This Trip, Part VIII: 28 March 2011

The last day someplace is bittersweet because you might not be quite ready for home yet, but you also know you have to get back to pick up where you left off. In a place like London, there is always something else to do, so you feel inclined to keep squeezing as much in as possible, but the fact that there’s more to do is sorta exciting because it means you have good reason to return again. How many times do you want to go someplace and do exactly what you’ve done before? It’s nice to repeat some of your favorites, but at least for me, there has to be some new places and new experiences on each trip. Otherwise, it starts to feel like work and you might as well be at home if you’re going to yield to a routine.

This trip was successful in the fact that I visited new places in great frequency and actually never found myself in places like Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus at all. This is probably a good thing considering the protests that bordered on riots on Saturday night. I was actually cruising underneath Trafalgar on the Tube when all that was going on. On the heels of the Belgian excursion, I was exhausted and apparently missed it all. Pictures of me in the midst of a clash between protesters and police involving tear gas, beatings, smashed windows and spray paint would have been great for Facebook. That’s what Facebook pictures need more of: danger.

Safe to say, my stroll through Kensington, Hyde Park and Knightsbridge had very little danger. Some of the rental bike riders were a little cagey, though. Then there were the exuberant young men running out the back door of a building that I only then realized was the Afghanistan embassy. A little while later a pass-by of the Libyan embassy was even more tense, as armed police officers lined the sidewalk in front of the building and protesters with very intimidating flags were across the street. The embassy, on the other hand, was flying the usual solid green flag of Libya. Nothing wrong with keeping it simple.

By pure chance I saw the Twitter tweet from Okkervil River’s Will Sheff that he would be playing solo at St. Pancras Old Church in London on Monday night. At first blush, this seemed like a can’t miss opportunity. Any debate regarding when to leave London ended when this came up. After buying tickets, I later found out it sold out very quickly and apparently less than 100 tickets were available in the first place. The church is actually a church and not some heroin den that might have been a church in a previous life or simply given a church-like name for effect. No, the previous life of this church, which was built in Victorian times, was as a church, as there has been some form of a church at the site since 361 AD.

The show was great, even though doors were at 7:30pm and Will Sheff went on at 9pm. No opener, no nothing, except the conversations of those around me. Will (can I call him Will?) played several new songs throughout the set, but also hit high spots from throughout Okkervil River’s catalog, including a particularly strong rendition of “A Stone” a capella. Patrick, the Okkervil River bassist, joined Will for several songs, but Will finished solo in grand fashion. The climax of the night was Will coming back for an encore only to walk directly to the back of the room, dislocate a couple of audience members from their seats and sit down at an old upright piano that had been hiding in the corner up to that point. The audience shifted to the back of the room and many people stood in chairs as he went through “For Real”, which was greatly appreciated. The show ended with “Happy Hearts”, with the crowd standing right at the stage, without much regard for the rows of tiny wooden chairs set up. There were some sound problems throughout the night and Will can be a bit of a diva at times, but the strength of the set list, the songs themselves and the setting made it an amazing show regardless.