Blog ≫ 2024 ≫ Our day at the Young Voices concert
Big day out in London yesterday then! We went up with the school to the Young Voices concert. Well, to our day of the Young Voices concerts, we understand it goes on for a few days. Our boy was taking part in this one. Train strike of course, because we had plans, but we got a spare space on the school coach. We had to sit at the back, so they could sit all the sicky kids near the front. Suited us, we got seats near the emergency door, second row from the back, extra leg room. No loo on this coach, I was a bit worried about that, but we got their quickly enough.
Once there the kids went into the O2 Arena, while we got a coffee and went for a walk down into Greenwich proper. We had six or seven hours before the concert would start, so decided to have a nice day out. Yes, pubs!
Still dryanuary for me, but Clare decided she'd done enough. So in a complete roll-reversal, she was the keenest to get in the pub first. We passed a few and then thought we'd try and check out some pubs near the centre of Greenwich that we'd always walked past with the boys.
First was The Trafalgar Tavern, and it was well worth checking out. Enormous, but still cosy. Open fire, and windows looking out on to the Thames. A really nice place to sit. They had a great range of real ales, but I had my first alcohol free beer of the day.
Next to The Sail Loft, one I'd wanted to check out because I knew it offered food, and a view over the Thames. As we got close though we thought it didn't look so good, and could not match up to how much we'd liked The Trafalgar Tavern, so we didn't bother. It didn't look pubby enough, and teh food reviews were average.
So actual next pub was The Gipsy Moth. Another nice proper pub, comfortable, old, had good sounding food, and real ale. Another pint for Clare, another pretty pricey half pint bottle of alcohol free beer for me. A good one this time though "Pine Trail Pale" I think, nice, I will seek it out. One thing though, how has this pub got so much history if it is named after The Gipsy Moth, which was famous in the 1960s? We looked it up, the pub was renamed The Gipsy Moth after it was dry docked there. It was originally called The Wheatsheaf, or at least called that prior to being renamed The Gipsy Moth. The Gipsy Moth (Gipsy Moth IV in fact) was originally built in Gosport.
Next more of a walk around but with a definite eye on the food now. Where would we go, that we probably would not go if we had the boys with us? Mostly they do not like eating in pubs, so we thought we'd go back to a pub! Ended up at The Mitre, which had exactly the same menu as The Gipsy Moth, they must be connected. I knew I was most likely getting a vegan burger wherever I went, but this was a good one. Clare also had a burger, and we also had cauliflower "wings" and padron peppers. I couldn't face another fake beer, so just had water this time, while Clare went for a glass of wine.
Now time to get the bus back to the O2 for the concert. I absolutely hate the O2, it is a soulless place. It was busy though, pretty full, and not with usual gig goers. Too much shunting around and queueing inside the venue, but at least with the audience being all mums and dads people were queueing quite politely. Our sets were near the front and about half way "back", better than I've had on previous visits to the O2. But this time it's not so much about how cloe you are to the stage. There are over eight thousand kids in this show, they would not all fit on the stage. The kids are all in the seats around the arena at the stage end, and the audience is in the other seats, taking up the other half of the arena. There is a stage, where the conductor is, and where special guests appeared. The kids sand medleys of songs, only a line or two of each song, but grouped together into individual performances. It was not like a battle of the choirs competition though, all the thousands of kids all sang at once. You could not make out individual sschools, though with some help we could see our school and our boy.
The guests were quite good, they had some dancers, and a rapping teacher that the kids seemed to recognise. Also they had Nandi Bushell playing the drums. She played at the Foo Fighters Taylor Hawkins tribute show, she is proper, I've heard of her!
Our boy seemed to have a good time, we could see him singing and doing his dance moves.
It was a bit slow meeting up again at the end, and then getting to the coach, and then getting the coach out of the carpark. We got home after midnight, a very tiring day. I hope our boy has some good memories of it. I got a few pictures and a few snippets of video.
Watching a thing about seventeenth century British tsunami. Putting the idea back into my mind that you need to be able to carry all your important stuff with you, or at least be able to move it very quickly. Time to reassess all my possessions, have a clear out of the less important stuff.
I possibly saw Zodiac Mindwarp today in 1992, but the date of this one is flakey even by my standards. I found proof of other dates on the tour, so I can tell when I wasn't there! Thinking about it it was probably a Saturday night wasn't it, as I stayed in Brighton. So long ago memories are hazy though.
I'm not staying up late so as to be up after midnight when Dryanuary is over, I have to stay up a bit to hang some washing out...
dryanuary: Not drinking for the month of January.