...which continued at 11 AM at the train station. Now, I was a bit worried about getting there, since I knew absolutely no directions or transfer options whatsoever, but all my worries evaporated when three kids about my age sat down next to me. From then on, the three hours spent on the train were a blast. We talked about the concert, about traveling to London, about not exactly liking our capital city, about how the Russians have a separate word for three-day sleep deprivation and so on... I didn't even get to continue reading my copy of On the Road, which I've been struggling with for a year precisely.
By the time I got to the venue, it was 4 PM and by the time I found my friends, it was 4:30 PM, since during the time I took the bus there, they were walking down to the station. What a perfectly coordinated meeting, right?
We still had a couple of hours to kill until the concert started, so we left the venue and were walking around town and, well, this is the part of the day that is better left censored... Erm, so, long story short, while the friends of my friends were eating shrooms and going psycho with seven other people in a one person tent, my friend and I went to see the opening act, which was The Strypes. And they were surprisingly good, really! I spent my time staring at the lead singer, who happens to be gorgeous, but it turned out that he's younger than me, so I transferred my affections to this random guy standing next to me. So it was perfect. Well, except for the tiny detail that I urgently needed to use the bathroom - which is a total mood killer. Oh, and that I couldn't change my camera's settings from B&W to color. And I couldn't find the flash either...
The first color photo I took - of The Strypes
By the time I got back from the bathroom, a huge crowd had gathered in front of the main stage and I couldn't find my friend. Nice. But after a couple of phone calls, raised hats and aggressive elbowing from my part, I did manage to find her, she dragged me into the great sea of Arctic Monkeys T-shirts, and before I noticed, we were already in the front rows. And we were pushed and kicked and jumped upon, but there we remained.
AND THEN IT WAS 9 PM AND THE CONCERT STARTED. And...they were there!! The four of them, they were there, in front of me, and suddenly I couldn't see because everyone was raising their hands and I couldn't hear because everyone was screaming and then they started playing Do I Wanna Know? and we were all singing along and my gosh, it was good! I mean, it wasn't 2007 Glastonbury good, but it was as good as it gets! Here's a video of it that I did not film (mine turned out to be OK, I just don't upload videos that much) but it's the best you can get!
So the concert lasted about one and half hours, and it was a blast. Really, all the reviews I've read since unanimously agree that it was boring and that they played lifelessly, but I couldn't disagree more. It was a decent concert. Apart from the ones in the UK, it was like every other Arctic Monkeys concert. I don't know what everyone was expecting and I'm sorry they didn't get what they hoped for, but personally, it was everything I wanted to see and hear and experience. The only thing I disliked was the setlist, which - apart from a few classics - was mainly from AM. Now, AM is my least favorite album of theirs, and not hearing much of their previous songs, especially When the Sun Goes Down, kind of broke my heart. I mean, they performed 505 which partly mended it, but still... Anyway, despite that, this was absolutely the best concert of my life. It was also my first proper concert (bad Hungarian bands and that arcane Patti Smith concert don't count), but it was the best.
Here are some photos:
Following the concert, we roamed the streets again, bought/stole posters, packed up, went dancing and before 3 AM, I was on the bus taking me to the station.
The train was full of sleeping people, and I joined in.
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