Today we are off to
Plymouth to see the Moody Blues! We had
a small continental breakfast (I was getting really tired of the big ones), and
we were off at about 9:30. Google Maps sent
us north towards London to take advantage of what are supposed to be faster
roads (the motorways), but the ring road is notoriously prone to backups… a bit
hairy, lots of traffic, but once past Windsor, heading back towards the southwest, it was smooth
sailing. Our route took us Right Past
Stonehenge!! You could see it at the
side of the road! Aaaauuugggghhhh! Mom can we stop?? The chainlink fence around it wasn’t as far
away from the stones as I’d thought. I
raised my camera above it and took some pix.
After a lovely lunch stop at a bistro on the side of the road, we got to
our B&B at about 3:30, dropped our bags and did quite a long walkaround, towards
the water, through the park to “the Hoe”, the tip of land, round to the
Mayflower steps, where the Mayflower left for America, and plenty of other
vessels left for other important places, the Barbican, a castle, the big old
church, the shopping district, split a pizza and back again to the
B&B. Just found recently that the Beatles were cavorting around this area (pretty much the same shot as the ferris wheel and tower) during the filming of Magical Mystery Tour! I recognized the area as soon as I saw it.
The Concert
We saw old friends and acquaintances at the venue.. all of us had pretty good or very good seats. Within seconds of the start of the concert, I flashed double thumbs up at Justin, then at John and Norda and each smiled back, John with his own thumbs up. John was smiling a lot my way; Justin was smiling a lot in general. There were a few small changes in arrangements, longer or changed endings here and there, but basically the same concert as last year. One big change was the addition of one more verse to IKYOTS, which was nice to hear. I wonder what made Justin decide to put it back in. Gordon is back to standing on his throne after a couple of years not doing it. Graeme did an extra long buildup of chatter prior to Higher and Higher, and people are still laughing at the hair/teeth joke, amazingly enough. It’s a clever way to gauge how many newbies there are at concerts, isn’t it? There are now three LED screens at the front, with a little space between them.. This gives a little different appearance to the light show. They had some new photos, and used the screens to advantage there with three photos at a time. The lightshow part was also a bit dazzling now that LED screens are used (those are always bright). Though there was one security woman looking to stop someone who had been using flash, I managed to take 142 photos and 2 videos (Question and Say It With Love) from the 2nd row center. Pleased with that.
After the show, several of us from Britain and North America, who had all been to the concert, all staying at the Grosvenor, gathered for after show drinks and chat in the lobby till midnight. I’ve stayed in the Hoe all the times I’ve been to Plymouth (I think 3 times, maybe 4 – first time at Sneaton’s B&B). It’s a few blocks walk from the Pavilions venue and a generally nice and inexpensive area to stay. Even at this hour (going on 1am), the seagulls and guillemots are chatting with each other outside. Tomorrow, on to Bournemouth – Storytellers and another show!
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