How did I find myself spending a week skiing at Whistler-Blackcomb? It’s a long and complicated story. It’s even more difficult to explain how I have never been skiing west of Kingston, despite skiing for more than 30 years in eastern Canada, Europe and even (on one bizarre occasion) Africa! Anyway, I’m here now and some would say that it’s about time.
Whistler-Blackcomb is frequently named as the top ski resort in North America. It has hosted World Cup downhill races and also hosted the alpine skiing events during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. This last part was sufficient for me: I have a special connection to the 2010 Olympics and skiing on the downhill course was another bucket list item that I hoped to achieve some day. Even so, I didn’t do a lot of research on this trip: I didn’t even have a chance to look into which pistes were used for the 2010 Olympic alpine skiing events.
More Olympic rings, this time at the Olympic Plaza in Whistler Village
We decided to spend the first day on Whistler Mountain. Conventional wisdom here says that you immediately move to the highest elevations and only return to the village at the end of the day. However, we found that the very high winds, resulting icy surfaces and cold temperatures made the high-altitude conditions rather less than ideal. We moved lower, where there was some shelter from the wind, the temperatures were a little warmer, and the snow was staying on the pistes.
We found a black-diamond-rated piste called “Lower Dave Murray Downhill” that led to Whistler Creekside Village. The entrance to the piste was almost completely blocked and there were all kinds of warnings about “difficult snow conditions” and the fact that snowmaking was also in progress. We decided to try it anyway.
Some of the warning signs and barriers at the top of the “Lower Dave Murray Downhill” (Whistler Mountain), which turned out to be quite a special piste
It was a splendid decision. The “difficult snow conditions” consisted of snowmaking (how can fresh snow be considered a difficulty?) and a nearly-abandoned piste with some significant snow accumulation. It was -1’C and the sun was shining brightly on us. We skied this piste over and over again, barely stopping and barely believing that nobody else was taking advantage of the great conditions. After completing each run, we climbed into the next gondola without waiting and repeated the process all over again.
In such icy conditions, trail ratings are of little guidance. While the Dave Murray Downhill was a little steep in one or two places, it certainly wasn’t as difficult as some of the mogulled-up and icy “intermediate-rated” pistes we have encountered thus far.
View of Whistler Mountain from the bottom of the “Seventh Heaven” area at Blackcomb
We eventually skied on the “Upper Dave Murray Downhill” (which wasn’t directly connected to “Lower Dave Murray Downhill” today because of poor conditions near the junction) as well and ticked that one off the list too. We later found out that not only is the Dave Murray Downhill piste used for World Cup ski races, it also hosted the alpine skiing events at the 2010 Olympics. It was great to discover that our favourite piste of the day turned out to be Olympian!
View of Whistler Village from about halfway up Blackcomb Mountain. Not much (natural) snow at the lower elevations!
It was a great way to start the week of skiing and it more than made up for the fact that the lifts to the very peak of Whistler and to the “Symphony” area were closed due to the high winds. There was also a great vegan restaurant right at the start of the Lower Dave Murray Downhill where I enjoyed a very good (and, by Whistler standards, very affordable) African Peanut Soup and a Quinoa-Vegetable Salad. We’re definitely going to return there on our next day of skiing at Whistler Mountain.
Before returning to Whistler Mountain, however, we decided to spend our second day of skiing at Blackcomb Mountain. Stay tuned for more details on that!
We are on the way back from a quick trip to Toronto: before I go any further, I apologize for not meeting up with more of you while there. However, we have quite a “social backlog” with our Toronto friends and we didn’t have time to see everybody this time around!
Atrium of the CBC Broadcast Centre (Toronto, Ontario)
Of course, there is always time to eat…and so I brought my wife to the legendary Jumbo Empanadas restaurant on Augusta Avenue in the Kensington Market district. It doesn’t look like much from the outside (it is on the left side of the picture at the top of this blog) and it is very spartan inside. However, their empanadas are very good and very large, while their corn pie is magnificent.
In Chile, corn pie is served in a pie plate and consists of a top layer of shredded and cooked sweet corn over a bottom layer of ground meat, olives, raisins, onions and even a hard-boiled egg. Words can’t do it justice…and I don’t have a picture either because I ate mine so quickly! All I can say is that I eat a corn pie at Jumbo Empanadas every time I am in the Kensington Market area. When I think about how much I enjoyed the Argentinean empanadas in Costa Rica last year, a trip to Chile and Argentina may well be in the cards someday!
Priceless Artifact from the CBC Museum (Toronto, Ontario)
In between meet-ups with friends, we managed to squeeze in a visit to the CBC Museum on Front Street. While it is by no means comprehensive, it is also free and you can visit between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on weekdays. Check out the incredible 1970s windbreaker in the photo above…I can still remember the orange suits (!) that also featured this “exploding C” logo.
The old way of generating sound effects (complete with cigarette burns on the console) at the CBC Museum (Toronto, Ontario)
We also enjoyed looking at their sounds effects displays, although it was also sobering to realize that Scully and Cartridge machines are now considered museum pieces. We both used to work on those machines during our days at CFRC-FM and I guess they now qualify as ancient technology.
The Straight Eights live at Castro’s Lounge (Toronto, Ontario)
That evening, we went to see a 1950s-style rockabilly band called “The Straight Eights” at a bar in the Beaches district of Toronto. I’m not a huge rockabilly fan but I recognized almost all of these songs as ones that were played by the Beatles (“Twenty Flight Rock”, “Blue Moon of Kentucky”, etc.) during their formative years. If you’re familiar with the Toronto music scene, you will recognize their lead singer as “Big Rude Jake” of Toronto blues fame.
The Flatiron Building, at the corner of Front and Wellington Streets in downtown Toronto
We also took advantage of the trip to see a very special movie. “Red Army” has only a limited engagement in Toronto and I doubt that it will appear in any of Kingston’s theatres. It is an excellent film about the hugely successful national ice hockey teams of the former Soviet Union…told by the players from those teams. I won’t give away too much, as this documentary contains an awful lot of surprises that I don’t want to ruin. However, you don’t need to be a hockey expert to appreciate it: it is just as fascinating from the Cold War and human interest perspectives. See it if you can.
Coming up in the next few weeks: more travel flashbacks and then a week-long trip to a completely new destination for me. Stay tuned!
In reviewing my photographs of the past year, I realized that there was still at least one untold story from my visit to Bosnia & Herzegovina. Here is a “previously unpublished” blog entry dating back to April of 2014.
The city of Mostar suffered terribly during the 1990s. I’ve shared some stories and pictures about the destroyed bridge and some of the damage that was done to the people and buildings. But I didn’t say anything about one of the monuments…
View of the “east bank” of Mostar, from the top of the famous Old Bridge
Yugoslavia was a communist country but it wasn’t really behind the Iron Curtain. Marshal Tito followed a relatively independent course and, as a result, Yugoslavia was the most accessible of the communist states in Eastern Europe. However, as in most of the communist countries, there were many monuments built in Yugoslavia to commemorate the struggle against fascism during World War II.
Second World War Anti-Fascist Monument (Trebinje, Bosnia & Herzegovina)
Last year, I published a photograph (see above) of a Yugoslavian era anti-fascist monument in Trebinje. This monument is well maintained and is right in the middle of Trebinje’s main downtown park, suggesting that it is considered to be very important. However, another (much, much larger) Yugoslavian era anti-fascist monument is located in Mostar. Unlike Trebinje’s monument, however, the one in Mostar is crumbling, waterlogged, and completely overgrown with weeds. There are no signs showing the way to Mostar’s monument and some maps don’t even include it…despite it being close to downtown and sprawling over the equivalent of several city blocks. How could this happen, when the two cities are in the same country and barely 100 km apart?
Anti-Fascist Monument in Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina
The answer is complicated and obscured by past conflicts. In a nutshell, however, one ethnic group is seen as having been sympathetic to the communist cause…while another is seen as having been sympathetic to the fascist cause. As a result, the interest in maintaining anti-fascist monuments varies according to which ethnic group dominates in a particular place. The interest in developing “Yugoslavian Civil War” tourism varies in a similar way, as one ethnic group is not as keen on having its role being placed under scrutiny. You can imagine how complicated this gets, as there are actually three ethnic groups in Bosnia & Herzegovina.
Near the top of the overgrown anti-fascist monument in Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina
I was tempted to use quotation marks with put the word “ethnic” in the above paragraph: you may remember from my earlier posts that these “ethnic” groups historically were essentially the same in appearance and language: it was mainly religion that divided them.
Looking from the monument itself down the formerly grand entrance boulevard (Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina)
Anyway, I spent a fair bit of time exploring and climbing on the Mostar monument. It is huge and built in an over-the-top style that is typical of communist-era monuments. I was the only person there: I saw somebody walking a mean-looking dog there when I first passed by the entrance, but he was gone by the time I visited the park. It felt really creepy, as if nobody was really welcome at the monument. I kept looking around to see if somebody was going to tell me to leave…or even to escort me away from the monument. That never happened but I would not have been surprised if it did.
Another arched bridge in Mostar
This massive monument would have been a major attraction in other Eastern European countries, as they certainly don’t make monuments like that anymore. However, the rawness of Bosnia & Herzegovina’s recent past means that it will probably continue to crumble for quite some time. In the meantime, if you want to see the monument in Mostar, try not to rely too heavily on locally-produced maps: it is possible that something will be missing. You may also want to visit with a group and during daylight hours, as I didn’t feel completely safe visiting the site and I think there is only one way to get in and out.
After being so excited about the food possibilities at the beginning of this trip, I didn’t really write much about food on this blog. I was a little distracted by all of the music and sights, especially in London.
Despite my initial musings about a “dhansak tour of England”, I did not have any more dhansak on the trip. In fact, I didn’t make it into another East Indian restaurant after my first night in Cambridge. However, I still enjoyed a lot of interesting food in London. Any lingering misconceptions about the sorry state of English dining ought to be permanently “consigned to the dustbin”, as they say.
Oddly-named establishment on Charlotte Street in Fitzrovia
Friday’s lunch was a delicious (and vibrant) chicken paella at a small place called Café Deco just two blocks from my hotel. I had big plans for a Lebanese dinner that night in Putney before the Los Pacaminos concert…but the restaurant was fully booked. With time running out, I had to settle for a take-out place called “Flavas Peri Peri” for dinner. It was extremely cheap (and plastic) by London standards and I didn’t have a great feeling about it. Luckily, the chicken sandwich was OK and the peri-peri sauce was better than expected.
On Saturday evening, I went to upscale Kensington for the concert at the Royal Albert Hall. I thought that there would be a lot of restaurants between the Kensington High Street tube station and the concert hall…but I didn’t see very many at all.
Christmas shopping chaos on London’s famed Carnaby Street
Once again running a little late, I decided to try a humble Chinese restaurant humbly called “Stick & Bowl”, vaguely remembering the name from an on-line review. The restaurant thrived on low comfort and high turnover but I still enjoyed my dinner of BBQ Pork with crispy noodles. In fact, the turnover was so fast that I was able to explore the neighbourhood a little before the concert.
After the concert, I was feeling very nibbly and was surprised to find relatively few late-night dining options near my hotel. Settling for a Tesco supermarket, I found a prepackaged but satisfying feta and butternut squash salad with lemon & mint dressing. If I had been in London longer, I definitely would have tried it again.
Christmas Bazaar on the High Street in St. John’s Wood
After visiting Abbey Road on Sunday, I decided to stay in the St. John’s Wood area for lunch, where I found a Japanese restaurant called “Mori” on the High Street. I opted for the culturally-confused and visually unappealing but actually quite good “Chicken Katsu Curry”. If Germany can come up with “Currywurst”, why not?
Chicken Katsu Curry over rice at Mori in St. John’s Wood
This left me with only one more meal in England. I had already tried fish & chips in Southend-on-Sea but it wasn’t in a traditional English pub. I decided that I wanted a nice pint of English cider and something tasty but filling in a warm atmosphere. It didn’t take long to make a decision: after walking by the neighbourhood-oriented Fitzrovia Tavern (see photo at top of this post) several times during my London stay, I finally went inside.
I grabbed a table in front of a fireplace and enjoyed an excellent “Hunter’s Chicken” and draught English cider. It was all very cozy and a great way to end my dining adventures in England…even if the pub turned out to be part of a chain and “Hunter’s Chicken” is probably not traditional pub fare.
The Fitzrovia Tavern at night, just after I ate there
As you have no doubt noticed, I wasn’t always able to take pictures of my food in London. Sometimes, the circumstances made it awkward to get out the camera…and sometimes I just forgot. It was also nice to leave the camera behind once in a while and just enjoy the moment.
This is my last post from England. I’ll be doing some year-end wrap-up posts next: stay tuned to find out the “best” parts of my travel year!
In between my tour of Parliament and the Jools Holland concert at the Royal Albert Hall, I had an entire afternoon free in London. As I had stumbled upon so many interesting things on a random walk two days earlier, I decided to do the same thing after leaving the Houses of Parliament.
Heading westward, I passed Westminster Abbey and found myself in the sprawling St. James Park. The crowds were immense, as the park was right between Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace. There was a lot of almost-domesticated wildlife: these ducks, swans and squirrels had long ago figured out that they could live well by getting relatively close to humans.
One of my new friends poses for a picture in St. James Park, London.
I arrived at Buckingham Palace (see photo at top of this post) just after 12:00 noon. It is certainly a large building but I found the setting to be more impressive than the palace itself. This did not seem to deter many tourists: the roads were kept clear by police but it was otherwise extremely crowded in front of the palace.
Another Beatles site: the Bag o’ Nails (where Paul first met Linda), just west of Buckingham Palace on Lower Grosvenor Place
Craving some space, I decided to continue west and soon found myself in Belgravia. Along the way, I came across the “Bag o’ Nails” pub. I knew it was famous for something but couldn’t remember what. It turns out that this was a famous music venue in the 1960s and was also the pub where Paul McCartney first met his wife Linda in 1967. [As much of “A Hard Day’s Night” was filmed at the Scala Theatre on Tottenham Court Road in Fitzrovia, I probably also saw the place where George Harrison met his first wife in 1964!].
Typical streetscape in Belgravia, London
Belgravia is posh, with immaculate and imposing white buildings everywhere. I wasn’t surprised to see many embassies here. While it was nice to look at and there were certainly no crowds, I was beginning to get hungry and Belgravia didn’t seem to have any restaurants. I began walking northeast and, after passing the edge of Hyde Park, found myself in Mayfair.
Typical streetscape in Mayfair, London
Mayfair is another one of those names that I had heard before but didn’t have any real meaning to me. Now it does: Mayfair is the shopping district for those who are unconcerned about price. It’s beautiful, with ornate buildings and an unhurried air suggesting that everything is lovingly scrubbed down and polished on a daily basis.
Typical shopfront in Mayfair, London
I was getting quite hungry but I was wearing blue jeans and a scruffy sweater. Even if the Mayfair restaurants had appealed to me, I doubt that I would have been welcome in them. I reluctantly looked at the map and decided to head towards Oxford Street…it would be crowded, but it would be much easier to find an appropriate place for lunch.
I must not have been too discreet when I took this picture of the Mustard Café: the server is waving!
Oxford Street was impossibly busy but I found an unassuming café on a street running parallel to and north of Oxford. I paused to look at the menu and I was reassured by a patron that the food was good. For just under 5 pounds, I had a surprisingly good lasagna and a fruit juice at the Mustard Café.
As I had walked about 5 miles since leaving Parliament, I didn’t push myself too hard for the rest of the afternoon. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t completely exhausted by the time I made it to the Royal Albert Hall!
My last two posts (on the Royal Albert Hall concert and the Beatles pilgrimage) represented the last two musical highlights of my visit to London. However, I still have quite a bit of non-musical stuff to report.
First, however, I want to share a strange coincidence that I noticed after posting the Royal Albert Hall report. I had mentioned one concert in particular (the “Concert for George”) as being one of my favourites. This concert was held in the Royal Albert Hall on November 29, 2002, being exactly one year to the day after the death of George Harrison (November 29, 2001). Jools Holland was one of the performers at that tribute concert. When did I see Jools Holland perform at the Royal Albert Hall? November 29, 2014.
Gray’s Inn Hall – this hosted the first public performance of Shakespeare’s “A Comedy of Errors” in 1594.
On the afternoon of Friday, November 28, I went on a walking tour of “Legal London”: the purpose was to see some of the city’s legal landmarks, with a focus on the ancient “Inns of Court” that formed the basis of the legal profession for barristers.
In Canada, every lawyer is a “barrister and solicitor”, although in practice most lawyers choose to specialize in one or the other. In England, however, there is a much stronger separation between the two. A solicitor will rarely, if ever, appear in court. If anything becomes contentious, a solicitor generally refers the matter to a barrister.
Suppliers of legal robes and wigs since 1689!
Each barrister is associated with one of the four Inns of Court that are located within easy walking distance of each other just west of downtown London. Traditions die hard here: these are the same medieval Inns of Court that Charles Dickens wrote of in the 19th century. We saw a legal robe and wigmaker that has been in business continuously since the 17th century.
One of the buildings at Gray’s Inn. Charles Dickens worked as a clerk in the room directly above the door.
Dickens didn’t think much of lawyers (nor did he think much of my hometown of Kingston, Ontario, incidentally) but at least he was writing from personal experience. He clerked at Gray’s Inn for a short time before exploring other career options. The Inns are relatively quiet urban refuges from the hustle and bustle of modern London, similar in many ways to the colleges of Cambridge University.
The tour ended in the Fleet Street area at the Royal Courts of Justice. Fleet Street has long been associated with British journalism but in reality most of the media has long since relocated to less expensive real estate.
The Royal Courts of Justice in downtown London
After the Legal London tour, I didn’t have much time to spare before I needed to head for the distant neighbourhood of Putney for the Los Pacaminos concert. I allowed plenty of transit time, even though I found a bus route that went from my hotel right to Putney. The scheduled travel time was an hour, but the incredibly congested city meant that my bus (and every other) was also about an hour late. I still arrived in time but had to settle for a rather unhealthy fast-food meal before the concert.
Transit gridlock – a long line of London buses remains stationary…on a green light.
Urban gridlock is particularly bad here. Even a steep congestion tax, which costs you $18.00 every time you want to drive into the city, has done little to alleviate the traffic woes. There is a comprehensive underground (“the Tube”) system, but it too is prone to severe delays: my relatively short underground trip the following night to Kensington also took at least about half-an-hour longer than it should have.
Looking back, transportation was about the only negative experience I had in London. The buses and trains themselves, however, were relatively well-kept and I certainly never had any safety concerns.
After the overwhelming Saturday night concert at the Royal Albert Hall, there was only one day left on my musical tour. I wanted to take advantage of every moment but I had no further concert tickets and no strong desire to see a musical matinee. I also had to get up at 4:45 a.m. the following morning to catch my flight back to Canada.
I decided to go on a special guided tour. Not just any tour, mind you, but a tour that would finally introduce me to the London of my first musical heroes: The Beatles.
Millions of words have been written about the Beatles and I don’t think I need to convince anyone that their songs will one day be considered the “classical music” of the 20th century. No matter how much they have been deified, the fact remains that they created all of that music in this very real city and lived a very real life here. It was time to finally see it for myself.
Trident Studios – this is where “Hey Jude” was recorded in the summer of 1968
After walking past Paul McCartney’s offices, we saw Trident Studios in a narrow laneway. The Beatles rarely recorded here, but they did happen to record “Hey Jude” here…and that’s what they were doing on the day I was born. These particular studios were beyond nondescript and yet this was where one of the most popular songs ever was recorded.
Nearby was the former site of the Indica Gallery – famous for being the place where John Lennon first met Yoko Ono. Our guide was careful to point out that Ono didn’t break up the Beatles; rather than the “cause”, he thought she was a “symptom” and the breakup would have happened eventually anyway.
The Indica Gallery today, in a quiet London courtyard
The second most important site for me on this tour was 3 Savile Row – the former headquarters of Apple Records and the site of their last ever public performance. This is the building you see throughout the movie “Let It Be”; the famous rooftop concert took place right here! There was also a recording studio in the basement. Looking at the neighbourhood today, it still is very “proper and dignified”…it’s no wonder the Beatles were not welcomed with open arms by the other businesses on the street. Today, 3 Savile Row is the location of an “Abercrombie Kids” store.
3 Savile Row – former headquarters of the Beatles’ business empire
We saw some other minor sites but the best was saved for last. We had to take the Tube to St. John’s Wood and walk for about 10 minutes. Even though it was a typical semi-suburban environment, there were tourists everywhere…many of them endangering life and limb on the busy street. This was Abbey Road.
Abbey Road is the location of EMI Studios (as it was then called), where the Beatles recorded almost all of their music. The site is now called Abbey Road Studios and is still used as a commercial studio, so it is not open to the general public. That doesn’t stop hundreds (thousands?) of people visiting it every day to pay their respects. It does feel kind of magical here.
Abbey Road Studios, St. John’s Wood, London
Perhaps even more alluring is the fact that this is also the very place where the iconic Abbey Road album cover photograph was taken. Back in 1969, the street was briefly closed and the photo of the Beatles was taken from a stepladder in the middle of the road. That’s why fans continue to endanger their lives by trying to recreate the exact photo. It’s also one of the few “real” places portrayed on a Beatles album cover.
I didn’t try to take a picture from the very same spot. But I took some photos of the pedestrian crossing (it’s still there) and even had another person take a photo of me walking across just like the Beatles did all those years ago. That’s the photo you see at the top of this post, with Abbey Road Studios in the background.
The end of the Abbey Road crossing…and the end of my musical pilgrimage!
Along with “Revolver” and “With The Beatles“, “Abbey Road” is one of my three favourite Beatles albums. It certainly has the best production and was the last original album they recorded together (although the very uneven “Let It Be” album was released later). It was a fitting finale to an astonishing career.
For me, going to Abbey Road also represented a kind of closure for my year of travel. I had come to the end of the long and winding road and there was nowhere else I needed to go. It was time to go home.
Today’s post is an extended one with lots of musical links: given the event, I didn’t want to break this up into smaller blogs!
When I started planning this trip in June, even before booking the flights, I ensured that I had great tickets to two shows. One was the Paul Carrack concert. The other was a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Within a few days, I also had a ticket for Los Pacaminos and I added “The Commitments” a couple of months later.
Why the Royal Albert Hall? When I think of opulent concert halls, it’s the first one that comes to mind. However, it has also been the site for a host of legendary concerts. One of my favourite concert videos is “A Concert for George” – the all-star tribute to the late George Harrison. In that one concert alone, there were performances by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Jeff (ELO) Lynne, Tom Petty, Billy Preston and the entire Monty Python gang (among others). In fact, Eric Clapton has played there almost 200 times.
The South Kensington outdoor skating rink, just a short walk from the Royal Albert Hall
Not only is it stunningly beautiful inside and out, it also manages to hold more than 5,200 people in comfort. I was determined to be one of those people, for one night at least!
While travelling alone certainly has its drawbacks, it paid one unexpected dividend on this trip: it is sometimes possible to snap up single tickets very close to the stage that have been left “stranded” by groups buying blocks of tickets. That’s what happened with the Paul Carrack concert (where I was in the 9th row, in the exact centre of the hall) and that’s what happened here…where I managed to get a lone seat in the 13th row, right in the centre, for a Saturday night concert less than a month before Christmas. Even better, it was for a concert that I really wanted to see!
Jools Holland is known in North America as a former member of Squeeze…in fact, when he left, he was replaced by Paul Carrack. But in the U.K., he is a legendary radio and television host (“Later…with Jools Holland”) and bandleader of the Jools Holland Rhythm and Blues Orchestra. Simply put, they are the best known “big band” in the U.K. and in many other countries as well. They have also recorded with just about everybody with an interest in this kind of music. On one CD alone, the collaborators included George Harrison, Van Morrison, Sting, Paul Weller, Dr. John, Joe Strummer (The Clash), Steve Winwood, Mick Hucknall (Simply Red), Paul Carrack, Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) and Eric Clapton.
View from my seat, looking at the area just to the right of (and behind) the Royal Albert Hall stage
Imagine an amped-up modern-day cross between Cab Calloway, Glenn Miller, Ray Charles and the Blues Brothers…that might come close to capturing the Jools Holland Rhythm & Blues Orchestra. The sound is not subtle: there are 5 saxophones, 3 trumpets and 3 trombones, in addition to the various other singers and instruments you might expect to find in a big band. And while they do play standards like “Tuxedo Junction”, they don’t restrict themselves to traditional big band material: here is a live version of Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” with Melanie C(!), a former Spice Girl, while this is a video for Jerry Lee Lewis’ “It’ll Be Me” recorded with Tom Jones.
I arrived well in advance of the concert, as I wanted plenty of time to look around and experience the venue beforehand. It is located in a posh area (Kensington) of London; as you can see from the photo at the top of this post, it is quite an imposing sight. I had to negotiate a series of hidden stairwells and oddly-shaped corridors to get to my seat but it is even more impressive inside. There are arches, rich colours, suites and ornate accents everywhere…as if one has just woken up in the 19th century.
Looking towards the back of the Royal Albert Hall
After a forgettable opening act, Jools Holland and his R&B Orchestra arrived with a bang. The horn section was not going to be silenced on this evening and the sell-out crowd was very happy with that. I should also mention that Jools Holland has the best left-handed piano technique I’ve ever seen. It would have been fine if they played instrumentals all night.
Nonetheless, the vocalists in the orchestra are exceptional. The current roster includes Louise Marshall and Ruby Turner. Ruby Turner is an established singer in her own right; I even picked up her 45 (7″ vinyl single) of “I’d Rather Go Blind” this summer in the Netherlands (here’s a live version of the same song). But Marshall is a vocal powerhouse too…you should expect to see much more of her in the future (here’s a Louise Marshall/Jools Holland recording of a song that she also performed live tonight). My wife and I saw Aretha Franklin perform a few years ago and (sacrilege alert!) her performance didn’t even come close to Marshall or Turner.
View of the Royal Albert Hall stage just before the show (from my seat, no zoom lens)
Despite having that kind of vocal talent in his orchestra, a big feature of Jools Holland concerts is having some great guest stars. On this night, there were two special guests. The first was Joss Stone; you may recognize her name, as her first couple of releases received quite a bit of attention. This live performance with Melissa Etheridge is fairly typical (although Melissa Etheridge clearly wins this battle!); here are other ones with Donna Summer and Jeff Beck. Her performances on this night with Jools Holland were similar.
The next guest was bit of a surprise. Marc Almond was the singer with Soft Cell, a synth-pop duo from the early 1980s who had a massive international hit with “Tainted Love” as well as another big hit with “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”. He has had a successful U.K. solo career since then.
Almond started his set with “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”, followed by a dramatic interpretation of a Jacques Brel song. Would he sing “Tainted Love”, even though it was also a cover version (recorded originally by Gloria Jones in the early 1960s)? Personally, I wasn’t too keen on the original Jones vocal, but the musical backing was solid. Conversely, the Soft Cell vocal was memorable but the synth backing sounds dated now. Luckily for us, he chose to sing “Tainted Love”…and he did it in front of a powerful big-band arrangement!
They didn’t cut corners: this is the back side of the Royal Albert Hall
This was definitely one of the highlights of the night. The audience was “gobsmacked”, as they say, and the orchestra really delivered with staccato stabs of horns. This was how the song was meant to be performed and everybody nailed it.
Yet there were even more highlights. One of the best encore songs was a song called “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)”. I knew a version of it by British ska legends The Specials but it turns out that it’s a very old song recorded at one point by Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians! Again, this was a brilliantly performed song and one that perfectly suited both the moment and the evening. Here’s a recent studio version by Jools Holland.
The Orchestra played for a little more than 2 hours…but it went by so fast. It was also exhausting, with so much energy in the music. While I caught a bus just outside the Royal Albert Hall, I had enough adrenaline to walk back to my hotel from Leicester Square without even noticing the distance.
Almost back at my hotel…corner of Tottenham Court Road and Chenies Street in Fitzrovia, London
With Los Pacaminos last night and the Jools Holland R&B Orchestra tonight, I have been rather forcefully reminded of the sheer power of live music played by committed musicians. It even makes me think back to the fun I had playing live in a band at law school, where we bludgeoned our way through grunge (hey, it was the 1990s!) covers of songs by the likes of Abba (“Knowing Me, Knowing You”) and Duran Duran (“Hungry Like The Wolf”, although we turned it into “Hungry Like Beowulf”).
To be honest, I would have been happy just going on a tour of the Royal Albert Hall. To experience a concert like this in such a wonderful venue was icing on the cake. It was also a great way to end my year of travel, except for one thing: my year of travel wasn’t quite over.
I still had one more full day in London…but I knew that there was no way I could find a concert to top what I had experienced over the past couple of days. Stay tuned to find out how I spent the final day of this musical adventure!
As I walked south on Whitehall, it came into view. The British Parliament Buildings (and the “Big Ben” clock face) share some architectural features with Canada’s Parliament Buildings but seem so much bigger because there is much less space around them. They were so imposing that I didn’t even notice Westminster Abbey less than a block away.
Houses of Parliament (Westminster Palace) from the south. That tiny clock face at the back is “Big Ben”, giving an idea of the size of Parliament Buildings.
It was about 3:30 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon and I remembered reading that visitors could observe the proceedings in either the House of Commons or the House of Lords (the U.K. equivalent of Canada’s Senate) until about 5:00 p.m. on Thursdays…but not again until the following Monday. As I was leaving the following Monday, this would be my only chance.
I was skeptical, given the amount of tourists that were in the area. I had also read that waits of 1-2 hours to observe the proceedings were common. After some false starts, I finally found what appeared to be the visitors’ entrance. Much to my surprise, the staff thought that I would probably be able to watch either the House of Commons or the House of Lords right away.
Inside one of the entrance halls to the Houses of Parliament
I had to pass through “airport-style security” but within 5 minutes I was climbing the stairs to the visitors’ gallery. As I entered, I could have sworn that I was in Canada’s House of Commons: the layout and even the colouring (green) was essentially identical. The speaker, the mace, the protocol…it was all the same as in Canada.
I watched the debate for about 45 minutes. The House was not full, as it was only receiving an update from an inquiry that still had a year or two to go. It appeared that the U.K. was struggling with some issues (institutional child abuse) that Canada has also had to confront recently.
“Big Ben”, at the northern edge of the Houses of Parliament (a.k.a. Westminster Palace)
I went back to the Parliament Buildings on Saturday morning for a guided tour. This time, instead of just seeing the visitors’ gallery in the House of Commons, we were taken to all parts of the House of Lords and the House of Commons and much of Westminster Palace (which is actually the name of the entire complex…the royal family lived on this site many centuries ago).
I’d like to share pictures of the interior of Westminster Palace, but photos are only permitted in two of the halls leading to the respective Houses. In fact, we were not even permitted to sit down in most of the rooms, as the furniture was considered irreplaceable. However, as with many things in England, I think it is also a question of tradition.
Westminster Abbey, with the Houses of Parliament barely visible at the bottom left
The main lesson from the tour? I’d say it is the uneasy relationship between the monarchy and parliament. The queen is not even supposed to visit the House of Commons: they literally bar the door when she is at Westminster Palace. This goes back hundreds of years when the role of the monarchy was the source of much conflict.
Another less weighty but still interesting observation: a large number of the “official” portraits are completely bogus. Such portraits were often painted centuries later and/or by someone who had never seen the subject. Five of Henry the Eighth’s wives have portraits near the House of Lords but it is questionable that any of the portraits bear the slightest resemblance to what the subjects actually looked like. In some cases, such portraits were art projects for students!
Security was high in London – here is a group of police officers at the entrance to Downing Street (at Whitehall)
While the tour was interesting, it was still rather expensive for what you get. I suppose that the massive security presence needs to be paid for somehow. If you are familiar with the workings of a parliamentary democracy, you may be better served by simply going to one of the visitors’ galleries at an off-peak time. It’s free and you still get to see a decent amount of Westminster Palace…not to mention the fact that you get to see parliament actually at work.
Coming up: more on London and a very special concert!
I hope you’ve enjoyed my concert reports so far. I have one more very special concert report coming up in a few days, but first I want to start reporting on the city itself.
Considering how often I’ve been to Europe, it really is strange that I’ve never been to London before (other than changing planes at Heathrow). It didn’t take long, however, for me to realize that I had to make up for a lot of lost time.
Canada appears to be represented by a giant blue rooster: Trafalgar Square, London
I’m staying at the Ridgemount Hotel on Gower Street – it’s on the edge of a neighbourhood called Fitzrovia in the western part of London. There are a number of small hotels here but it is not on the tourist trail. There’s a large university across the street and the local “downtown” (centred on Goodge Street, Charlotte Street and Tottenham Court Road) is usually filled with locals.
Fitzrovia is perfectly situated for me. While not touristed (I know, it’s ironic I should say that), it is nonetheless within easy walking distance of a *lot* of interesting things. I’m only a few blocks north from Oxford Street; it has got to be the biggest shopping street in London. As soon as I cross Oxford Street, I enter Soho.
Looking away from the giant blue rooster at Trafalgar Square, we see the rather Roman-looking Admiralty Arch
Like so many other neighbourhoods that became real to me during my stay in London, Soho used to be just a name. I had no idea what made Soho unique or different from neighbouring districts (such as Mayfair). However, it is stuffed to the gills with bookstores, record shops and theatres…the perfect place for this particular tour.
On my first excursion from the hotel, I grabbed a Caribbean Roti Chicken Wrap with a tangy tamarind sauce. The food on offer here is astonishing in its variety. Something else that’s astonishing: almost every block yields a name or sight that is familiar to me, even though I’ve never been here before. I don’t think I realized how much influence London has had on Canada nor how much influence London has had on my favourite music. Even when I’m not looking for them, musical sights are constantly appearing!
The Radha Krishna Temple…and the Govinda Restaurant (Soho, London)
Within 30 seconds of entering Soho, I see the Govinda Restaurant and the Radha Krishna Temple. Beatle scholars will recognize “Govinda” as a Top 30 (U.K.) hit for the Radha Krishna Temple – it was produced by George Harrison. It’s right beside Soho Square – the home of Paul McCartney’s business empire (MPL Communications). The list goes on and on.
Paul McCartney’s business empire is headquartered in the tall middle building overlooking Soho Square (there’s some construction going on in front)
The lyrics of the classic wartime song “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” include “Goodbye Piccadilly, farewell Leicester Square”: now I see that Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square are just a couple of blocks apart in real life! And they are massive, positively crawling with tourists taking photos and trying to pick up discounted theatre tickets. But there are plenty of Londoners here too. Piccadilly Circus reminds me of Times Square in New York City: see photo at the top of this post.
The Horse Guards on Whitehall (Westminster, London)
I have no real plan for my wanderings, as every direction yields something of interest. A couple of blocks south brings me to Trafalgar Square with its vast open spaces, statues and the National Galleries. Walking south here on Whitehall, into the heart of the City of Westminster, I see familiar names such as Downing Street (home of the Prime Minister) and Scotland Yard. And then, it comes into view…
