I swear to God if it wasn’t for Beck-lar I would spend most of my time sat indoors on Facebook. Beck-lar as you’ll know her from previous blog entries is actually known by a number of nicknames, but probably the most apt name we have for her is “Gaga”. The nickname comes from the fact that she bears an uncanny resemblance to Lady Gaga, but it also suits her personality perfectly, because quite frankly, she’s as mad as a box of frogs.
I’ve never known anyone else as prone to spontaneous outbursts of crazy like Gaga. When she decides to do something, it’s never by halves. For example, after leaving university, she took the gap year that so many people never have the balls to take, and went to live and work in New Zealand for a year. She’s the type of person who despite never running in her life, when she decided to do a fun run, ignored the beginners 5km race and entered herself straight into the 10km race. Likewise when she decided she wanted to do a charity bike ride, she shunned the idea of a 10km ride, and opted to mountain bike across the Isle of White instead. When an idea pops into her head that she likes the sound of, she just goes with it. She flies by the seat of her pants, and I’ll regularly get a text asking me to join her for some random unplanned night out, or day trip to somewhere obscure, just because she’s bored or wants a bit of company. I’ll be honest, I’m quite happy to hang in for the ride, because I just wouldn’t do these things by myself.
On Thursday I got a text, which simply read “A bit random, but do you fancy coming to Birmingham to watch a gig with me tomorrow?” Now Brum is only a about 30 miles from our home town so it wasn’t exactly a crazy idea, but this is the thing with Gaga...something that shouldn’t be crazy always ends up as a daft night with her. I work about 45 minutes from my home town, and don’t usually get home until just after 6pm, and the train to Brum left at 6:45pm, leaving me with just enough time to thrown on a clean pair of clothes and walk to the station. Typically it was peeing it down, and in an effort to have less to carry, I’d shunned the idea of a coat opting instead for a compact brolly to keep me dry on my walk to the station. Of course my cheap fold away brolly is quite possibly the most useless example of an umbrella in the history of the world. If you were to burp fiercely enough in its direction it would blow itself inside out, so naturally I arrived at the train station looking like I’d been swimming.
I’m not a huge fan of public transport (call me a snob if you want) and only ever use it for work commitments. I think it’s because I have an uncanny ability to attract all the weirdo’s, drunks, sex pests and perverts. Plus, call me picky but I’m always uncomfortable with the lack of personal space these loons leave me. I mean why do they practically have to sit on your lap? Seriously – back off buddy! To be fair though as we sat there...posing...camera at arm’s length, pointing back at us for our “on the train” shot of the evening, (looking like day release kids who’d never been on a bloody train before!), it occurred to me that for once I didn’t mind having to use public transport. Sure I still had a lunatic leaning all over me and invading my personal space...but at least this time the weirdo was one of my best friends!
It only occurred to me to ask where the gig was, and how far it was from New Street station, once the train was in motion. With hindsight I probably should have checked this earlier, as it turned out Gaga had no clue where we had to go once we arrived in Birmingham! So armed with only the knowledge that to get to the gig’s venue The 02 Academy, we needed to turn right out of the station’s main doors, off we plodded, rubbish brollie’s in hand in the direction of the city’s bright lights. Gaga, had half listened to some directions given by a friend, and the only thing she was really able to recall was that we needed to use the subway when we came to a big roundabout. This actually later caused a little confusion when it became apparent that at the big roundabout , there was actually a Subway sandwich bar, and unfortunately Gaga wasn’t entirely sure as to whether we should be looking for a subway, or just somewhere to grab a snack. Putting my sensible head on I called into a hotel reception for directions and found that amazingly, Gaga had managed to get us pretty close to the venue...although more through luck than judgement I feel.
I hadn’t a clue who we were going to watch, but Gaga filled me in, telling me we were watching “Chromeo” who are an electronic pop duo. She’d been randomly perusing The Academy’s gig list, Googled them and decided she liked the sound of them, so thought why the hell not? Now I love all sorts of music, but this gig was completely up my street. Chromeo have a really contemporary feel to their music, with a very distinctive 80’s pop vibe, which I absolutely loved. So much so I downloaded their album Business Casual from Itunes as soon as I got home, and I’ve been listening to it non-stop ever since. You should check them out on You Tube – If you like feel good music I doubt you’ll be disappointed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppNC0uAaCv0
By the time we arrived I looked even more drenched and bedraggled, which was a little irksome. I had anticipated the place being full of grungy students so had opted for a fairly casual look (which with the rain now looked more like trampy) however it turned out that the place was full of very cool people, all looking very stylish, without a hair out of place...compared to them I looked like a chubby version of that scary girl from The Grudge... Make up down my face, hair looking like a rained on birds nest, but what the heck – I rolled with it. I danced all night, literally from the second the music started until we left the gig, and I didn’t care who saw me – which is pretty major for me, as anyone who knows me, knows that I have no natural coordination, and whilst I try really hard to shake my booty like Beyonce, the fact of the matter is I usually end up looking like I’m doing a less elegant version of the truffle shuffle. Bad times.
After the gig had finished we walked back to the station, chatting loudly, stopping to take pictures of Gaga hanging off a street post a la Singing In The Rain, and trying to avoid getting mowed down by taxis and bendy buses. We caught the last train home, and I have to say it was a fantastic night. Sometimes I wish my brain worked like Gaga’s. When I get home I sit down put my feet up and veg out. If someone texts to say, do you fancy doing x y z...then I’m usually up for it, but I’m rarely the one to initiate that text. I just don’t think that way. Maybe it’s because whilst I enjoy a bit of excitement, and not being stuck in a rut, I don’t crave it like Gaga does. My needs are fairly simple, whereas Gaga has to be stimulated and entertained. In her day job as a radiographer, she has to be able to cope with the harsh reality of dealing with, and treating cancer every day. It makes sense that in her home life, she feels compelled to just “do stuff”...grab the bull by the horns and live her life...Have fun, and make every day count. With Gaga, her crazy persona isn’t scary, or weird. It’s actually quite inspiring. So, whilst I might laugh at the absurdness of some of her loony ideas, I know only too well that by letting me share her crazy adventures, however unplanned and random they may be, she’s enriching my life a little. Thank you for sharing Gaga, Beck-lar, B’Go, Nurse Becky...or whatever your name is!
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