Peter Gabriel – Wembley SSE Arena
Posted: Thu 4 December, 2014 Filed under: Domestic, Gigs, London, Reviews(ish), Wembley Stadium Parking Leave a comment »Last night, I went to see Peter Gabriel at the SSE Arena in Wembley – not a venue I’d been to before.
In fact, having seen the changes around Wembley, I realised that it must be a good four years (and yes, it turns out it was September 2010 to see Muse) and there’s a lot of new stuff gone up in that time. Not least a whole set of shops – sorry, a ‘retail village’ – and eating places etc., which is pretty welcome when you consider how poor the facilities of the area were for that kind of thing when I was there last.
Anyway, rather than use the godawful parking this time, I opted for parking further out (Watford, to be precise) and taking the tube in to Wembley. It actually worked out really well, despite me ending up using Watford station itself, rather than the intended Watford Junction. I blame a) stupidity and b) having one of those wavering decision processes of mine, of not being sure which station I’d use. So I ended up going to a station I hadn’t intended to use, but it working out as being for the best. Such is life sometimes.
I didn’t write beforehand about seeing this gig, because well, my attendance record with Peter Gabriel gigs isn’t really that good. I was determined to go to this one, but that doesn’t always equate with it actually happening, sad to say.
Anyway, for this one I did get there- and in tons of time, too. Watford’s a shithole for getting round (although some of that’s due to my own stupidity and crap timing, getting there just as most people were leaving) but once I got there all was easy.
And the gig itself was brilliant – thoroughly enjoyed all of it. It was billed as a gig in three sections – starting with an acoustic, going on to the electric (and super-loud) section, finished up by a complete play-through of the “So” album in it’s entirety, and in the order it was originally supposed to be. And it did all it was billed to, and more besides.
As always, the lighting and staging was innovative, in the same way that Nine Inch Nails gigs tend to be – in this case, making a lot of use of small video cameras on all the players, and five lighting rigs on counterbalanced dollies that could move around the stage, controlled by stagehands. Very very impressive – and reminiscent of the Martians in War of the Worlds (which I’m seeing at the O2 in ten days time) in how they loomed over the stage and seemed almost animated.
Getting home afterwards was pretty much a doddle too – out of the Arena, up to the nearest tube station, wait for the correct train back to Watford, and then drive home, straight up the M1. Ninety minutes door-to-door. On evidence of the last time I went to Wembley, in that time I wouldn’t have even got out of the car-park in that time, so all good.
NIN/JA Tour, O2 Arena
Posted: Thu 16 July, 2009 Filed under: Customer Services, Music, Reviews(ish), Wembley Stadium Parking 1 Comment »Way back in the day, I was a big fan of Janes Addiction, but never got to see them live. Then they reformed and created a new album (Strays), and I still didn’t get to see them live.
And I’ve been a fan of Nine Inch Nails all the way back to the first album, some twenty years ago now.
So it was a complete no-brainer that when the NIN/JA (Nine Inch Nails/Jane’s Addiction) tour was announced with UK dates, I was going to be going.
And lo, last night was the night – and amazingly, I got there in plenty of time. (Considering that last time I was going to see them, Ticketmaster never sent the tickets) Hell, I even got to see the support act – a band called Mew, who I wasn’t overly impressed with. Sorry, Lori, they just didn’t do it for me – but bear in mind I said the same thing way back when Muse supported Skunk Anansie, so don’t count on my opinions for much…
Jane’s Addiction, on the other hand, absolutely rocked the place. It was very much a case of “playing the known stuff” – although that’s not a massive challenge when you’ve only released three albums anyway. My only disappointment was that they didn’t play “Hypersonic” from the “Strays” album – but them’s the breaks. They played pretty much everything else they’ve done that was popular and/or well known.
As for NIN themselves, they did even more. Even though Jane’s had been fantastic (and loud!), with a storming lighting set-up, NIN just did the same only more so. Brighter, louder, harder. It was awe-inspiring. Even better, it seemed like almost a retrospective – again, lots of stuff from the first couple of albums, the real crowd-pleasers, with not much from the latest album at all.
Of course, we knew it was going to be something special for the NIN section when they started bringing out extra lights and speaker stacks as well as what had already been on the stage. What we didn’t expect, though, was a guest appearance by Gary Numan for two tracks – he’s been an inspiration to Trent Reznor (the lead of NIN) for years, but it was still pretty stunning to see him live as well.
All told, my enjoyment of the gig was only slightly damaged at the end, when some fuckwit girl called Lisa decided to keel over next to me – she’d been leaning on me for the previous track, and when it came to an end she just fell forwards, not even an attempt to stop herself. Luckily, I was standing right next to the sound-desk enclosure, so was able to yell and get a security guy’s attention, and while he sorted out getting her medical help (and, as it turned out, a wheelchair) I ended up being the main prop for her, with her holding on to the railings of the enclosure. I’ve no idea what she’d taken (it certainly wasn’t a fit, she wasn’t pissed, but her eyeballs were floating off in different directions) but she was like a sack of shit – and roughly as good as one at standing up. All due respect to the O2’s medical and security crews though, they were absolutely fantastic.
It meant I didn’t get to pay the full attention to the final track (an awesome version of “Hurt”) but well, priorities and all that.
Still, it was an absolutely stunning gig – as well as eye-fuckingly bright and brain-throbbingly loud too- and if it is to be (as rumoured) their last tour for a significant time, well it was certainly one hell of a way to go out on a high note…
(Oh, and just to rub it in, it took me less than two hours from leaving the O2 to get back home – I got in at 1am. So suck that Wembley, and your bullshit carparking farce)
Wembley Stadium Parking Revisited
Posted: Thu 9 July, 2009 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, D4D™, Music, Reviews(ish), Wembley Stadium Parking 1 Comment »Ten days ago (roughly) I was at Wembley Stadium, and at the end of the evening had a total farce of a time getting out of the car parks. The following morning, I sent off a complaint email to both CS Parking and Wembley Stadium’s “customer services” people.
In fairness to CS Parking, I got a response back pretty quickly from the MD of the company – impressive in itself – after which there was a fairly long email ‘conversation’ about what had happened. That all got closed off by last Friday (i.e. a week after the even) and was all fine. I still think the parking situation is
- Shit
- Unmanaged for people leaving Wembley Stadium
- Farcical
but I can at least now understand why it’s shit, unmanaged, and a total Grade One ClusterFuck.
Wembley Stadium’s customer services, on the other hand, have only just come back to me today, and their email is rather more of a “Not our problem, mate. Go complain to someone else” effort…
All event day parking is managed by a contracted 3rd party; City & Suburban Parking in partnership with the local authority Brent Council and the Metropolitan Police.
The official car parks were full, accommodating in excess of 3,000 cars and in addition there were approx 3,000 cars parked in unauthorised car parks and a further 1,000 vehicles collecting from the area after the concert. As a result of the high volume of traffic, there were delays clearing the car parks the main car parks were not clear until 1½ hours after the end of the concert. We do not believe that these delays are acceptable however the local roads are under the control of Brent Council, not Wembley Stadium. We will be reviewing the exit plans with Brent Council and the Metropolitan Police for future concert events.
Thank you once again for contacting us. We hope you will be able to visit Wembley Stadium again in the future.
Considering that I’ve since had comments here on D4D from people who had the same problem with Wembley Stadium’s Parking after the Take That concerts, I think it’s fair to say that you’re actually far better off if you can avoid using the car parking at Wembley Stadium. Well, either that or make use of the “pirate” car parks around the stadium, rather than the Stadium’s piece-of-shit “official” car parking.
Organised Parking Procedures
Posted: Mon 29 June, 2009 Filed under: Customer Services, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel, Wembley Stadium Parking Leave a comment »In a direct contrast to Wembley, the O2 have recently made their parking even easier.
The last couple of times we’ve been organising to go to the O2, the parking booking has had to be done via Ticketmaster – and most of the time, it couldn’t be done online for some fuckforsaken reason, so you ended up having to call the tosspots.
Now, though, the O2 deals with booking parking on their own site through a simple two-page form. (There may be more pages if you’re doing multiple bookings, or your address is different to the cardholders, but it took me two pages) And that’s it. Confirmation comes through to the email address, and it’s all done. No fucking about with Ticketmaster’s horrific system, no “you’ve got two minutes to fill in this form”, no godawful captchas to try and interpret, just a simple form.
So my parking’s booked for seeing Nine Inch Nails/Jane’s Addiction in just over two week’s time.
Again, I’ll be knackered by the time I get home – but it’ll be worth it.
AC/DC, Wembley Stadium
Posted: Sun 28 June, 2009 Filed under: Music, Reviews(ish), Wembley Stadium Parking Leave a comment »Other than the aforementioned parking nightmare at Wembley Stadium, the rest of the AC/DC gig on Friday was utterly fantastic. Bearing in mind we were about as far as it’s possible to get from the stage…
The view from our seats
So AC/DC themselves were about 1cm high. There were videoscreens either side, which made the viewing experience something akin to watching on a small TV from across the room, but that’s still OK. After all, it’s the sound you’re going for, not the vision – and the sound was storming. Mind you, some people were obviously expected to be just there for the beer…
Carlsberg trailer behind beer tent at floor level
The two-and-a-quarter hours of AC/DC just rocked the place. Interestingly, they only played about five tracks from the latest album, Black Ice, and the rest came from all over the last thirty-odd years. And all of it was ace. Several firm favourites got played, including Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Back in Black, Hells Bells and (of course) For Those About To Rock as a finale, along with cannon blasts.
It wasn’t a show in the same way as the one Pink did recently, but it was still a show – the lighting was spectacular (and improved through the night, as the sun went down) and everyone seemed to have a fantastic time. Personally I felt the ten-plus minutes of Angus’ guitar soloing was a move too far, and could’ve had a couple more tracks instead. But that’s just me.
The AC/DC lightshow
All told, a seriously good gig – I’d go and see them again no worries.
Complaint to Wembley Stadium’s Parking people
Posted: Sat 27 June, 2009 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Driving, Wembley Stadium Parking 7 Comments »Ah, I do love writing letters of complaint. In this case, it’s about the car parking at Wembley Stadium, and the exit nightmare…
To whom it may concern,
I am writing to you to complain in the strongest possible terms about the farcical car-parking situation at Wembley Stadium. I understand that it is primarily a “public transport” venue – however, National Express don’t do coaches to anywhere within 40 miles of my location, so driving was the only way to come to Wembley Stadium.
Last night, after the AC/DC concert, we left the Stadium by 11pm, and didn’t get to leave the car-park ’til 12.15am. 75 minutes to get out of a car-park (we were in Green Car Park, on Level 4, so there was only one ramp to go down in order to exit the venue) is simply not an acceptable time. The O2 manages to get people out within ten minutes, mainly because they have parking attendants guiding and managing the traffic.
In a venue like Wembley Stadium, where so much thought has been given to managing the flow of people out of the stadium, it’s deeply bizarre to then have absolutely no thought or management of the car parking. Getting away from the Stadium is, by necessity, the last thing one remembers: it is the freshest memory, and colours the judgement of the entire event. In this case, while the concert itself was fantastic, the parking and exit strategy is going to be enough to make me severely reluctant to visit Wembley Stadium again. I would rather go to a venue like the O2 where the exit policy is smooth, organised and rapid than go to Wembley Stadium where it is nothing short of farcical and shambolic. Paying £25 for the privilege of being stuck for an hour and a quarter is just adding insult to injury, I’m afraid.
I look forward to hearing your response to this complaint.
Sincerely
Lyle
See, and not a swearword in place! I wonder what the response will be?
Knackered
Posted: Sat 27 June, 2009 Filed under: Driving, Reviews(ish), Travel, Wembley Stadium Parking Leave a comment »So, yesterday was the AC/DC “Black Ice Tour” concert at Wembley Stadium – and right now I’m utterly knackered.
I left the house at 2.15 to go and collect the other person (the almost-brother-in-law) I was going with from Dereham before starting off for London at about 3.30 to go thrashing down to Wembley. We got there about 6pm – not too bad, although we could’ve done better if the satnav hadn’t decided to mis-direct us on the North Circular. Still, got there in plenty of time.
Wembley is bloody impressive – and effing huge. We were right up at the top, which meant that the band were about a centimetre high – although the big video screens either side of the stage meant they were much bigger – ooh, almost like watching a video of them live.
Anyway, two hours of standing, watching the gig – which was ace, and for which another post is due to be written (along with manky cameraphone pictures) – before heading home.
And that was where it all went a bit tits-up. You see, Wembley Stadium may be dead easy to get out of, but the car-parks really aren’t. Considering you’ve paid £25 – yes, twenty-fucking-five quid – to CS Parking (also known as City and Suburban parking) in order to park, I’d expect at least a couple of people out there guiding drivers and managing the traffic flow. But no. The parking situation when you’re coming out of Wembley Stadium is a total, complete and utter fuck-up. So we waited for half an hour, then decided to move, and all told it took an hour and a quarter to get out of Wembley Stadium’s car parking.
Once we’d done that, it was plain sailing – straight round the M40, M25, M11 and A11. Easy. I was back in Dereham at 2:45 and home at about 3:15.
But dear God I’m tired today – and my feet fucking hurt, too. There’s a learning experience in that – possibly “lose some weight you fat bastard”. We’ll see.