2nd Night at the Proms

On Saturday night I went to the 2nd Night at the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. The first had already sold out, but Wow.... wow wow wow. I was seated on the prompt side of the stage, behind the cellos & double bases and the SOUND!!! I was in row 2, 2 from the end, for Prom 2.


The night's presenter was Richard E. Grant, and the theme of the night was English film music to celebrate the 60th year of BAFTA. And I was in heaven. Amongst music from Harry Potter, Much Ado About Nothing, the Dam Busters and Laurence of Arabia, it was an emotional roller-coaster. I was blown away. Most of the time I was grinning manically, when I wasn’t almost in tears. The hall’s organ was also deployed and boy was it amazing! I cold feel the sound through my feet! And being so near the brass section, we got all the blasts of volume you could desire. It was wonderful!! This was what I heard:

Walton: Battle of Britain - 'Battle In The Air' (5 mins)
Lambert: Anna Karenina – Suite (10 mins)
Vaughan Williams: The 49th Parallel - Prelude (2 mins)
Adler: Genevieve – Waltz (3 mins)
Maurice Jarre : Lawrence of Arabia - Theme (3.30 mins)
Easdale: The Red Shoes - Suite (15 mins)
Arnold: Bridge On The River Kwai – March (3 mins)
Ireland: The Overlanders – March – Scorched Earth (4.30 mins)
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett: Love Theme From 'Yanks' (3.30 mins)
Eric Rogers: Carry On... Medley (7 mins)
Patrick Doyle: Much Ado About Nothing - Overture (4.20 mins)
Stephen Warbeck: Shakespeare In Love (5 mins)
Debbie Wiseman: Wilde – Suite (4.30 mins)
John Powell/Harry Gregson-Williams: Chicken Run (4 mins)
Addison: A Bridge Too Far (3.30 mins)
John Williams : Harry Potter - Harry's Wondrous World (4.30 mins)
Coates: The Dam Busters (3.45 mins)

Lining up for tickets before hand was a minor nightmare: note to self, buy tickets at least the day before the performance next time! I waited in line for ¾ of an hour, only getting my tickets 15mins before the performance started, and there were MANY more people in the queue behind me.

Afterwards though, I had a surreal experience. Unlike almost every classical concert I’ve ever been to, where most of the patrons disappear into their cars and a traffic jam ensues, it seemed to me like the entire audience filed, in very orderly fashion, down the road to the nearest tube station… which was a good 10 minutes walk away. So for 10-15 minutes, I was part of a continuous stream of people walking from The Royal Albert to Knightsbridge Tube Station, and even though it was the middle of the night, I felt safer then than I have ever felt in London. I crossed the road at one stage, and checked out the procession: there were people as far as I could see in both directions. It was very like being in Sydney after the New Years Eve fireworks without any drunks! It was very cool.

London for me though is both Sunshine and Shadow; I both love and hate this city. I was depressed this morning. It was raining, and I am sick of my hostel after only two days and unhappy that I have to go back there, and the server at work went down overnight and didn't come back up for three hours and I have to produce over 1000 maps in the next week and a half... So, not happy. Then I went for a walk during lunch along Charing Cross Road, visited 6 bookshops in the space of 15 minutes before settling on one (needless to say, making a couple of purchases) and came back to work Euphoric... such a strange city.