Ramblings of a Brit abroad

I have a problem with the way people drive here in the USA and after much thought, I have come to a conclusion.

It is the NASCAR effect. More to the point, it is something called drafting, which is the process of placing ones car in the hole in the air punched by the car or truck in front. It can be seen every Sunday at raceways across America, performed by highly skilled and very well paid daredevils in machines designed to do exactly this. And yes, every now and again, they get it ever so slightly wrong and end up smacking a concrete barrier at close to 200 mph. This, as they say, is part of racing and with roll cages, fire retardant suits, crash helmets and medical people only seconds away, drafting is an acceptable part of racing.

Where I do not find it acceptable, however, is on the I4 Interstate between Orlando and Tampa, in the rain on a Saturday afternoon. I would like to thank the complete moron in the Hummer H2 for placing several people in mortal peril this afternoon by his antics of trying to drive about 6 feet behind me at 70 mph. I wasn’t even in the outside lane. He had plenty of room to go around me, but left it to the very last minute to not signal and then overtake on the inside. Thanks Buddy !!!

And as for the guy weaving between lanes in the stretch Lincoln Limo… there’s just never a cop around when you need one.

Driving in the US is all still a bit strange to me. Much like the UK, people have no concept of thinking ahead when it comes to lanes merging and therefore always cause tailbacks, where if everyone just gave it a tiny bit of thought, slowed slightly and signaled early, we’d all get there much quicker.

So why do i find it strange? Because at 4 way stop signs, Americans are the politest people on earth, with a friendly “after you” attitude.

Go Figure !!!

Now I am no doctor but I would like to point out something that a large majority of the attendees of rock concerts seem to be unable to grasp.

If you consume a copious quantity of Bud Light or other such liquid before taking your seat for the gig, you may be in for a surprise.

When seated, you will find that there is a very large sound system which produces sound waves large enough to disintegrate a good size kidney stone. Now imagine what this is likely to do to your bladder.

That’s right, it will make you want to pee quite a bit. We found this out last night when the 2 guys next to us must have shuffled along the line to get out ( we were at the end of the row ) at least 9 times. Now the concerning thing was that the 2 in question seemed to have matching bladders as they always went together making it a double pain in the butt to have to get up and let them out and then in again.

So this is a public service announcement to all those who like a few beers before a gig, from those who get a good workout standing up and sitting down so many times it got kind of annoying. Either have fewer beers or learn to hold it!!!!

At the back end of last year, The Police very kindly paid a visit to Florida and played a great gig at the St.Petes Times Forum in Tampa.

I, for one, thought that this would be the once in a lifetime opportunity to see them before Andy Summers goes into a retirement home.

But no, they have decided that Florida needs another dose of their rock/reggae fusion and are playing in Orlando on the 16th of May. As if this were not enough, they have sweetened the deal by adding Elvis Costello as support.

And thanks to the wonderful people at Citi who are sponsoring the tour, we got first dibs on tickets a full 5 days before they go on sale to Joe Public.

I promise to post a full review as soon as possible after the event.

There are some things in this world that are just meant to be. Tomato ketchup on a bacon sandwich with a nice cup of tea, the Queens speech on BBC at 3 o’clock on Christmas Day and at least one of the promoted Championship teams going straight back down again the following season. There is a natural order to things that shouldn’t be messed with.

I say these things to point to another. Van Halen are not Van Halen without David Lee Roth. Following Diamond Daves departure in the 80’s they produced some OK music with Sammy Hagar ( but it wasn’t quite right ) and then flirted with Gary Cherone of Extreme fame ( what were you thinking ). So you can imagine both my surprise and joy when the announcement was made that Dave and Eddie had got older and wiser and decided that there was much money to be made by being friends again. The tour finally hit Florida on Valentines Day and there was much love in the house.

The night was set off in the only way it could be. A darkened stage, a few shadowy figures appeared and then the opening riff from “You really got me”. Stage lights up and Diamond Dave twirling a giant flag at the back of the stage. Crowd erupts. Van Halen proceeded to turn out classic after classic. “Running with the Devil”, “Panama”, “Jamie’s Crying”, “Ain’t talking bout love”, they were all there. Dave’s voice sounded a little ropey for the first couple of songs but he hit his stride pretty quickly. Eddie was on form from note 1. The newest addition to the band, Eddie’s slightly pudgy son Wolfgang (16) held his own on bass and Alex behind a massive drum kit held it all together.

There were several highlights to the night. A superbly indulgent drum solo from Alex Van Halen who looked surprisingly like Leonard Nimoy with his ears bound up in “Star Trek, The Search For Spock”, a great guitar solo from Eddie who employed a suitably decorated power drill on his instrument at one point and the best was when Dave took centre stage with guitar in hand and started recalling his younger days in LA before getting the rest of the band involved with a particular favourite of mine, “Ice Cream Man”.

They played only one encore, “Jump”, but they had pretty much done everything else. They only played stuff from the David Lee Roth era, nothing later, so it was an evening for the purist’s amongst us. Besides, even taking account of Wolgang being 16, the average age of the band is still over 44 so these are not young men. I expect they were tired.

How good was it………….. Going to Tampa on Monday to see them again….. Nuff Said !!!

Hi and Welcome. You have by pure chance stumbled across my little corner of cyberspace.

Here you will find all sorts of stuff, but I guess most of the stuff will be centered around Football ( the English kind ) Music and Food.

I’ll probably vent off a bit now and again about things that get my back up… and there will be quite a bit of that.

Look forward to seeing you again soon.

Steve