London, UK
by Julie Summa
If you want to get a sense of the city of London, walk along with the morning crowds at Portobello Road Market. It's a unique atmosphere made up of several strains-- the vendors and wares of all nationalities, fresh fruit mixed with cooked food, rare antiques mixed with junk, and tourists mixed with buskers (street musicians).
Portabello Road
Step out of the crowd and stand against a nearby wall perhaps.
Be still.
Listen.
There are so many variations in the noise that swirls around you- the dialects, the gossip, the stray guitar players plying for the change in your pockets; the whole thing is a song in itself, a distilled microcosm of London.
I'd come with a university group to investigate the city, and I wanted to see some of the usual historic sights, of course, but my specific goal for this trip was to find out how a regular Londoner might live, work and play. Playing tourist is nice, but if you want a real adventure, play local. I knew that even with a week to spend, getting around the city and seeing everything you might want is a daunting task - unless of course you have some local guides. Enter stage right: Steve Day, Ross Cowin and Vic Fraser.
With my three local pop culture professors, I learned the first thing to do is pick up a copy of Timeout Magazine. It's printed weekly and available at the plentiful newsstands and hotels all over London. This is your guidebook to all things entertainment in London.
Locals and tourists look to Timeout to tell them what's available to them each week. Scan the pages and you'll find evidence of a varied music scene with all types and genres. It takes the explanation of my local guides to explain how it works. The London music scene is very fluid, explains Day. Smaller venues open and close seemingly as needed. Even those that seem set in stone are at risk of going out of business, the latest casualty being the music store/café/music hall hybrid called FOPP. Imagine Tower Music or some other big box that sells music, books and magazines - now put a café in the basement that becomes a concert venue at night.
"The closing of FOPP was a large surprise," said Cowin, who often took in gigs in the basement of the store on Tottenham Court Road. "It had stuck around since the 1980s when it got its start in Scotland. It was a fixture."
The typical small venue could be found among the bars and pubs that are scattered all over the city; these host musicians and bands on a regular basis. Bars like the Big Chill House in King's Cross and the Grafton Arms in the Noho area, are two of the gathering places for the musically inclined. Acoustic musicians frequent the smaller venues and big-name artists have been known to duck in to tryout new ideas on the patrons with no pressure.
Smaller venues can also be stand-alone affairs. Day recently saw bands perform at a small place that calls itself The Borderline. "Inside the venue (an interesting, rustic-yet-clean basement) we saw My Federation. I was very impressed; they kept throwing in low notes like those at the start of 'We Will Rock You,' which I love," he said. "This was one of the best bands I've ever seen live, and I instantly wanted to know more. The sound in The Borderline is really very good."
Day quoted Robert Fripp as saying, "A studio recording is like a love letter and a live gig is like a hot date," Continuing on that line of thought Day said, "Having downloaded My Federation's EP from iTunes, they're definitely more of a band for a hot date than a love letter. The EP seems very reserved and a little bland, whereas the gig was anything but that. Maybe my opinion will change once I've listened to it on the iPod."
Smaller venues can have all flavors of music and sometimes boast good atmosphere and intimate settings. Others are fleeting and more temporary in nature with less interest paid to atmosphere and more paid to the music itself.
Now, flip back through the pages of Timeout and look up medium-sized music venues. These are relatively stable, and also cater to all tastes, often changing their styles and offerings from one night to the next. It's just a matter of deciding what you want to hear and finding out when and where you can hear it. Some of the more well-known medium venues are the Astoria in the Soho area (www.meanfiddler.com) which stages anything from alternative bands to the up and coming rockers; the Brixton Academy is known by the traveling big name acts as being a good warm-up venue for European tours; Shepherd's Bush Empire (www.sherpherds-bush-empire.co.uk) has seen arguably the most big names for its size with the likes of Alanis Morissette and televised MTV shows. From the ground floor, the vantage points are typical as people fight for good seating, but the two balconies above also provide great views.
Now back to your entertainment bible, think of Timeout as your cross section of London's entertainment scene. A recent review of the once hipster favorite the Scissor Sisters gives a good example of the rapidly changing London scene. Not just in its venues, but in its musical tastes.
You might imagine, given the staggering ubiquity of their number-one single of last year, "I Don't Feel Like Dancing," that all was rosey in - ahem! - camp Scissor Sisters. Sadly for the once hipster, now housewives' faves, though, events don't appear to have gone according to plan. Their second album Ta Dah, has sunk without a trace and now Jake Shears and co. find themselves in the embarrassing position of having booked three nights at London's newest enormodome, none of which are sold out, points out a local reviewer, Hamish MacBail. "No surprise, really, that their super-trendy electro fans of old have moved on. Scarily though, for other such acts who tread the line between mainstream and alternative, the New Yorkers now stand as a reminder as to how fast the great British public moves on to newer bands these days."
The 'enormodome' in question is the newest of the large venues. The 02 Arena http://www.theo2.co.uk opened June 24 and is already booked by the likes of Elton John, The Rolling Stones and 21 sold-out concerts by Prince.
"It's setting itself up to be an overall entertainment center," said Day, as he pointed it out to me on the skyline. London architects are generally good at blending the past with the progress they wish to create, but whoever put together this design perhaps missed that mark. It's a futuristic cactus along the historical skyline. Inside it's not just the stages, but the shopping and the food selection that draws the crowds.
The buildings...the one with the arch over the top is the new Wembley Stadium. The red round building is the Royal Albert Hall.
Another of the large venues, where star acts play to thousands of people, is the Royal Albert Hall, www.royalalberthall.com in the posh neighborhood of Kensington. A stone's throw from Princess Diana's old home, Kensington Palace, the Royal Albert Hall is best known for its classical concerts by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and others. For pop music fans it also hosts concerts by the likes of Paul McCartney, Phil Collins, Bryan Adams and many others. In season, free classical lunchtime concerts are a good way to relax and enjoy the atmosphere.
The Earl's Court Exhibition Centre, www.eco.co.uk has played host to many of the world's top acts, though the local music snobs pooh-pooh it as having poor acoustics and less atmospheric soul than other venues in the area. Ticket prices there are low and it's accessible via the tube so it can't be all bad.
Wembley Arena, was most recently seen all over the world as the sight of the 10th Anniversary Concert and love fest in memory of the death of Princess Diana. Day informed me that the arena has been recently refitted with new seats and new soundproofing and light systems. It went from being one of the worst in the area for large music venues, to one of the best.
When pressed, my guides boiled down their view on the London music scene to one word or thought each:
"Tutti Fruitti," said Fraser.
"Disparate," said Cowin.
"Unique," said Day.
One thing's sure, they love it.
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