I've waited ten years....

to see the Indigo Girls in concert. And I finally got my chance on the 15th of February :-)

Sadly, the week had started fairly badly. After a magnificent birthday weekend, with lots of fun adventures and happy London times, I was struck down with a throat infection. At the same time, Lucy was unlucky enough to be hit with a bad flu virus. So, we got to share our first experiences of the British health system...

In summary....

Each person in Britain needs an NHS number to access the services of a doctor. You can only get a number in person at a surgery. You must use the first available surgery closest to where you live and you must take whatever doctor they assign you. Doctor's appointments are only bookable a week in advance, and surgeries only deal with certain problems on certain days, and outside these times you cannot see a doctor for a particular complaint, as they will not be covered under insurance.

I could go on, but writing anymore is like reliving the whole horrid thing, so I will add no more except to say that my surgery has an open-door policy. In this case 'open-door' means all doors in the building must be kept open so people can see I am not mugging/stabbing/killing the doctor. Ah, Lewisham....

So, after all that was said and done I ended up with strict instructions to rest, and Lucy got a barrel-ful of antibiotics. We were just about coming right in time for the concert (which is the actual point of this post!).

Lucy and I joined a bunch of die-hard IG fans and headed out to the Shepherd's Bush Empire. We arrived in plenty of time to find good seats, and I was really excited by the time the lights dimmed.

The opening act was Catherine Feeny, a guitarist who has lovely music and good lyrics. Unfortunately, each song in her set had one or the other, but not both, and I ended up with my fingers in my ears for the last agonising minutes.

It couldn't have been more of a contrast when Emily and Amy took the stage. I played groupie and charged up front for a decent photo:



The crowd was energetic from the first chord of the first song, and stayed that way all night. It was surreal to be singing along with 1500 others who like the music as much as I do. Emily and Amy took advantage of this to encourage audience participation, and seemed to get a real kick out of having their words sung back to them. Emily said this was one of the reasons they liked playing in London, as 'English accents sound really..... nice'.

Apart from the audience helping out, all else they needed was a woman called Mary who played the accordian. She was really good and really tiny. Here is what they all looked like from further back:



The Indigo Girls have been performing for thirty years, so I was astonished how new they made their music sound, and especially appreciated a 'remix' they did of their song Chickenman. I've never really understood this song, and here are some lyrics which might prove my point:

'I went looking for a car / Found myself beneath the stars
I went looking for a girl / Found a man and his world
Chickenman chickenman / Chickenman hold my hand
Chickenman chickenman / Chickenman hold my hand'

But, the two of them did whatever acoustic folk guitars can do remix-wise and mashed this up with one of their much newer songs about having a personal epiphany whilst getting drunk on a mountaintop (hey, we've all been there!). The whole wonderful folk meets high-energy rock, with lightening speed chord changes and insane travels up and down over three octaves lasted seven intense minutes. They are close to being the best seven minutes of my life.

After two hours and two encores Emily and Amy made some very fond and sincere farewells to the crowd, and it was over.

We headed back out to Shepherd's Bush, had another dash across the dodgy Common and trotted down into the Tube. Someone noticed the poster below and the kiwis amongst us felt we needed a pic:



Unfortunately, the next day I woke up in London same as usual. But, having finally had the opportunity to see my favourite musicians live, I am happy to be here.