Well – Friday was pretty much a first, or certainly the first time in about 20 years that I have had a night out with my brother Richard.
Very nice of him to choose me as his stand in for Heather, to go to Ronnie Scott's – which ironically was our dad's name (Ronald Frederick Scott). Only sliiiiiiiiiiiight downside is that I don't like jazz. Well, actually, I can't bear it.
(And for some reason, in the chemo lounge as I write, the wifi isn't strong enough for me to invert this photo!)
So we had excellent seats, a very good chat for an hour or so while the first band was setting up, a couple of beers, and then… god help me, the warm up act started. The audience seemed to like it – a lot – and I hope I did a good job of trying to nod along to it. When the actual thought going through my head was 'MY EYEBALLS ARE BLEEDING'… AAAAAAARRRGGGGHHHHHHH.
Thankfully the main act was someone called Roy Ayers – and his jazz actually had words as well as self-indulgent, endless guitar strumming and vaguely unless drum bashing. Although how many times he must have done the 'hand to head, where are you' gesture alongside the main song title word 'Searchin'', I can only imagine. He and his second fiddle have clearly been searchin' for a very long while… And never have I spent quite so much time hiding in the loo, trying to shake the discordant noise from my brain – you can take the girl out of musical theatre, but….
Big upside was that they do two shows on a Fri eve – so I was home and tucked up in bed by 10.30pm, with the terrifying words of the main guy still echoing in my ears 'we run till 3am at the weekends…'
Anyway – cheers to Jess for buying the tickets for her Mum & Dad and to R for asking me out. We will do it again – and there won't be a jazz hand in sight x