And in the words of Linda Richman/Mike Myers on SNL in the early 90's, it was like butter.
Those of you who know me well know spontaneity is not exactly one of my more prominent characteristics. But for one weekend I thought it would be fun to do something on a whim. On Friday while searching around on the internet for things to do, my friend Anne and I stumbled across an article saying that Eric Clapton was coming to Hong Kong and Shanghai (but of course not Beijing - Beijing doesn't seem to get the draw for international music acts that the other, more internationally predominant cities do). Now, I've said that we found this article on Friday night. It turns out, the Hong Kong concert had passed - it was on Wednesday. The Shanghai concert was Saturday. We had one day to plan the whole thing.
If China was anything like the United States (or the U.K. to represent Anne's side of the Atlantic), we would've gotten on the horn to Ticketmaster or the arena itself, reserved tickets, called the airline and done the same, and been ready to roll for the next night. But if you have learned anything from this blog, it is that China is in many, many ways NOT like the United States or the U.K. and therefore, we had some stumbling blocks to overcome. The tickets for the airplane had to be bought at the airport and the tickets for the concert had to be bought at the stadium or at the licensed broker down the street from the stadium - obviously both of which were in Shanghai. Not particularly helpful, right?
We decided to be impetuous youths and jump a plane to Shanghai, without knowledge of whether tickets would even still be available, where they would be located in the arena, etc. We arrived in Shanghai, found a hotel near the airport, booked a room for later that night, hopped in a cab, and headed toward the stadium. All of this running around happened over the course of 3 hours to give you a sense of the time frame. That put us at the stadium around 4 pm, with the concert beginning at 7:30. We got great seats - not together, but we figured that was barely the point at this juncture. The point was that we were both crazy for Clapton and at this late a date, finding two seats together was like asking for pork in a Jewish deli - it just wasn't there.
We got seats in the sixth and seventh rows off to the right but SO close to the stage. AND we were still near enough to each other that Anne and I could scream conversation. In the end, we found two empty seats in the sixth row and moved up with no problem to enjoy the entirety of that which is Clapton together. After Clapton exited the stage we went out with our new best friends and fellow Claptonites a.k.a. the big group of people who were sitting around us. They were what I like to term "the U.K. blend" - accents as far as meets the ear. I could barely understand a word - between the Irish drunken chatter, the thick Scottish brogues, and the ringing in my ears, but it was a fabulous night. And, just for being yourselves and being kind enough to read my blog, I give you the gift of E.C.:
Here's looking at you, kid.
Or at least hoping you had as amazing a weekend as I did.
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