If you haven't noticed before, I include a new song on the home page of this website with every new post. This week it is especially relevant.
For whatever reason I can't seem to be able to buy a ticket and go to a concert like a normal person. In 2018 I was supposed to see my favorite band in Austin while home from Purdue for Thanksgiving, bought the tickets with my friend, and then the concert was moved to a Friday night in February (and for the record, it was a hassle but we made it to the February date). Last year, I bought a one day ACL wristband with the intent of seeing two particular artists, and one of them had to cancel about 3 weeks before the festival. A concert I had a ticket to in Indy last October had a date change that resulted in me being unable to go. The two concerts I wanted to go to while in Dublin both sold out before I got here. And most recently, I booked a trip to London for a concert only to find out the tickets could not be mailed to me outside of the UK.
That last one made for a pretty good story though.
This past week my parents flew across the ocean to visit me. They casually mentioned at one point that they thought it would be cool to go somewhere outside of Ireland while they're over here.
I've had it in my head for some time now that I'd like to go to a concert in London, and considering my luck with concerts, I thought it might be a bad idea to buy tickets/flights/accommodations for something that probably wouldn't work out. But London is such an easy day trip from Dublin, and when my parents said they wanted to travel, the first thing I did was look up concerts in London for that week.
I found a great one on Tuesday night. I found dirt cheap flights that would get us there around lunch, in time for some sightseeing before the concert, and then back for my Wednesday afternoon class. My friend from London helped me find a good area to look for an Airbnb and work out all of the fine details. I think my parents thought I was crazy, but I convinced them it'd be fine.
I booked the flights. I had three concert tickets in my cart and was feeling pretty good. That is, until I got to the"choose your delivery" part of the order. The previous page said that box office pick up would be an option, but here my only choices were to have the tickets shipped to an address in the UK.
People always say that abroad changes you and whatever and I'm not so sure about that yet, but there's definitely a sense of "It doesn't matter what I do here, in a few months I'll be gone so I've got nothing to lose." I think I just took that mentality and ran with it... that on top of the fact that I've been so fed up with every concert I try to go to getting messed up somehow.
If you have been looking at the song section of this blog, you'll remember that a few weeks ago I had the song Cheetah Tongue by The Wombats accompanied by a little blurb about how I heard it at a restaurant and it made me happy to think about how I'm in the same region of the world as some of my favorite British bands.
The lead singer of The Wombats, Murph, has a side project called Love Fame Tragedy that quickly became one of those favorites this past summer. Love Fame Tragedy was that Tuesday night concert that I couldn't get a ticket at the box office or sent to me Ireland.
So in that "nothing to lose" mentality, I decided to message Murph on Instagram. I sent this horribly desperate message that started with "Hi I'm probably crazy for sending this" and went on to tell him that I'm studying abroad... really want to go to a concert in London... really would be happy if it could be this one... would appreciate it if he could let me know of another way to get a ticket.
And to my surprise, he responded.
He told me to remind him the day before and he'd add me to the guest list. Let me tell you, I lost my mind when I got that response.
After a few hours of sightseeing, we arrived at the venue and I sent my parents off to entertain themselves (mind you, I didn't include in my message of desperation that I needed 3 tickets). I should be good to go now right? Hahaha of course not– my name wasn't on the guest list. The lady asked me who added me and I was like "um... Murph." I stood there for about 5 minutes while she made some calls on her walkie talkie and told someone that there was a girl here who said Love Fame Tragedy added her to the guest list but she's not on it.
Then a voice rang back "yeah she's good" and the lady called me over to get stamped and go in. FINALLY. Even after all of that, I was able to get a pretty close spot!
At concerts the artist will almost always say something along the lines of "how we doing tonight [insert location here]!?" Usually that location for me is Austin. While I enjoyed every moment of the concert, I have to say that the best part might have been hearing that location change to London.
And in case you were wondering, my parents had a nice time here (and in London) too. Of all of Love Fame Tragedy's songs, I chose Riding a Wave for this week's song because I couldn't get it out of my head as I watched the roaring water with my mom and dad a few days later at Giants Causeway.
