Wembley Fuckin’ Arena

I played Wembley Arena today… Are you kidding me??!! Wembley?! This Streetsville boy opened for Status Quo at Wembley fuckin arena… Wow, just incredible…

 

We rolled into Wembley yesterday morning and checked into the Plaza Hotel. Our room had a beautiful view of the arena and stadium. It filled the entire window frame and later on as night fell, it seemed to throb under the florescent light that paints its walls in a multitude of colours. I thought it was calling us out, and why not? Who were we to have this honour laid before us? Well it wasn’t like we weren’t going to take full advantage.

 

I hung back at the hotel while the others took a trip back to Camden. Since being there to see Jaye, everyone had looked forward to going back, and a day off in Wembley seemed like the perfect opportunity. I chose to stay behind, get a little more shut-eye and make our next video installment. The sleep was great, the video creating?… not so much. Our computer is acting up and not allowing me to cut enough clips together. Super shitty deal considering I just stayed back from the trek to Camden… Oh well, I managed to cut that clip from Bristol with T2 getting the shit scared out of him at least (if you haven’t checked it, its on YouTube now. The link’s below in an older entry).

 

We had a chance to catch Bloc Party and The Cribs in London Friday night, but we never really pressed on it hard enough and, in the end, a night of lounging, some sauna time and leisure activities felt like the better choice for the eve of our date with Wembley.

 

This morning I woke up honestly nervous. I enjoy a little nervousness on a big day. It always ends up turning positive in the end. I ate some hotel breakfast action and then the bus took us the whole 5 minutes from the hotel to the arena. Pulled in and on the surface it felt no different. Just another arena. But deep down my gut reminded me it was more. This is London. If you come all the way to the UK, ace 31 shows and fuck up London, how good can the tour possibly have gone? Mind you having done the other 20 some-odd dates on the tour so far, we completely know better than this, but pretty much no one else does. Well nothing left to do but lay it all on the line the same way we have all tour.

 

We were helped a tiny bit by having some new friends in our corner. B’s cousin Deborah and her sis Layla flew in from Dublin and Bill started his week with us, as well. Anyone who hasn’t seen us since we were back home, I am just DYING to have see us play. Extra incentive to push it to another level.

 

I ate some grub and headed to The Greyhound with OT in tow. The whole band came, but OT and I hung around to experience State of Quo. The whole vibe in that place was something to behold. I wish there was a party like that every day of the tour. It was amazing to just sit back and watch a great  bunch of people smile like nothing else in the world mattered. It would be like watching Quo at The Cock and Pheasant back home. It’s not REALLY Quo, but considering the packed, pub environment, I couldn’t see the band anyways, so it wasn’t hard to imagine it was. A true testament to the Quo diehard fan; being able to pack in 4 more hours of live Quo, before even heading to the arena for the real deal. Tom and I wished we could have stayed ‘til the end but soundcheck was nearing so we headed back just after 3.

The whole tour we’ve been warned again and again about how shitty the sound would be. Wembley Arena originally housed an Olympic sized pool, which turned out to be 3 inches shorter than Olympic standards and thus (I’m assuming) fairly useless (much like a certain Olympic building in Montreal)… When it came time to do some renovations a few years back, they were not allowed to touch the pool due to historical restrictions placed on the building… so its still there. In Wembley you basically play over a near-Olympic sized cavernous hole in the ground. This in turn makes anything low-end sound ridiculous.

 

Regardless of how everything appeared to sound during ‘check, we all knew that A) once people were in there, it would get better and B) who cares, its Wembley and its got to be good no matter the sound.

 

The rest of our time leading up to the set was spent doing some photo shoots and the usual kickin it in our green room. Because it was London, said green room was more happenin’, with more of our friends and Francis’ kids around to be with us. It was the perfect way to spend the final moments before the big performance; listening to music, playing cards and catching up.

 

The show itself is a blur. I know it went well. I could actually feel the energy of the crowd and for an arena, this was good. I think the trip to The Greyhound helped a lot with that, since the front rows were filled with the people we had just spent the afternoon there with. Quo’s sound crew was even impressed with it and that means loads, especially in a place that is notorious for its shitty audio.

 

So here I am, fresh off the stage and maybe only now does it feel like its sinking in (as you can tell by the beginning paragraph of this piece). Not much time to reflect though because there’s another biggie tomorrow in Glasgow. I’m so looking forward to FINALLY playing in Scotland. We better step it up again. No more disappointments allowed from here on in!