old who stayed up to 2am every Sunday to watch 120 Minutes on MTV, and listened to WFNX too much. Also, since CD players were pretty new then, I only had a cassette player and I would make mix tapes of friends' music. Some friend had the Stone Roses album, so I made a copy. I then became a big fan of Britpop.
What the hell is Britpop?
Don't you have google? Britpop on wikipedia.
So you're traveling 4000 miles to see a band with basically one album?
Yeah. Though if you add in B-Sides and the second album, it's not quite like that. My iTunes library has 131 Stone Roses songs.
Since I've never heard of this band, you must be seeing them in a nice intimate venue, right?
I like how you made that a question with "right?" But, no, I'll be seeing them in a massive park with 80,000 other people. Oasis was the last band that played in the park, here's a picture of what I am expecting:
I'll be the one in a Red Sox hat. I did splurge and get the VIP package, which is a private tent and I get 4 drink credits and 2 food credits. I'm very curious what the drink and food will be like there, so I will at least blog about those.
Whatever, what do they sound like?
They didn't make many videos, but here's probably their best one:
Here in the USA, this is their most popular song, I hear it on good radio stations sometimes:
That's from their second album, not the Best British Album Ever.
Also, if you are really interested, you can buy The Complete Stone Roses, which is their first album with all their singles and B-Sides, here, used for as low as $0.01. Or if you know me personally, I'll make you a copy if you ask nicely.
Whatever, again. I come to this blog for pictures of sandwiches and iced tea. Whatcha going to do about that?
Well, a long aside: When I was in college, I spent one semester abroad at the University of Bradford in Bradford, England. Because of that experience, I like to defend British cuisine whenever someone is making fun of it. I point out that London is one of the culinary capitals of the world. Also, Indian food in England is very good and plentiful, much better than the USA. I think England used to own India or something, ask Ghandi. But, for the purpose of this dumb blog, yeah the cuisine is pretty bleak. Sandwiches there are terrible. They consist of weird fillings, like prawn salad, on crappy bread. Also, for the amount of tea British people drink, it is surprising that they hardly ever put it over ice. At the end of my semester in England, I was traveling around the UK when in Edinburgh I spotted a Snapple. I sprinted over and chugged it in three sips. That was the only iced tea I saw in my four months in the UK. I'm sure the situation is better now, but I won't be doing any BKYA's I imagine. But the one saving grace for this blog is french fries, or chips as they call them. Did you hear I spent a semester in England? Well, I did, and when I was there I got two meals a day at the dorm cafeteria. Every meal they had chips available. So, I would go up to the line, check out the crappy available foods, and probably 2/3 of the time I would have chips as my dinner. Like, oh, liver pie is for dinner, yup, just give me lots of chips. Also, a week into my semester, I made a frantic phone call to my mom to send me some black pepper. The only pepper they had there I not-so-affectionately called "ass pepper." Once I had the black pepper, which took one month since my mom wrote down the wrong post code, people used to congregate to my table to sample the delicious black pepper. So expect lots of blogs about french fries.
While you were busy with that crappy answer, I figured out google. Which guy in this picture has the most ridiculous hair?
Fair enough. That's the Stone Roses. I would say John Squire on the far right. But that was from 1989. I'm sure no one that was of age in 1989 would be happy seeing their hair on a dumb blog.
Ok, enough about some band, what should we expect on this dumb blog while you are away?
Well here's my itinerary:
Wed. June 27th: Fly to London, arrive late, maybe get a beer at some pub. The beer in England is the best.
Thursday June 28th: Train to Manchester, then I'm meeting a friend in a suburb of Manchester at night. You should probably expect more pubs.
Friday June 29th: The concert is in the evening. I'll probably try to get a kebab during the day. Kebabs in England are delicious. I should have mentioned that when I was blogging about cuisine.
Saturday June 30th: Back to London. I'm going to try to go to the late session of Wimbledon this day. So expect strawberries and cream or some crap.
Sunday July 1st: This day is open, there's no Wimbledon this day. I'll probably go to the Tate Modern. There's a Damien Hirst exhibit. Yeah, me like art. Then off to check out Olympic Park. I will take a self-portrait then make a joke like "I thought it said 7/1, not 8/1!" So prepare yourself to laugh a lot.
Monday July 2nd: Depending on how my previous trip to Wimbledon went, I might queue for a while to go during the day session. So, more strawberries. Then I don't know what.
Tuesday July 3rd: I fly back at night, but I have no idea what I'll do during the day.
OK. Wait, what band are you seeing again?
Oasis
LTOPH abroad! I love it. And I love the Stone Roses! At least I like Love Spreads, one of the best songs of all time. I have to admit, I didn't know they had more than one song. I thought that were a one-hit-wonder (gasp!). Why didn't more of their songs make it in the States?
ReplyDeleteAre you bringing Connor? Mullets never went out of style in Europe he'd fit right in.
Connor and his mullet are staying here. And I'm pretty sure when I get back Connor's mullet will be in a ziploc bag.
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