Los Angeles Weekend

With loads of concerts coming up, it’s about time that I caught up to date with this! First of all a brief summary of my weekend trip to Los Angeles!

When Kasim first sent around a message about something special happening in LA on the Friday evening I looked at the price of flights but it was going to cost me way over £800 (for US dollars a rough guide is to divide by 2 and multiply by 3 so that makes it $1,200), plus I would have had to have taken a couple of days off work.

Later that week I was told that there was to be another gig on the Sunday so again I looked for flights and this time I was amazed that I managed to get one for £305!! As it was on Continental I had a $75 voucher from a flight which was cancelled due to Hurricane Katrina last year so I actually paid less than £231 return including all taxes!

I caught a flight on Saturday morning from Gatwick to Houston and then another to Los Angeles so I arrived at my hotel at about 6.00pm LA time. I was tired (as my body thought it was already 2.00am and I’d only had about 4 hours sleep the night before as I’d been working) but I spent most of the evening on the phone as friends were catching up and a couple of people rang to tell me about the concert on the Friday! The funniest thing was one person rang and asked at hotel reception to speak to SueW as she didn’t know my surname! Thankfully they realized who she meant and put her through okay.

I got to bed at about 10.00pm and woke at about 6.00am but then dosed until 8.00am. I went and picked up my hire car from the airport and stocked up on my favourite US shampoo and conditioners!

Sheri came by at lunchtime and we had a nice lunch at a diner near my hotel, plus a very long chin-wag! We then drove down to a beach nearby and walked along the prom in JANUARY in the sun with literally not a cloud in the sky! It was warm enough for T-shirts too. One funny thing happened as we wanted a photo taken of the two of us on the beach and the guy we stopped was obviously a semi-pro as he not only took straight forward photos of us but got down on his knees for artistic ones too!

I got back to my room by 4.00pm and dosed for an hour before I left at 5.00pm for the drive to Burbank. The Yahoo directions were very accurate and the studio was easy to find which was a relief. When I went to book in she couldn’t find my name on the list but as she started to add it, she remembered my name and looked again – apparently there were only 75 of us there that evening.

I waited in the holding area and met up with some people I knew from the TRC board – it was nice to finally put faces to names! They took us across the road to the actual studio at about 7.00pm and it was amazing just wandering in and standing wherever we liked! The people I was with all stood at the front but I preferred to stand back a couple of “rows” and slightly to the side so that I could see Kasim clearly and yet see all the rest of the band too. (One girl turned in front of me round a couple of times to check that I could see over her okay which I thought was really nice and a couple of months later I discovered that it was someone I “knew” from one of the Todd lists – small world!)

I really enjoyed the gig itself. Although the only Cars song I knew was Drive (I’m too young to remember the music of the 80s!!!), I vaguely recognized some of the other songs. The best part was hearing Kasim sing a faultless performance of Drive, although he did look slightly tense during it!

Afterwards the people I was with wanted to wait around and talk to the band so I stayed with them and Kasim soon came out and chatted to everybody who wanted to talk to him. One girl didn’t realize that I knew him so she kindly introduced us(!) but he said that he knew me and gave me a nice hug, plus “Don’t go – I have something to give you”! Most of the others had gone off to talk to Todd in the Green Room by then so they started turning the lights off in the studio but they left a few on so eventually Kasim came and sat with me on the stage and we had a nice chat.

Thankfully the reverse Yahoo directions were very good again so I found my hotel again easily enough and then had to ring a couple of people about the gig so I didn’t get to sleep until 2.00am! I got up at 6.00am and left by 6.30am for my 9.00am flight to Newark. They kept us on the ground until 10.00am as there was bad weather in Newark so it meant that when we landed I only had 30

minutes to make my connection! I was also near the back of the plane and it was a full flight so by the time I got off it was only 15 minutes! Of course my flight was the other side of the terminal too so I had to dash to catch it! I don’t walk slowly (although not as fast as Kasim I discovered last night when we were going out to his car!) so I only just made it. When I got to the counter of Gate 138 she stopped me as I was trying to board the Berlin flight – they’d changed the gate number during the day!!! Thankfully it was only to a nearby gate and I was the last one on the plane as they closed the doors as soon as I boarded!

We landed at about 7.00am and I soon heard my name over the PA system. As I’d feared my suitcase hadn’t made the connection so they promised to courier it to my office. Work was tough as I’d been awake for 24 hours by the end but by the time I left, my suitcase still hadn’t arrived so they said they would send it on to my home address later that evening. All I wanted to do was to go to bed but it didn’t arrive until 10.00pm! I retrieved my toothbrush and fell into bed but just as I was dropping off my phone rang and it was the courier saying that he was having trouble finding my house to deliver my suitcase in a different town! I told him that he had the wrong number as I already had by suitcase and almost immediately fell asleep!

Los Angeles recap

I had a WONDERFUL time in Los Angeles!

I meet some really great people (and was made to feel very welcome) who I've previously chatted to online so it was nice to put faces to names. Massive thanks to Sheri for a lovely lunch and for driving me out to the beach!

The gig itself was brilliant - it's so nice to see Kasim back in a band and not standing behind Meat Loaf or in a pod! Hearing Kasim sing Drive was just amazing!

Unfortunately my suitcase and I caught different flights home(!) but as soon as I get a chance, I'll scan something in that Kasim gave me for KI.com and I'll add more details about my trip here later!

LA here I come!!

Somebody posted that Kasim will be playing a "show case" on Sunday too so I looked at airfares and I was very surprised!

Flights to get me out to LA for Friday's performance were going to cost about £700 but I can get a flight for Sunday for £305! (That's *only* about $450!) It's on Continental and I have that refund for my flight to Biloxi for the Meat Loaf concert that was cancelled so that brings it down to £230.35 including all taxes! I fly out on Saturday morning and get back Tuesday morning in time for work! Of course I'll be shattered and it'll mean travelling for over 18 hours on one of the journeys but it'll be worth it!!

So this weekend I'll be in Los Angeles, next weekend I'll be in London and the following weekend Philadelphia!

The inevitable has happened

Lots of my friends already know this but for those I forgot to tell (apologies as I've been up in the air this week) Tony passed away on Tuesday evening.

He outlived the two months they gave him and only died at the end because his tube came out on Sunday and he refused to have an operation to have it replaced . The doctor spoke to him twice so that he really knew what would happen but he opted to take that rather than being in so much pain for a few (or maybe only a couple more weeks) as the cancer had spread from his bladder to his liver, lungs and bones. His family were all with him at the end and they said that he was unsettled all day but that the last couple of hours were very peaceful.

The funeral isn't until Friday 27th! He'll have been dead for two and a half weeks by then! Apparently there's a backlog after Christmas. His family can't face clearing out his room until then so things are a bit in limbo at the moment.

The flat feels really empty these last few days (although he's been in hospital and then the hospice since the end of November) and even last night when I got in, I caught myself looking to see if there was a light on in his room as I pulled up in my car..