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Little did we know that...we'd be seating right in the midst of
a group of about 35 English high school seniors
returning to London after
their
week-long
class
trip to Iceland. They spent the entire flight laughing, yelling, screaming,
talking, jumping and switching seats (making sure to use the backs
of our seats to help pull them up out of their own seats everytime
they did so). In other words, we didn't sleep a fucking wink.
7:54pm: We arrived at Heathrow totally cracked out.
We were so tired that we decided that we were going to tell Charlene
that we were up for maybe grabbing one drink but then after that we
needed to get some sleep.
(Time
Elapsed With Only 15 minutes of Sleep: 28h
24m)
At the baggage claim carousel, our bags were the first three out. We
grabbed them, breezed through customs and made it to the arrival terminal
just as Charlene showed up. (For those of you that don't know, Charlene
is Grant's superhot friend from High School who came
and visited us this past summer).
After hugs were exchanged, Charlene told us "There are a few
things we can do tonight," we were about to tell her that we were
exhausted and just wanted to go to bed when
she finished with, "and one of them is a surprise ACDC concert
that I might be able to get tickets and backstage passes to." Charlene,
not
knowing
our taste in music asked "I don't know, is that something that
the three of you would be interested in?" We nearly lost our minds.
Free surprise ACDC concert? Backstage passes? We decided we had no
choice
but to rally yet again.
On the train ride from Heathrow to London, we presented Charlene with
a bottle of Iceland's only local spirit, the schnapps called Brennivin,
which literally translated means "Black Death." The drink
is described by an Icelandic travel site as "A fearsomely strong,
transparent, caraway-seed-flavoured aquavit made from potatoes, it's
drunk straight from the freezer, either as a straight shot or over
ice and a slice of lemon. It's not at all bad, and is the cheapest
thing to drink while out. Yet no Icelander ever seems particularly
proud of it."
On the train we voted against bringing our luggage to the concert for
fear that there'd be no place to put it (As much as we wanted to catch
the ACDC concert in it's entirety, the thought all of our luggage getting
lost in the fray was too much of a risk, even for us). So we hopped
a quick cab back to Charlene's flat (that's fancy British talk for "apartment")
to drop off our bags.
Before heading to the concert, we decided to break out the bottle of
Brennivan we'd given Charlene and give it a try. Not heeding the advice
of the woman who sold us the bottle who told us to "make sure
we drank it out from the freezer."
Turns out the woman wasn't kidding. The drink's "Black Death" moniker
suddenly made a whole lot more sense. Hoo-ah.
Fatty and Chris waiting for the tube.
Me and Charlene. We hopped the tube from Charlene's place (the Caledonian
Road stop)...
...and made it to the Hammersmith Theater by 9:55pm (the concert had
started around 8!).
Charlene called her friend Layla (who works for the company that promotes
Carling Beer)...
...who just a few seconds later met us outside to hook us up with free
tickets...
And two wristbands. One gave us all-you-can-drink access at the bar,
the second gave us admission to the backstage afterparty!
We made it into the theater just in time to catch "Thunderstruck."
Chris and me. (Oh yeah, and this is an ACDC concert so prepare yourself
to see nothing but tongues
and "metal horns" in the rest of these pics. Sorry, I don't
make the rules, I just follow them).
After Thunderstruck, they left the stage - but thankfully came back
out to do an encore of "For Those About to Rock."
After the concert, we headed upstairs to the afterparty and used the
Triptych of metal to magically summon...
GRANT! It was one thing for Lil' Buddy to miss out on Iceland, but
a free, surprise concert of his favorite live band? That was just too
much.
Fatty, Charlene, Layla's boyfriend, Me, Layla, and ______.
Seriously, is there anything better than a photo of German ACDC fans?
Why yes, there is. The Fatty with a group of German ACDC fans. These
guys were fucking hardcore. They got wind of the surprise show in Munich
that morning and flew over on a whim.
Metal!
Fatty gives Charlene and "Oh my god you're the fucking best" smooch.
Hans, me and Fatty. Hahahaha. Soooooo good.
So this is a picture of the now defunct British band, Kula Shakur.
People in the past had told me that I looked a lot like their singer,
Crispian Mills (the guy in the left in the pic). Anyway, an hour and
a half into the afterparty, this really drunk short guy stumbles up
to me and in a super thick Essex accent is like "Oi! Crispian!
'Ow the fuck you behn, mate?" So I very politely told him "I
think you've got me mixed up with somebody else." Upon hearing
my American accent, which he thought I was feigning he laughed and
told me "Ha! That's
a fucking great accent.
Really great. So seriously, how've you been?" At this point, Charlene
came over and told him that I wasn't who he thought I was. He got all
embarrassed and walked off really quickly. After he left, Charlene
was like "Do you know who that was?"
Turns out, it was Keith Flint from the Prodigy! So we went over and
busted his balls and asked him if we could grab a pic. Hahahaha.
At this point not only were we ridiculously over tired, we were drunk
taboot. We pleaded for Charlene to take us home and put us to bed.
Which she did...but not before making us a delicious beddy-bye
snack. Awwwww. So at 1:39am, after going 34
hours and 17 minutes with
almost no sleep...two countries, five cities and one surprise metal
concert later, we finally laid down and ended the first leg of our
trip.
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