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So tonight was the second night, for me, of Orbital’s Green/Brown tour. Last night was Birmingham, before I start on today this post has got a message for Birmingham, where was your bass?
So the day started early, eventually I managed to rally The Age Travellers (the group of Orbital friends I am driving from venue to venue over these 3 dates). The drive to London was pretty uneventful and I dropped them all at Jane's house before dashing home, grabbing some food, doing the washing, catching up on Masterchef before heading out again for tonight.
I got to the pub, which had been changed at the last minute, to find a ever growing group of friends. There was a table booked for about 12 of us there were way more than 12 of us and the table had only been booked until 6pm. SO then we need to grab a room upstairs which was occupied by 2 people having a quiet chat. They soon left when the room filled with ~40 of us.
At the last minute I found out that I'd been added to the guest list and shortly after we'd sorted out Tom coming to gig. Not as easy as it should have been had to logout of my Dice account and let him login with my details so he could use my ticket, but it did work.
We got to the Troxy about 7:15 and assembly at the front right of the stage, by the barriers. Just before they were due to go on stage, Loopz (Steve) appeared and gave Bubbles (Adam) some bubbles, this I believe was so that Loopz could take photos/video to use on Orbitals Social Media, but it could just have been that security had taken his bubbles away.
The night previously when speaking with Paul at the after party, I asked him to add more acid to the set and at the opening of Oolaa there it was in all it's squelchy fineness, thanks Paul.
At pretty much every gig I go to Lucy is there too, certainly all the dance gigs and with her she has 2 hugh fans and she runs around fanning people to cool them down. Tonight was hot and I actually believe it was hotter when I saw Orbital with Badger in Melbourne (Australia) when it was 36ºc outside what with Australians being able to deal with heat there was loads of Air conditioning there, less so at the Troxy and it was a sweatbox. There I was dancing away to Farenheit 303 and fans (the cooling you down kind) appeared out of nowhere and it was wonderful, I came so close to hugging this person and the very last noticed it wasn't Lucy after all and politely said thank you instead.
The version of Lush tonight was the 2nd best that I have witnessed (that I can recall) over the years, only beaten by the version in Brisbane 2019.
So the glasses that I have to wear are automatically react to the light so as it gets brighter they get darker. This feature is amazing when you are outside in the sun or driving, but not so at an Orbital gig. The lights and visuals were so bright that my glasses assumed that I was basking in the sun and went as dark as they could. So much so that when all the lights went out and I turned round Jane said to me hi Dave and I literally could not see her at all. After a few seconds for my glasses to adjust there she was.
At the end of the gig those that were still around gathered down the front for the group photo. After that folk went to get coats merch and we tried to go to Craft Beer Co Limehouse not the largest place, but close and already rammed. Some of us managed to get in and get a drink but not all. I had a great time catching up with Phil about life and the gig before heading home, fortunately the bus went from the pub all the way home, winner. After a quick shower I was in bed by 1:30 ready to do it all again tomorrow.