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Lyrics: “Pass It Along” – Frank Turner, 2011

It’s been a bit over a week since I joined about 10.000 people on a pilgrimage to Alexandra Palace – the only not royal palace in England (according to the man on stage, I haven’t verified it) – to see Frank Turner play his 3000th show. Three thousand! That sounds like a lot. And it is, even though there are supposed to be bigger bands who have played even more. I do think though, that those bands have been around for even longer than Frank has been doing this as under his own name and not as part of a band.

Anyway: I’ve been along for the ride since show 1447, so you could say I’ve been along for over half of it! Which only is a valid statement if you consider the number of show or the length of time, of course. Frank played his first solo show 21 years ago. I first saw him almost 12.5 years ago, which is over half the time ago. I’ve not seen half of the shows. Only 2.46 % of his total. Or 4.76% of the ones he played since my first show. But numbers don’t mean anything really. (It’s been my show 74, for those who are interested)

These days at a regular (not festival) gig I try to be up front at the barrier more often than not, but I knew I would not consider that for this show. I also was coming with a friend, who isn’t interested in being up front, so we stayed back near the sound desk. And to be honest, I was fine with that, because 10.000 people in a standing room is a lot of people in a vast space. I don’t know if it’s still a bit of underlying “Pandemic PTSD” but the crowd that night made me a tiny bit anxious. Fo no reason really, the corner where we ended up in, was not rowdy at all and a good place to be. 

I admit for some reason I had expected a bit more of a “greatest hits” set for this celebratory occasion, but I can see that for Frank himself it also made sense to treat this one as almost a regular gig. He does this for a living and he is still touring the latest album, so the set mostly was a regular current tour set, which was fine by me.

After the show numbers countdown Frank came out with just his guitar and played the first two songs solo with a lot of old photos from the early days shown on the screens (behind the stage and left and right). Even though I wasn’t a part of the early days I got a bit sentimental / borderline weepy. I did not cry though. But the opener “The Ballad of Me and My Friends” is such an iconic anthem for a lot of us people in that crowd that night. I met so many wonderful people through being a fan of his music in the past 12 years. I share so many memories with so many of those people. Memories of gigs and trips and chats and lockdown livestreams. Deep conversations about why we are all doing this, how much his music and his lyrics mean to us and why. Conversations about how his music and the communal experience of singing those songs together helped and still do help all of us in one way or another. It never ceased to amaze me and I’m so glad I was able to become a part of this community. To let myself be a part of this community. Leaving my comfort zone and all that. 

Unfortunately I didn’t get to see all that many of those people at the gig or over the weekend. I did mention the 10.000 people and my anxious mind, right? I wasn’t really in the right state of mind to linger around for long after the gig. But I knew they were there with me in spirit.  

The second song was ” I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous” and by the end of that the Sleeping Souls joined Frank on stage. For this one they still had the montages of early day photos going on on the screens and yes, of course there was an image of Jay (“Beans on Toast”) at the appropriate time. Of all the others probably as well, but I don’t know those (faces) at all.  

Next up was “I Still Believe” – and no, this won’t be a song by song recap review post, don’t worry – but this one is the song that started it all for me all those many years ago. In the summer of 2013 was mindlessly skipping TV channels one weekend afternoon and caught this bit of live footage of a festival. Didn’t know the band, liked the song. Liked how the singer danced around after the first verse. Decided to keep watching and paid closer attention to the lyrics. The rest as the saying goes is history. 

As stated above, a pretty regular current tour set followed. I’m so glad he’s still playing “Haven’t Been Doing So Well” from the last-but-one album. There are many songs and lyrics which mean the world to me for some reason or another, but this song might have had the biggest impact on me, as it made me seek help and have therapy for about 18 months (April 2022 – August 2023). It was life changing and I try not to throw that term around lightly when it comes to Frank Turner. As laid out in the intro to this “My First Ten Years” post . 

When he played the opening chords for “The Road” I guess, many, many people got their phones and cameras ready to catch one particular moment. I was such a long way back that I didn’t. I’m sure the whole gig will be available to watch again on a streaming platform or DVD at some point. But of course I also held my breath for it and cheered after the slight pause and updated lyric

And the nights, three thousand nights I’ve played, a thousand more to go,
Before I take a breath and steel myself for the next three thousand shows.

The encore started with “Undefeated”, which is a great song in general, but of course was made even more special that night because… 3000 shows. And after that they brought it home with classic “let’s jump and dance and sing and have a great time” songs: Polaroid Picture, Get Better, Four Simple Words. 

That night and also on my way back home from London the next day and this past week I on and off pondered how much I have changed through these last 12 years in general. I’m not going to bother dissecting how much of the change was through the music, the lyrics, the gigs, the people or just change through life in general. I can’t make that distinction and I don’t know why I should.

With the same conviction that Frank states that he’s a touring musician, these days I can state that I am a Frank Turner fan and probably will be for life. It is a (huge) part of who I am. Not in the possibly slightly obsessive “chronicle every gig in detail on my blog / watch a few interviews to excess / parse every word in all the lyrics and interviews” kind of way it still was a couple of years ago. But in the broad “being a fan of his music changed my life for the better” kind of way. And I will be forever and ever grateful to Frank, his crew and his fanbase for that.    

Post Script:
One of the reasons this post took me so long to write / publish, was that I really struggled to deal with the negative, nagging Gremlin voice in my head, who was trying to ruin this memory for me. The Gremlin voice shouting all the things that didn’t go as planned and went wrong, counting off all the circumstances that were a bit annoying. Hammering home the fact that of course it all didn’t go as silly little fangirl me with tons of issues, had imagined it in some back corner of her mind. Shouting that the whole trip was as stupid and insignificant as in general I am as well. That kind of voice.

I’m proud to say that I did manage to shut her up in the end. It just took me a while, hence the delay in putting this post together.         

Part II will be up tomorrow, I think. I hope anyway….

Well, not quite. Obviously. But it’s here now

We left the Louvre after a few hours once we found an exit. No kidding. We came out to lovely blue sky.

While I was trying to snap a few photos my camera battery ran out and I realized I had left my extra charged camera batteries in the hotel. I guess the lack of sleep, exhaustion and excess of sensory input in the museum led to me having a tiny meltdown. I guess because my battery had obviously also run out. I managed to handle it quite well though, I think. Some deep breath, some “me-time” while my friend was looking for yet another gig-buddy we had made plans to meet up with. After that tiny – internal – meltdown I then just went with the flow, because there was nothing, I could do about it. I had to make do with my phone camera for the rest of the day and that was fine as well. I’ve come a long way. Go me!

We (friend, gig-buddy & gig-buddy’s friend) strolled around for a bit looking for place to have lunch before they were heading on to the next stop on their tour. Even so many years in – this fandom – I sometimes still marvel about how many people I’ve met and stayed on friendly terms with. I haven’t seen this one since 2018 (!! mostly due to the pandemic of course) and it was so nice to catch up for a bit.

The rest of the day we spent walking across the Seine…

…and across the Île de la Cité, the central island. With of course Notre Dame as the main interest of ours. It was about 3 weeks before the official re-opening and it still looked (and probably looks) not quite finished on the outside. All the more reason to go back at some point soon.

We kept strolling further along on the island, had coffee and crepes someplace and then went to check off another item of the “must see” list. Champs-Élysées and of course Arc de Triomphe.

We took the metro to our final destination / highlight, but got off one stop too early, which meant more walking. I don’t really want to moan, but we walked quite a bit on that day.

That final highlight: Taking the elevator up the Eiffel Tower. At night. Which was as amazing as it sounds and it was the moment I got a tiny bit mad at myself for forgetting to bring the extra batteries. My phone camera works ok at night, but not really well. Another reason to come back, though I doubt I’ll do the elevator thing once again. It was cool, but also very crowded and it took soooo long to get up. You’re taking various elevators in fact. It was a great experience. But once in a lifetime, I think. I will definitely come back for more photos from the ground though.

After that we … yes, walked to the closest metro stop on our line, which was not as close as we had liked, but nothing we could do about that. When we finally got back to our hotel I ended up with 27.00o steps (~ 21,5 km) on my Garmin watch. It was worth it though and I’ll definitely be back. Some day (soon).

I’ve been back from this short stint as “Travelling Fangirl” for over a month now. A busy month, tiring, overwhelming with too much stuff to do and too many thoughts to think. And that’s just in my personal / professional life. Then there is of course so much going on – to have thoughts on – all over the world as well. But not on here. This weekend feels like a good time to recall one of my favourite quotes from my favourite musical:

The world’s a mess, Charlie.
Small flashes of joys, that’s all any of us can hope for.

So let me tell you about the French flash of joy in November 2024. In two parts again, because it feels like there are too many photos for one post.

In the late 1990s I did two weekend trips to Paris with a friend using the service of a commercial travel company: on a bus with a group of people we didn’t know. Hard to imagine these days to travel like that, but it was the 1990s. You didn’t book hotels, trains, flights on your own on the internet yet. I admit I don’t recall all that much from those trips and I wasn’t really interested in going back. I don’t speak French. I also remember some of the French museum etc. staff in Paris as being kind of snobby and not really welcoming. A couple of years ago I started to change my mind and thought it might be nice to visit once more but then I never had a good reason to or was not motivated enough to make plans.

Then Frank Turner made the decision for me 😉 I’m only half joking. I’m glad that him playing shows all over Europe gives me the incentive or the little push I obviously sometimes need to make up my mind. So, after Antwerp my friend and I got on the train to go to Paris.

In hindsight we might have been overthinking the whole how to get a metropass thing. I know I had. It was easy, though the few-days tourist metro pass is just a tiny slip of paper. I mean, come on: What’s wrong with a proper sized (paper) card like other cities do it :-)?

We headed to our hotel, dropped off our stuff and went back on the metro to go up north to Montmartre to meet up with a gig buddy I’ve known since 2015 or 2016. They live in Paris and were coming to the show of course but also wanted to show us around a bit. Hence Montmartre. We didn’t have a lot of time, but took the funicular up to the cathedral, had a look inside, strolled around a bit.

After that we headed back to where the venue for the night’s show was, had something to eat, wen to see a great Frank Turner show. I never sweated as much at a Frank show as I did that night, I think. Holy shit, but it was a great gig.

The day after was hardcore touristy day. As you do when you’re only in Paris for a day. First on the list: The Mona Lisa. Of course. Thanks to my friend’s amazing planning and preparation we didn’t have to wait in line to get in or to go see the Mona Lisa for all that long. When I had a look out the window at some point, I was so glad my friend was so prepared.

I think it’s time to admit that I wasn’t really prepared for the Paris trip, tourist wise. The weeks before the trip had been busy at work and stuff, like most of the year had been. I was happy to just tag along with my friend to be honest and get a sense of the city again. Thus I had no real idea of what the Louvre would look inside. You can spent hours walking around just looking at the building as such and not at any piece of art exhibited there. I mean…

Here are a few more of the ceiling. Every single room was so opulent and different and just breathtaking.

Then of course: the one and only: Mona Lisa. There were quite a few people in the room and in front of the painting, but there was no queue and it actually was easy to get to take “the” photo but also just take a moment with it.

After we checked that of our list we went back to the galleries we just hurried through on our way in. A few of the highlights: The Coronation of Napoleon. I needed to take a photo for that relevant section in my Lyrical History of Mankind post, obviously.

Another one: This because… France!

Here are more photos of the Louvre highlights. I think this first visit – because I will definitely go back to Paris hopefully in the next few years – was supposed to see and check off the “must see” items. Now that I have some idea of the museum as such, I can focus on just one section of the museum next time. But we wanted to have a look at the highlights, so we did.

So much to see in the Greek and Roman Galleries and the Egyptian of course. So so much…

Part II will be up tomorrow, I think. I hope anyway….