Oooo - it seems a long time ago now - but here is my Ramble on the 100 Club gig (I wanted to do it before I tackle Fango!) - its at Live Journal but you can have it here too....
wrigglerosie.livejournal.com/5226.htmlRosie Goes to See James at the 100 Club – Sunday 3rd May Spent the day in the most entertaining way doing the “This is The James Marsters Queue” game all round London with Kelly. It’s difficult to form a queue when there’s only 2 of you, but Kelly was excellent at persuading complete strangers to join in! Her record was 12 of all ages outside the Globe theatre! We wanted to find any James related roads but they were all too far out so we had to settle for St James Park and surrounding St James streets (If I’d thought about it, we should have found the Guild of ‘Marsters’ Craftsmen…) Various police (and police horses!) ambulance men, bemused French tourists and a dog called Piggy were pressed into queuing duty – and even a whole slew of running nuns!! It was great fun, got to do a very fast tour of bits of London I wouldn’t normally bother with…!
We met up with Nicky and Erykah who had organised the whole thing back at the Leicester Square pub ‘The Moon Under Water’ and handed over our photos. Kelly then decided to go and join the queue for the 100 club, whilst I got back on the tube, shot back to my sisters house and changed clothes and dropped off any unnecessary stuff before coming back in again (thank God for my sisters Oyster Card!) So I got to join the queue at around 5pm and was somewhere about 35th in line. Interesting queuing on Oxford Street – we had to line up between the shops and doors and not block anything, and of course Oxford St is one of the busiest shopping streets in the world! As a shop closed for the night, we would all move up to fill the space! Again – lots of people were asking why we were queuing as it was quickly growing and spreading down the street – think they thought it was a sale!
I talked to Mary and Jude near the front of the line and they said they had seen James earlier – he had gone into Game next door, made a purchase and wandered off again!
Word went round that there were only 3 loos in the club so it would be best to try and go beforehand. We took turns to go and find a loo to use. I went off to see if I could find somewhere and something to eat, but didn’t have much luck with the former! As I was walking down the street I suddenly remembered something I had meant to bring to the gig and as it was now 6 o clock on a Sunday night, I wasn’t sure if I was going to have much hope of being able to buy anything.
See, last year at the Borderline gig – another basement rock dive! – as usual James got very sweaty and had to ask if anyone had anything he could use. Patti gave him her shirt. Now I know he never remembers to bring anything on stage to wipe down with, so I was going to take a towel that I could give him. No hope of buying one of those now – but luckily, it being Oxford Street, all the touristy shops were open and they were all selling various cotton scarves. So I bought a purple Paisley patterned one, which I could use if I didn’t get a chance to give it to James. Scrunched it up and stuck it in my pocket and just hoped James might need it!
I grabbed something to eat and decided I would have to just cross my legs for now as I failed miserably in my quest for a loo. Back to join the queue again and we were able to shift up a little bit further as each shop closed. Eventually, I think around 7.15, they started letting us in. Lisa was checking everyone on her list and yup, she knew my name and my last name and it was in the right place alphabetically! (With a double-barrelled surname, you often end up under the other name) Piled down the stairs into the club and had to make a quick decision about where to stand. The club was rectangular with the stage in the centre of the long side - it was only about 18 inches high and had a curve in front of the microphone - so I aimed to the right hand side and was only kind of one row back behind a very short lady luckily, though I was going to have to look to my left to watch James.
Everyone was packing in – to my right, they had a few chairs and tables where the disabled fans were seated and they were keeping that end of the stage totally clear so they could see which was good – and in no time at all it seemed like Steve was up on the stage saying that everyone was here so the gig could start. But first he had to award the prize for the “This Is The James Marsters Queue” Game – and Kelly and I had won it with nearly 60 different locations! – Steve described us as “those two crazy broads” which is a fair description!!
James came through the club on my side, passing through the tables to leap onstage by us. He was in jeans and a black v-neck t-shirt and had a narrow silver chain round his neck. Started off by saying about how many big names had played at the club and he didn’t want to spoil it – he didn’t want to suck! (as if!)
He started off with Vandals, Looking at You and Layabout. There wasn’t a lot of talking in between songs, just the occasional comment. The sound was good as you would expect! As a standing gig and with everyone in such close proximity, the atmosphere was quite different to the last two nights – everyone was more vocal and excited. There was a woman next to me who was reduced to total fan girl squeeing at one point when James happened to look her way “He looked at me! He looked at me!” which made me giggle!
Next up was Don’t Worry Son and by the end, James was beginning to sweat, so I yelled out “James! Do you want to borrow this??” and waved the scarf at him. He just shook his head at me, indicating ‘no’ and carried on into London City. People round me said it was worth a try and I agreed – I’d given it a go.
This Town and Civilised Man came next and somewhere around about then, James looked over to me and said “Actually I will have that rag” and came over! So I whipped it out of my pocket and handed it over to him, grinning like an idiot, and then called out “I want it back afterwards!” and he smiled and just nodded his head once in acknowledgement!
And he used it good and proper, right there whilst saying that vampires aren’t supposed to sweat, they got round it by saying except when they fight! Then the scarf was on the floor by his feet as he went into Poor Robyn, then When We Dance Slow (second time I heard it over the weekend – he needs to sing that more often, its wonderful!) and Not A Millionaire.
So many songs – it was great – Finer Than Gold, All That She Wanted, Too fast and my favourite at the moment – Fall Of Night. I was trying to take photos but the pink light wasn’t helping (a change from the blue ‘Smurf James’ lighting from Borderline last year!) – none of them came out that good, but there you go.
He had to stop and retune Chow the guitar at one point and told us that he thought Chow was mad at him! He had had to totally restring him at the sound check! The electronics inside had gone wrong so he had had to take it apart, fix it and then restring him “ Not sure he’s forgiven me yet!”
Next up it was Dangerous (with whistling!) Angel and then Goodbye – but he wasn’t going yet! Stephen then called out asking for No Promises – James looked at him and said “No” and then almost immediately, as there were sounds of protests from the crowd said “Ooooh – OK then” and went straight into it!
He had been using the scarf to wipe down with fairly frequently and at one point he looked over at me and said “You’re getting your moneys worth” as he was using it!
We had Moonshot and Louise and then James said he was going to sing a new song – he hadn’t worked the guitar out for it yet, so he would just sing it. Out came the sheets of paper with the words on and he launched into the Cowboy song, sung totally unaccompanied. An amazingly brave and ballsy decision to premiere it in a noisy rock dive. His hands were shaking like mad as he sang and there was a little bit of nerves in his voice – but it was electrifying! The whole place went silent, everyone seemed to be holding their breath as the emotion and the impact of the song came across. It gave me shivers down my spine – it sounded incredible. And the emotions going across James’s face and through his voice as he sang - God knows how he held it together! - I was feeling pretty choked up by the end.
As you can imagine, it got a huge roar of appreciation at the end – everyone was just stunned! Great decision to sing it there – even the bar staff went quiet and listened! And to change the mood completely he then sang For What I Need which is about as far away form it as you can get! This was the last song, but we knew he’d be back for an encore. He went off the stage, past us again and everyone was whooping and calling as usual. Kelly suddenly said “Your scarf has gone!” – she could see it had gone from the stage. I was pretty pissed – it was my scarf! – and I was going to find out who had stolen it. And then she said “Its ok – Sylvie has got it” and then it was back on stage again. (Don’t know if some one tried to pinch it and was then made to put it back by the others – anyone who was up that end see what happened?? The fan who took the video of James using the scarf said she saw someone take it and was about to start a fight on my behalf – and I don’t even know her! – James fans are the best!)
Anyway – James came leaping back on stage through the tables and launched into his encore – which was Katie and then Truth Is. After singing that and before he started the last song (which was Smile) he picked up my scarf and came along the stage, looking for me in the crowd. Quite a few hands reached out for it, but he held it back as he tried to find me. He didn’t even want to give it to Kelly to pass to me – she had to assure him that she would! He stayed to check she did too! So I got my scarf back – all nicely covered in James sweat! Squee!!
We tried to keep him longer after the last song, but couldn’t. Off he went to huge cheers and general whooping, leaving us to with nothing to say but “Wasn’t that just FANTASTIC?” Everyone was so impressed by his whole performance.
People did start to leave, but I was too buoyed up to go anywhere – I was in the mood to dance and I wasn’t alone! The DJ stuck on some good music and we were off, boogieing away! We had a nice high-kicking chorus line going to “New York” and some not-very-girly dancing going on to the eighties tracks. We all sang along with “You’re Too Good To be True” as every word describes James perfectly (“Can’t take my eyes off of you!”) We also did a mad whirly Irish dance that we were inventing as we went along – quite successful I thought! I was fitting line dance steps to anything – and later, Jill led me in a slow jive, so we covered most of the dance bases! Great fun.
Kelly had to look after The Scarf whilst we were dancing – it was safe in her bag, I wasn’t letting anyone else touch it! And I just about managed to refrain from sniffing it in public….! (I also started a list of people who were interested if I ever managed to clone successfully from sweat DNA….!)
I wanted to say thank you to Steve H for a great weekend, so Kelly and I went over to him and said what a brilliant time we had had – the gigs and the Marstersclass – it had all been wonderful. He asked if we had known each other before and we told him no – we met online a couple of months before and the first time we had actually met was at Orlando airport 2 weeks previously! He was impressed – but that’s what James does - brings people together.
About 15 minutes later James came out of the dressing room that was right by where we were dancing to leave – the security guards were fairly hustling him out and keeping everyone back, though there wasn’t that many of us left by then but he still grinned and waved to us as he went through and we all called out “Goodbye” and “Thank you” and “See You Soon”
Not long after that, they decided we weren’t buying enough drinks to stay open, so though it was only half past ten, we had to leave which was a bit of a shame. Much chatting and gossiping and taking of photos on the pavement outside before we all split up and went our various ways.
A great gig to finish a fabulous weekend. Or as someone else put it – a truly wonderful evening with the deeply pretty man…!