Our Rock and Roll London Trip

We were lying in bed on November 27, 2018, drinking our morning pot of coffee when Kathy saw the Facebook post on Bob Dylan’s official page: Bob Dylan and His Band and Neil Young & Promise of the Real at Hyde Park, 12 July 2019.

My biggest concert regret is missing out on Desert Trip in 2016, the last time that Bob Dylan and Neil Young played the same festival. Not long after that, we decided to pick up the pace of our traveling, and if we want to do it and can do it, we would do it. With that in my mind, as soon as she mentioned the concert, I said “Let’s go.” Thirty minutes later we had tickets for the show and the same day we had plane tickets and a hotel reservation at Linden House, close to Hyde Park. I was not going to let this one get away from us, and Kathy was an easy sell-- London in the summer and our two favorite musical artists, Neil Young and Bob Dylan.

By the time we arrived in Atlanta, the excitement had been building for seven months. We checked into our hotel and got the party started early. A Microtel near the Atlanta Airport or a swanky hotel in Paris, Kathy and I can have fun anywhere.

About thirty minutes after boarding our plane the next afternoon, we both swallowed five mgs of Ambien so we could hopefully get closer to Britain’s clock and feel like seeing some of London the next day. The Ambien worked that afternoon and into the night, and we slept most of the flight.

After landing in London, we connected with our hotel shuttle. The traffic was horrendous, so much more than the last time we were in London in 1993. I knew we were close to our hotel when I saw Hyde Park, and when I saw a fish and chips restaurant, I told Kathy, “I hope our hotel is near here. I’m hungry.” In less than a minute we were at our hotel.

After unpacking, we visited the fish and chips restaurant, and then went to Hyde Park to try to find where our section was at. We had paid extra for the second section in front of the stage, and the trip to the venue did not dispel my worry about being close enough to the stage. We traveled across the Atlantic for this show, and not paying the extra money for the first section would have been a huge mistake if we could not clearly see the stage.

After leaving Hyde Park, we explored the city for a couple of hours and then went back to our hotel room. Kathy immediately fell asleep at about 7:00 PM and left me lonesome until I fell asleep at about 2:00 AM. Before I went to sleep, I made sure we had something to do the next night to keep Kathy awake, so I bought tickets online to see Tina: The Tina Turner Musical at the Aldwych Theatre.

The next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and then caught a taxi to take us to the Thames for a boat ride and a ride on London Eye. Then we had lunch at Bill Wyman’s Sticky Fingers Restaurant.

I reserved seating online before we left home, thinking it was going to be busy, but we could have just walked in and been seated immediately. There was a steady stream of tourists walking into the restaurant just to take pictures. The restaurant is full of Stones memorabilia and the music was great. The food was just OK, but that is not why we were there. This was a rock and roll week in London for us.

After leaving Sticky Fingers, we caught a taxi back to our hotel to get ready for the Tina Turner show. We left early for the show, and it was good that we did. We could have walked faster, and we almost got out of the taxi to do that.

The Tina Turner Musical covered the highs and lows of Tina’s life, and there was great music throughout the show. At the end, the cast performed a Tina Turner Review that had the audience rocking. We had a great night at the Aldwych.

We slept until 11:00 o’clock the next morning, which meant the Ambien had not got us to London time. I woke up with sore feet; the new shoes that Kathy bought me just before the trip was not working for me. I kept that to myself until lunch. When I broke the news that I needed to go shopping for some comfortable shoes, Kathy gave me an “I told you so” look.

She did tell me to make sure my shoes were comfortable enough for a lot of walking, but I did not listen to her.

After a trip to a department store to get some comfortable shoes, we caught a taxi to take us to our pickup point for the London Rock Music Tour that I booked before we left home.

After experiencing the traffic for a couple of days, I was worried that we would spend the afternoon stuck in traffic, but it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Most of the tour was away from the worst of the London traffic. Our minivan was comfortable and Jimmy, our tour guide was knowledgeable and enthusiastic.

We did not have enough time to see everything that was mentioned on Viator’s website, but we saw enough to make it a good tour.

The highpoint for us was walking across Abbey Road. Outside Abbey Road Studios, we noticed this guy’s T-Shirt.

He traveled from his home in Germany to see that show and his quick response after I asked him what he thought about it: “best show I’ve ever seen.” I really wish I had been there, but we WERE at Abbey Road, which was at the top of my bucket list.

The tour also took us to Jimi Hendrix’s home (where he died), Freddie Mercury’s home (where Mary Austin is still living), Jimmy Page’s home (he was still miffed at his next-door neighbor, Robbie Williams, at the time).

We caught a glimpse of the industrial model for the cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals album, we toured the Royal Albert Hall, and we stopped to take a look at The Cross Keys.

The next day was the big show-- the one we were in London and built the rest of the trip around-- Neil Young and Bob Dylan at Hyde Park. The weather was beautiful, and reports said it was going to stay that way. We had a leisurely breakfast, walked the area near our hotel for a while, and then took a taxi to Hyde Park. It was an easy entry, and we went straight to our section. It was open seating on the ground, and it paid off to get there early because we found a spot near the first-section gate. Those who paid a good bit more than we did were just in front of us on the other side of the gate.

It was two hours before the first opening act took the stage, but we enjoyed the waiting time. There was not any place in the world that we had rather been than sitting on that grass on such a beautiful day.

Those who sat next to us were friendly, and they liked hearing that we had traveled all the way from Alabama to see the show. Kathy told a man in front of us who was applying suntan lotion to not forget his ears. I was hoping that he was kidding when he said “Oh, you think I have big ears?” After the remark, his wife offered us some fresh strawberries, so I guessed he was joking. We were surprised when the group to the right of us knew the political leanings of the Governor of Alabama, Kay Ivey. A short girl with a neck brace asked me if I would take some pictures for her during Young and Dylan’s performances, since I was the tallest person she could find. Someone else said they were going to use me as a marker to get back to their spot after a restroom or refreshment break and several others said, “me too.” That was all just pleasant chatter, but pleasant chatter that far from home felt good to us.

During the performances of the three opening acts, Sam Fender, Laura Marling and Cat Power, fans were still pouring into the concert area, until capacity was reached at 65,000.

Neil Young and Promise of the Real walked onto the stage at 6:30. Seeing Neil Young before dark was a first for me, and it must have been unusual for him because his first words were: “I’ve never played in daylight before.”

At one point after we had bought our tickets, Young threatened to abandon the event because it was sponsored by Barclays, a “fossil fuel funding entity” in his words. The uncertainty disappeared when Barclays and its branding “British Summer Time” was removed from the ads. During his time on stage, he made the comment “Thank you to our sponsors, water.”

The fans we had spoken with before the show looked at us and smiled when the band played the first notes of “Alabama.”

Neil Young and Promise of the Real Set List:

1. Mansion on the Hill

2. Over and Over

3. Country Home

4. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

5. Alabama

6. Walk On

7. Winterlong

8. Words

9. Heart of Gold

10. From Hank to Hendrix

11. Old Man

12. Throw Your Hatred Down

13. Love and Only Love

14. Rockin’ in the Free World

Encore

15. Like a Hurricane

16. I’ve Been Waiting for You

17. Roll Another Number for the Road

18. Piece of Crap

Forty-five minutes later, Bob Dylan walked on to the stage. He did not speak a word then or during the rest of the show. That is typical. I have never heard him speak at a show or introduce his band. He did cast a wide smile several times at this concert. He even curled his lips like Elvis at one point.

Dylan’s lyrics were mostly unintelligible. I expected that, but at a Dylan show, I always wonder how much of the audience expected it. Kathy and I see Bob Dylan every time we have the opportunity, but we know we are seeing an artist, not someone who attempts to hit any notes that someone else might deem correct. He is never going to do that and those who have read his autobiography knows it is by design. At this show it seemed there was a mixture of true fans and the truly bewildered. The group of fans to the right of us sang along with every song, from the opening note until the last one.

We kept hoping Neil Young would walk onto the stage, but that did not happen.

Dylan closed with “Blowing in the Wind,” his most intelligible song of the night, and "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry."

Bob Dylan Set List:

1. Ballad of a Thin Man

2. It Ain't Me, Babe

3. Highway 61 Revisited

4. Simple Twist of Fate

5. When I Paint My Masterpiece

6. Honest With Me

7. Tryin' to Get to Heaven

8. Make You Feel My Love

9. Pay in Blood

10. Like a Rolling Stone

11. Early Roman Kings

12. Girl From the North Country

13. Love Sick

14. Thunder on the Mountain

15. Soon After Midnight

16. Gotta Serve Somebody

Encore:

17. Blowin' in the Wind

18. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry

When we were sure there would not be another encore, we followed the crowd out of Hyde Park and into the streets of London. Sixty-five thousand people left the stadium at the same time, and it seemed like we were in the middle of all of them. We had no idea where we were at and certainly did not know which direction to walk to our hotel. Our iPhones did not work on the streets of London so that meant our GPS did not work. After about an hour of trying to flag down a taxi, we climbed into an Uber and told the driver to take us to the Linden. He asked, “Are you Bill?” I replied “yes,” while wondering if he knew my name because one our attempts to book an Uber ride worked, without us knowing it. A few minutes later it became apparent that it was a weird coincidence that the guy who booked the Uber was also named Bill. Rather than tell us to “get out and get lost” this Uber driver was nice enough to call us an Uber ride.

It was 2 AM by the time we got back to our hotel and we slept well that night.

The next morning, we had a small breakfast with a lot of coffee and then walked around the city for a while. We had lunch at the Hard Rock Café.

We like the London Hard Rock because it was the original Hard Rock. It is also sentimental to us because in 1992, we had our daughter’s birthday party there. We still have the menu from that visit, signed by our waitress, the first Hard Rock waitress, Rita Gilligan. We couldn’t remember her name, but when we asked our waitress if the first Hard Rock waitress was still there, she said, “That’s Rita. She’s a roving ambassador for Hard Rock now. When I see her, I’ll tell her you asked about her.” She told another waitress passing by that we had asked about Rita and they both posed for a picture.

When I was searching for concerts to add to Neil Young and Bob Dylan at Hyde Park, the name Van Morrison drew my attention to a concert at Cadogan Hall, Rock Island Line 65th Anniversary, a tribute to Lonnie Donegan. When I tried to order two tickets, I saw “Sorry, Sold Out.” The seating capacity at Cadogan Hall is only 950; I am sure they sold out the first day. But I really wanted to see that show, so I kept checking the website every day. One morning, two tickets had miraculously appeared. I grabbed them!

I did not know what to expect from the concert. I knew little about Lonnie Donegan beyond his association with skiffle, a genre of folk, influenced by jazz, blues, American folk and country. Lonnie Donegan was the King of Skiffle. Kathy had never heard of Lonnie Donegan, and was still wondering what we were going to see when we were in the Cadogan Hall lobby before the show.

While we were waiting for the show to start we had a pleasant conversation with the couple in front of us. Their favorite travel destination was the American West, and they were surprised that we were at a Lonnie Donegan tribute show, knowing that Lonnie Donegan was never a big name in America. That night there was a big cricket game that most of London was paying a lot of attention to. I was taking pictures while Kathy had the sport of cricket explained to her.

That concert was everything that I had hoped it would be and more. In the U.S., that concert would have been classified as Americana. It told the story of the birth of skiffle in the American South and its revitalization in Britain in the 1950s.

The proceeds from the show went to a fund for Peter Donegan’s autistic son (Lonnie Donegan’s grandson) who requires special education. At one point in the show, he sang a self-written song, "Little Man," that he dedicated to his son.

Leo Sayer, another artist who we had never seen, was also on the bill. He sang “Midnight Special” and “When I Needed You.”

An unexpected highpoint of the concert was the song “Handbags and Gladrags” sung by Chris Farlowe. Farlowe had a hit with that song before Rod Stewart made it famous in America.

Also performing were Billy Bragg, Lonnie Donegan Junior, Dave Peacock, Joe Brown, Jim Carter and Paul Jones, lead singer of Manfred Mann from 1962 to 1966 (Do Wah Diddy Diddy). Brian May, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, and Albert Lee were at the show via a big screen on the stage. Videos played throughout the show and aided in the telling of the Lonnie Donegan story.

That show would have been excellent without Morrison, but he was the reason we were there, and he did not disappoint. Morrison, smartly dressed in pinstripes, fedora, and sunglasses, strolled onto the stage singing "Mule Skinner Blues" and then we heard the opening notes of "Into the Mystic." It sounded magical. He closed with Gloria. That was a three-song set we will never forget.

All the performers, including Van Morrison, were on the stage for the last two songs: "Rock Island Line" and "Goodnight Irene."

I'm so glad I found those tickets.

We made it back to the street our hotel was on just in time to order a pizza before the doors to the restaurant were locked. While waiting on our pizza, I made the mistake of checking my Facebook feed and saw where a fight had broken out in a group I admined at the time. I posted the lyrics to "Gloria" and "That's Amore" and Kathy offered them a piece of our pizza. The wonders of modern technology.

The next day we walked the canals of Little Venice and had a nice steak dinner before we walked back to our hotel to get ready for that night’s show: Rick Wakeman’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth at the Royal Festival Hall.

This was billed as the final UK performance of Journey to the Centre of the Universe, a celebration of Wakeman’s 70th birthday, and the 45th Anniversary of the album. The original release of Journey to the Centre of the Earth was recorded on January 18, 1974, at the Royal Festival Hall. We witnessed a historically significant concert.

That was a huge production: Wakeman shared the performance with a narrator, three singers, a rock group, a choir, and an orchestra. We were thoroughly entertained by concert. The high point for us was when Wakeman walked the aisles with his keyboard.

After the concert, while standing in line I met the only person I saw in London who was taller than me.

The next morning, we woke up to our last day in London. It was a beautiful day and we decided to spend it in Hyde Park. A nice lady offered to take our picture.

We had an early flight out the next morning, so we went back to the hotel early.

That was our Rock and Roll London Trip.