October 21, 2003

European Vacation Part 4: London & AC/DC

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.

chris a, fatty, me — 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)

charlene, me — 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 in New York 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.

charlene — 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."

charlene, fatty — 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.

charlene, fatty — Before heading to the concert, we decided to break out the bottle of Brennivin 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."

charlene — Turns out the woman wasn't kidding. The drink's "Black Death" moniker suddenly made a whole lot more sense. Hoo-ah.

chris a, fatty — Fatty and Chris waiting for the tube.Me and Charlene. We hopped the tube from Charlene's place (the Caledonian Road stop)...

charlene, me — 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, chris a, fatty, me — Charlene called her friend Layla (who works for the company that promotes Carling Beer)...

chris a, layla — ...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 a, me — 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...

chris a, fatty, grant, me — 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.

charlene, fatty, layla, me — Fatty, Charlene, Layla's boyfriend, Me, Layla, and ______.

Seriously, is there anything better than a photo of German ACDC fans?

fatty — 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!

charlene, fatty — Fatty gives Charlene and "Oh my god you're the fucking best" smooch.

fatty — 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?"

charlene, keith flint, me — 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.

chris a, fatty, me — 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.