Stripped

Last night was spent doing something very naughty. My husband and I didn't go to bed on time, oh no. Nor did we make the sandwiches for lunch today or do any of the washing up. No, we left the house, in fact we left the city and headed on down to London to go and see Eddie Izzard performing his new show 'Stripped' (and you where thinking something else then weren't you!).
Normally we would not go out on a weekday night- we have very early starts in the morning and both require lots of sleep- but I couldn't pass up the chance to see Eddie live. I have been a massive fan of his for about 12 years now, maybe longer even, and this was the first chance I got to see him. Before now I've either been too young, too poor or in the wrong part of the country to catch one of his shows so when the tickets came up for grabs a couple of months back I purchased two without stopping to breathe. Am I glad I did?- you bet I am. Tickets were expensive it has to be said- we got the cheapest ones of course for a mere £20 each. You know, the kinda seats that are that high up in the flies the person on stage appears to be a Munchkin and you start getting dizzy from the vertigo. Seats nearer the ground where £40, £60+ which had I a massive disposable income to fritter away, I would have bought. But I don't, so up in the roof space we went. To be honest though the view wasn't tooooo bad. I could see most of Eddie for most of the show. He does a lot of miming but I caught everything that was important and he was so funny. Like so funny that I almost stopped breathing at one point. But, and there always is a but (could you hear it coming folks), once again the Kool Aid guy had followed us.
This seems to be happening every time we go out now. We first noticed this phenomena about three years ago at a Franz Ferdinand gig when some complete idiot in the crowd kept up a constant and repetitive cheer of "Yeah, oh, yeah!" for the entire 2 hours we were there (we left early it was that bad). Ever since then someone has felt it necessary to repeat this performance in one way or another. Sometimes we can ignore them. They kinda get drowned out in a crowd and if it's a really good gig for instance then everyone is jumping around clapping and cheering so you don't notice. But they popped up at the Ryan Adams gig that we went to recently and nearly ruined it. The guy last night, well, he didn't shout "Oh yeah" all the time but he did have a laugh that was about 5 times louder than anyone else. And he laughed at EVERYTHING. And he was sat right in front of us, yes directly in the seat in front of the husband and I.
Argh.
I couldn't believe it. By the end of the gig you could see about 40 really angry looking people all giving him evils for having been so annoying. I can't explain just how frustrating it was. Looking at him I guess it was just exuberance on his part. I reckon he was maybe 16/17 years old and really excited about being there. But so excited that he was giggling before the show even started like a five year old on a sugar high and he could not control the volume of his voice at all. I just about managed to tune him out. It helped that some brave person went and had a word with him during the interval- it made the second half just that bit more bearable. The husband however really suffered. By the time the show was over he was really tense and angry and it was only his British reserve and natural politeness that was keeping him from strangling the guy. So that kinda ruined it a bit for us. We didn't really get into the flow of the show so didn't get to leave with that wonderful feeling of 'wow' that you get after gigs and shows where you just get so caught up and carried away in it that it takes you all the way home and beyond.
Sigh.
But it was good and I am glad that I went as it's unlikely that I will get a chance to see Eddie again soon. Not only because of the extortionate tickets prices that he can command but also because he doesn't seem to be doing as many stand up tours nowadays as he is concentrating on his TV/Movie career (hopefully you've all seen The Riches and thus will be pleased to know that they are making a film version as well). The downside though is that we didn't get to bed until 1am and the alarm went off at 6am so today I am sooooo sleepy tired that I'm going to need to drink coffee until it comes out of my ears just to stay awake.
Speaking of which....

Oh, and P.S. I manged to knit some more of my Pa's socks whilst on the bus. I've nearly completed the first- just a few more rows on the short row toe and it will be done. That leaves me with two days to knit the other one. Ah. Maybe I won't be catching up on my sleep any time soon after all.