St James Church

[caliente_uk]

So here it is, the first of my London reports. :)

This is long and rambly. If only I talked this much in RL! ;D



We arrived in London at around 2:30pm and checked into our hotel on Piccadilly, which was just around the corner from St James Church. I was already fairly excited at this point, but also nervous at the prospect of meeting up with some of my LJ friends for the very first time. K was very excited and was becoming more and more hyperactive by the minute.

Our room was on the eighth floor, so I had no choice but to use the lift (have I ever mentioned that I HATE lifts? Not a very good fear to have when you have a child in a wheelchair!). The room was okay; fairly basic but clean and spacious, which was the most important thing. After unpacking, the four of us (my husband, son, K and myself) decided to have a walk over to St James Church to see what it was like.

There was already a fairly long queue outside the entrance. I didn't recognise anyone, but I'm sure there would have been people from my flist there. So if you saw a strange, nervous looking woman, pushing a young girl in a wheelchair...that would have been me. *g* My husband and son were slightly bemused by the whole thing. But even though they don't really understand the whole James Marsters thing, they still accompanied me to London and spent many hours hanging around outside venues (aka sitting in a pub, drinking a pint and watching football), waiting for their crazy women folk to finish drooling over watching that "American actor from Buffy". So I can't complain. :D

Now on to St James...

We arrived at St James just before six oclock. Lisa (from JM Live) was there and introduced herself. She knew who I was straight away (must be all those emails I sent her. Me? Worry? Never! *g*) There were already a couple of wheelchair users there when we arrived, so we just sat with them and waited for the doors to be opened. We heard James do his sound check, which K found very exciting. I think it was then that the experience really started to come alive for her.

At one point I spotted a young lady walking around the market stalls on her own and wondered if it might be lmbossy. As it turned out it was indeed lmbossy, but I think we were both a little bit too shy to say hello straight away. To be honest, I was shy for the whole weekend. I really don't find social gatherings easy to cope with, especially when it's with people I've never met face to face before. Shyness is a curse, it really is!

Then at last Lisa came out and said it was time to go in. We managed to get a spot a few rows back from the front, with K sitting in front of a pillar. We had a fairly good view from there, except for three young "fangirls" who kept jumping up and down, shaking their jingling bottoms. :D

St James is a beautiful place, but I wouldn't say it was the best setting for a concert. The seats were dead uncomfortable for a start. I really must be getting old!

Sitting directly behind us was the lovely stretfordditto and sitting to the side of us was deedee7daydiary. It was lovely meeting you both, ladies. I so needed to see some friendly faces. Thank you! :)

Now on to the actual concert...

I thought Al Brittan was a very good support act for James. He seemed to be a bit nervous at first (probably due to performing in a church), but I enjoyed his performance a lot. K was particularly impressed with him and wanted to buy his CD afterwards, but he'd sold out of them. She was very disappointed. She thought he was cute! ;)

After Al finished there was a break of about 20 minutes...and I finally got to meet the lovely lmbossy! She was such a huge help to me this weekend and I honestly don't think I could have done it without her. *hugs lmbossy* Not long after that spikereader came down from the balcony to say hi to us. Another LJ friend who I finally got to meet! It was so nice to see so many friendly faces.

I'm not going to go into great detail about James' performance, as so many others have already said it much better than I can. But I loved every minute that he was on stage. He looked and sounded wonderful. He was dressed in blue jeans and black t-shirt, and had what looked like a breast cancer ribbon pinned to the front of his shirt. He was so very relaxed and happy.

K loved it! Her very first time seeing James and she was blown away by him. I know not everyone is a fan of James' music, but both K and I genuinely do love it. No, he's not the best singer in the world, but the heart and passion he puts into his music (especially when you see him perform live) more than makes up for it (imo). What made this experience even more special for me was being able to share it with my daughter. Life isn't easy for her, so to see her so happy was wonderful. And I have James Marsters to thank for that. :)

And yes, I did still get all tingly when he sang "Smile". :)



So the first part of our James weekend was over. It was wonderful to see him singing live again, but I knew that the best part of the weekend was yet to come...and boy was I right!

Comments

[spikereader.livejournal.com]

Lovely report Cal, I'm so enjoying reading everybody's thoughts and feelings about the whole thing. Looking forward to part 2.

Say hello to K for me, and here are some *hugs* for you both.

[caliente-uk.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Carolyn. *hugs*

I love reading all the reports. I don't think there can ever be too many of them! :D