Finally getting a chance to recap the past few days! I’ll start with London.
It’s hard to imagine a better first day of my trip! After getting in on Monday morning, I checked into my hostel, St. Christopher’s Inn at Shepherds Bush. St. Christopher’s Inn is a chain of hostels that I’d read good things about, and it was the closest hostel to Shepherds Bush Empire, the music venue where Gov’t Mule was playing that night. Every Gov’t Mule (or Warren Haynes) show I’ve ever seen has been fantastic, but I wasn’t initially sure if I’d have the energy to go. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to be within walking distance of the venue anyway. At around 5pm, after a day hanging out at a cafe doing some light planning for the rest of my trip, I decided to go buy myself a ticket.
It ended up being a fantastic decision. The band delivered, as always, and talented guests Elliott Randall (Steely Dan guitarist), Bernie Marsden (of Whitesnake), and Joe McGlohon (saxophonist for Reba McIntire, among others) sat in. The venue was utterly gorgeous.
There were a few noticeable differences between this show and one in the U.S. First, there were no billows of smoke rising from the audience at the London. Anyone who’s been to a jam band show in even the most conservative of states would have been struck by the clearness of the air. Second, people generally did not worm their way through the crowds in a constant struggle for the front, ever increasing the crowd density and crushing those against the rail, as they often do in the states. Instead, once people found a piece of floor upon which to stand, they were pretty content to stay there. In fact, there was a quite short guy near me, and when the couple directly in front of him left, no one filled the space. This left a sizable gap in the crowd and a relatively unobstructed view that remained for the rest of the set. Most other gaps of that size were gradually filled, so I’m pretty sure this one could be chalked up to courtesy.
I met some Finns in the crowd, who were rather tickled to hear about my Finnish heritage and plans to travel around Finland later this summer, and after the show we went to a nearby pub to chat some more. Turns out, they knew one of the venue workers, who joined us a bit later, bringing along some goodies from the show. That’s how I ended up with several of the band’s tour info sheets, including my first original setlist from a live show!! It’s got handwritten tabs on the back, and I’m totally stoked to have such a great souvenir. I don’t have much room at all to spare in my bag, so a highly meaningful piece of paper is the perfect thing to bring back.
We parted ways at pub closing time (midnight), and I headed back to my hostel, intending to write a blog post and get some sleep. Instead, I got down to the chill room to find a dozen people with several free pitchers of beer and my plans quickly changed. I started chatting with a Canadian on the last night of his month-long Europe trip and a Brit who was at the hostel for an extended stay. We hit it off famously and just kept talking (about life, society, the universe…) as the number of hostelers around us dwindled to five, to two, until finally we were the last ones up. Finally, it was 7am and the free breakfast had opened. The Canadian had a few hours to kill before his flight, and we all had to be checked out by 10 am anyway, so we decided to go wander around Camden. It was a gorgeous day, we walked along a river walk spotted with graffiti and some very strange wood cutout figures, and had street food at the Camden Lock Market. My friend left to catch his plane and I headed back to the hostel and napped for about seven hours. It may not have been the best series of events for combating jetlag, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Next post: Oxford!
Kate T. Snyder, Ph.D. 