So this isn't actually a story about me. It's about my new wife. Back in March a friend of ours got tickets in the Clifford Chance corporate box to see The Script, an irish pop band, play at the O2. The only catch was that the day before Rebecca needed to be in Edinburgh to get her wedding dress fitted. Shouldn't be an issue, she would just catch a morning train back down to London and join us for the show. March 25th comes and the dress fitting goes okay. It took all day, four trips back to do refitting, but it was done and Rebecca was now in possession of her wedding dress. The morning of the 26th comes and Rebecca is lugging her dress to the train station and that's where things start to go bad. The train from Scotland down to London is packed full of Scotsmen in full kilts because there is a soccer game between the Brazilians and the Scots in London that day as well. Ok, well, not ideal, but the dress is in a carry bag, with a plastic sheet to protect it in case someone spills their beer near the dress.
The train starts on its way and Rebecca with her dress protected in hand starts her journey back to London. They get to Newcastle with a few issues and then continue down the track. About 20 minutes later, they stop unexpectedly in Durham and things got worse quickly. "Attention passengers, Due do a signal failure, we have been held here at Durham until they can resolve the situation. We should resume travel shortly." This message wasn't too unnerving to Rebecca as she had lots of time before the show, but to the Scots that had gone to see the match, this was cause to drink and drink they did. So much so, that they cleared out the train of liquor. Hours continued to pass with no new updates and things were starting to look grim. By this point most of the Scots had already left the train to go to the supermarket and get more to drink and come back and were bound to have a good time no matter what. A few of them even noticed that Rebecca was visibly upset. Also noticing that she had her wedding dress, they put two and two together to somehow got five.... They, being ultimate gentlemen, consoled the bride to be letting her know - "Aye, lass, if he truly loves ye, he'll wait for yee - dina worry." Somehow they thought Rebecca was missing her wedding. Apparently, missing the show was as distressing as missing our wedding... hmm may have to look into that one. Oh well. with about an hour before the show was about to start, and now knowing that she would miss the show, it's announced that the train would not be making it to London tonight and that they would be providing busses back to Newcastle or trains back to Edinburg for the passengers. So Rebecca went back to her sister's place in EDI.
Meanwhile, I not really knowing what to do, am told by Rebecca that I am to go to the show without her as I am not to have my night ruined because of the train. What she doesn't realize is that I've never heard of The Script and I don't really mind if I go or not. But alas, I go. It was fine. I've only ever gone to shows where there isn't assigned seats and usually involve a mosh pit. But hey, if you are going to try the assigned seating it might as well be in a corporate box. It was funny however, because there was most definitely a few girls in the box that were really into the band. I mean REALLY into the band.
The next day, Rebecca travels down to London without a single issue and I pick her up from the station upset from missing the show, but relieved to be home and done with the travel. I think that's the end of the story, but no. The next week, Rebecca gets offered tickets to a show in the CC corporate box. She's heard of the singer before, but doesn't know them well, so she accepts them anyways thinking that she was robbed of one show, she might as well go see this one. I'll be the first to admit, the guy is a superstar, but I honestly never thought that he would be someone I saw in concert. I mean, tickets to the show were £200 each. Rebecca got home and told me the good news, we had tickets to Barry Manilow. Needless to say, I was shocked and asked if Rebecca knew any of his songs. Not to my surprise, she hadn't.
May 5th, I went back to the O2, this time with Rebecca and we went and saw the legend in concert. I would guess that we were the youngest people there by about 20 years, but we had a great time and I don't think that Rebecca will ever forget her first concert, or the image of Barry Manilow shaking his hips on stage making thousands of women scream. What can I say, apparently it's not just me who has adventures. My new wife, Rebecca is going to be susceptible to them as well. This should be fun.
