It’s best to start where I left of, so here goes *puts kettle on*
March 2016 – a very unexpected and last minute visit to The Brighton Centre to see Jason Donovan! Give him his dues he was great and it was a very fun & entertaining evening! He did all the hits (there were quite a few!) and had a great relationship with the audience – always important in a gig! Next up that month was Ellie Goulding at The O2, I’ve seen her a few times now & she’s always great so I can’t wait for new music this year!
April 2016 – All Saints at Koko – their first gig in 17 years and it was a cracker! Love the album Red Flag – you’ll see more of them as the blog goes on!
May 2016 – Dixie Chicks At the O2 – I’ve loved them since randomly listening to the album Home once at work. Fantastic show, started with Lets Go Crazy playing ear splittingly loud in the pitch black (was the month after we lost Prince) and was hit after hit, lots of politics and an incredible version of Nothing Compares 2U and Beyonce’s Daddy Issues.
June 2016 – Sundance London – my first experience of Sundance! And the first time I set foot in Picturehouse Central ,which is now one of my favourite places! I saw a movie called The Intervention, directed by Clea Duvall and starring Natasha Lyonne, Melanie Lynskey and Cobie Smulders. There was also a Q&A after the movie with Clea Duvall and it began my love of the Q&A session! I’d been to one or two in the past (I went to the Holy Motors premiere and Kylie was there doing a Q&A and very much had her actor hat on and someone in the audience asked her to sign their Kylie scrapbook that they had had for 20 years, seriously time and place people! Fortunately Kylie is an angel and dealt with it with charm & professionalism)
BUT I DIGRESS…
June also brought about a few Shura gigs – her debut album is still one of my favourites and I was fortunate to go to a listening party with Shura doing a track by track synopsis. I also saw her at Sofar Sounds, a really cool intimate series of gigs in simple settings like your nan’s front room. It was great but I like a chair to sit on rather than the floor with a few cushions. I was back at Camden Koko later that month to see Tegan & Sara, another band who are great live and I will always go and see them when they tour the UK
July 2016 – I won tickets through Twitter to the opening night of British Summer Time – Shura played two small sets that night so I watched both of them and then watched Faithless, who were great but the crowd weren’t – your usual chatty London crowd who don’t realise that the main act are on and the reason they are having to shout in the first place. If you just want to chat to your mates at gig, fuck off and don’t go to a gig, go to the pub instead. It was for the same reason I left a Kelis gig early that month. I love Kelis and jumped at the chance of seeing her in The Jazz Cafe, such an intimate venue, but assholes chatting loudly with their backs to the fucking stage ruined it. I MEAN COME ON.
I did however, return to BST later that month after getting a Gold Circle ticket PROPER CHEAP off Stubhub for Stevie Wonder. He performed the whole of Songs In The Key Of Life and yasss I went to church, it was just incredible. He did the other hits in the encore and even did a DJ set which consisted of Prince songs. Despite being at Hyde Park with 80,000 other people, it still felt like an absolute honour to be seeing an artist like Stevie. He must be protected at all costs.
That month I also saw Beyonce at Wembley Stadium. You know Queen Bey always delivers and this was no exception. During an interlude Purple Rain played in its entirety and IT STARTED TO RAIN. It was definitely a moment especially as all the lighting was purple too. As the song came to the end, it stopped raining. Yeah.
I saw Bright Light, Bright Light at Hackney Oslo and he is just full of pop goodness and deserves to be more popular and well known. A nice little venue too. I went to a fabulous evening of CULTURE at Cadogan Hall in South London – Gemma Arterton and Sir Patrick Stewart reading Shakespeare sonnets and prose – it was just wonderful! What an evening. Met Gemma after a had my programme signed like the fan girl that I am.
September 2016 – Back to Hyde Park for the Last Night Of The Proms, All Saints were performing, it poured with rain but I also saw Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons and (among many other massive hits) I saw them perform Grease Is The Word and it was just brilliant. This was also the start of a few visits to China Exchange in China Town. I had been to one of The Prudential Series before and saw Gwneyth Paltrow interviewed and it was brilliant. Probably about 150 people and tickets were £5-10 each! But this time it was Joanna Lumley in conversation with the absolute legend, god rest his soul, Sir David Tang. Never seen an interviewer like him – some would say he was rude but I think he was brilliant, absolutely nothing wrong with being blunt & straight to the point. and if you asked a stupid question – he would tell you! The people being interviewed feigned shock but you could tell that they had all known him for years and knew his style. This evening with Joanna Lumley was no exception, one of my absolute favorites and it was incredible to meet her afterwards and get a photo with her. Later that month I was back there to see Goldie Hawn, not talking about her career but about mindfullness which she is very passionate about. It was really interesting but my brain kept thinking of Private Benjamin and Wildcats.
It was also the month of Empire Live – a weekend of movies & panels & Q&A’s – a mini film festival. I saw the extended cut of The Martian which has not been shown in cinemas ever (until then but on the special edition dvd/blu ray) Easy Rider ( what a film, right?) Frozen (it fucking snowed in the cinema during Let It Go,ok) Jason Issacs in conversation – he’s just brilliant isn’t he? And finally I saw a Women On Screen panel with Amma Asante, Natalie Dormer, Hayley Squires and two wonderful women whose names I can’t remember (im sorry) The panel was hosted by Empire Editor in Chief Teri White and in hindsight felt like the rumblings of the beginnings of the Times Up/Me Too movements as they discussed how as directors/producers/actors they have been held back or pushed to the side based on their gender rather than their obvious huge talent (if you try to deny that, I’ll fight you)
November 2016 – Christine & The Queens at Brixton Academy – brilliant show, they are amazing. Seeing them again in November this year, so looking forward to that, for sure.
December – Shura at O2 Forum Kentish Town – great to see Shura in her own show rather than at a festival. Lots of lights! Really good fun
March 2017 – Tom Jones at China Exchange. Brilliant evening, only cost a fiver, Sir David Tang on top form as usual. Double whammy of Gemma Arterton this month, firstly at the premiere and Q&A for Their Finest at Curzon Mayfair then at Build Series for an interview
April 2017 – Warren Beatty did a Q&A at Picturehouse Central! WARREN BEATTY!!! It was for the film Rules Don’t Apply, not a great film but the Q&A after was just brilliant! I would love him to bring out a no holds barred biography, IMAGINE THE STORIES! I went to 195 Bafta for the first time this month for the Bafta At 70 celebrations where (amongst other things) showed La La Land – at this point I’d seen this movie about 10 times in a cinema, absolutely no exaggeration there. On display they have Bafta awards and an Oscar and I’m pleased as punch to have seen them in the flesh. Or rather gold plated solid bronze. I went to The National Theatre this month to see Angels In America. I’d been trying to get tickets for ages but could never get a double show day – its a six hour play and was only performed on two acts on two days of the week, otherwise an evening show would either be Act One or Two. I rarely saw Act One tickets come up so I just went to an Act Two performance. I know this show well, I adore the HBO version with Meryl Streep, Al Pacino and Emma Thompson in and consider it a day well spent if I decide to dedicate a day to watching the DVD. This version of the play had Andrew Garfield as the main character and he absolutely blew me away, he was incredible,as was the whole cast which also include Nathan Lane as real life shitbag Roy Coen. The show is currently playing on Broadway so maybe I should start a crowdfunding to send me there? No, ok.
June 2017 – Back to China Exchange for Dame Judi Dench. Another one that should be protected at all costs. An absolute treasure. Also that month at China Exchange was Mario Testino, super interesting evening. Before it started though, me and my friend noticed all the reserved seating at the front and had a little nose at it – there was a seat reserved for Kate Moss. This led to us getting excited at this prospect, so much so we saw “her people” make a phone call and when the event started Sir David Tang said that she was going to come along but didn’t want to take the evening away from Mario. So yeah, just be cool in the event of being in the same room as someone as iconic as Mossy. This was the last time at China Exchange as Sir David Tang sadly passed away a few months later . He was such a character and I’ll forever remember him referring to a lady in the audience asking a question ” woman with the bad roots” and then telling her that her question was nonsense and moving on. (No it wasn’t me, thank you)
July 2017 – Back at Cadogan Hall for a Telegraph Legends Evening with no other than Joanna Lumley, Twiggy and Lulu! BLOODY LULU!! It was brilliant, imagine a night out with those three in the 60s! Even now to be honest, the stories they were telling! Afterwards we hung around to meet them, I yelled CHAMPAGNE FOR LULU at Lulu and she burst out laughing and said I should have done that during the show (I really wanted to but thought I might get thrown out haha) Met Joanna again and had a print of the photo that was taken of us at China Exchange and asked her to sign it -she looked at it and said (IN HER VOICE) “oh darling look at us” and it was great.
Another legend I met was STOCKARD CHANNING – I saw her in a play called Apologia at Trafalgar Studios and I couldn’t believe that Rizzo was standing in front of me. She graciously signed a photo of her as Rizzo for me ( I heard later that she would only sign programmes so I was lucky)
I went to London Film & Comic Con and met a bunch of people – a lot of Game Of Thrones people and the fabulous Matt Lucas. Good fun – I even met Groot and sat in the Delorean. I also saw Lana Del Rey at Brixton, which was pretty amazing, even more so as it was a freebie.
August 2017 – Final Portrait screening and Q&A with director Stanley Tucci – I just love him, he’s great in everything and this was his directing debut
September 2017 – Jessie Ware in Islington – first time I’ve seen her live and she did not disappoint, she’s just great
October 2017 – London Film Festival – I only saw one film, Battle Of The Sexes and went to one Q&A – Jake Gyllenhaal, who I’ve loved since Donnie Darko, so it was absolute treat to see him interviewed, although he made me cry ugly tears when he spoke about Heath Ledger so beautifully (oh god and now) I’m a member of BFI now so I’m already PREPPED for LFF2018
November 2017 – Blondie at The Brighton Centre! Always brillant live, Debbie is a goddess
December 2017 – Bananarama at The Brighton Centre. No, YOU cried when they sang Stay With Me. SUCH FUN!
February 2018 – This was when I bought a Picturehouse membership to take full advantage of member’s presale to a I Tonya screening and Q&A with Margot Robbie and Allison Janney! So good, the film is still one of my favourites of the year and the Q&A was just brilliant. It was the week before Allison won the Bafta Supporting Actress award and I just knew she would win the Oscar!
March 2018 – Gemma Arterton again, this time a screening and Q&A for It’s Me, Sugar – a Sky Arts programme about Marilyn Monroe
May 2018 – Jake Shears from Scissor Sisters did a Q&A for the release of his book, Boys Keep Swinging. He also sang a few songs and I got my book signed. It was also then I told him where I work and that we would love to have him in store for a signing when his debut solo cd came out – a few emails later,fast forward to August 2018 and he is doing a signing in my store. I’m not saying I made it happen, but definitely nudged a few people in to making it happen
May was also Sundance London! I was determined to see as much as I could! Started with the premiere of The Tale, a harrowing story in which Laura Dern should win the Oscar for. The director, Jennifer Fox held a very engaging Q&A after the screening too. The next evening I saw Hereditary (it was terrifying) but the director Ari Aster and lead Toni Collette did a quick Q&A after and oh god its MARIAL. The next day I went to a panel called Triple Threat: Three Major Female Filmmakers In Conversation and it was Jennifer Fox, director of The Tale, Debra Granit, director of Leave No Trace & Winters Bone and Desiree Akhavan, director of Miseducation of Cameron Post. Probably the highlight of the weekend, so fascinating to hear them talk about the industry and the obstacles they face as woman in film. After that engrossing panel I went to a screening & Q&A of Desiree Akhavan’s film, Cameron Post – such a brilliant film that I’m going to more Q&A’s this month (August 2018) I wish I’d gone the final day of the festival but fortunately there was a recap weekend so I saw a few more of the films I’d missed (Eighth Grade and Half The Picture) Next Sundance though, I’m probably going to get a Festival Pass for the whole event!
June 2018 – Katy Perry at the O2! Love Katy Perry and the show was complete perfect cheesy pop
July 2018 – More Arterton! Gemma’s new film The Escape (her best role yet) and Q&A at Curzon Bloomsbury. Back to Bafta for an exclusive screening of the wonderful Jane Campion film, The Piano. The screening was hosted by Gwendoline Christie who also did a Q&A at the end about how the film influenced her and her career. Met her afterwards and got a photo – for once, she crouched down when having the photo taken, I’m rarely the shortest person in photos so this was A MOMENT. It was All Saints time again, promo for their new album Testament, which is a really good listen, I encourage you to do so too.
August 2018 – Only half way through August and I’ve seen Tiffany (off of the 80s) at the Concorde2 in Brighton, went to a screening of Heathers at the BFI with Q&A from the director and Heather No.2 Lisanne Falk, saw an early screening of The Wife with Q&A with Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce at Picurehouse Central – she could well be an Oscar contender with this role. Next up this month is two screenings & Q&A’s of The Miseducation Of Cameron Post with Desiree Akhavan and Chloe Grace Moretz. Jake Shears is doing the album signing in my store, then September brings Janelle Monae, All Saints in Brighton, Kylie, All Saints & Lenny Kravitz in Hyde Park and oh, two more screenings with Desiree Akhavan – one in Brighton so I can’t not go can I?
I’ve gone through this about three times, I’m sure I’ve forgotten something – if I didn’t put up something on Instagram then there’s no chance I’ll remember it. So if I went somewhere with you and it falls under the umbrella of this blog, let me know & I’ll add it. I can remember all the words to Ice Ice Baby but I can’t remember what I did six months ago.
No! Not Block 400! 