Sunday 26th August
Taxi's early so I arrive at the Sheraton Park Tower Hotel before anyone else.
I check in and call our leader who's on a train heading to the hotel. I call him a bit later and he's on his way back to his home in Kent because he's forgotten his case.
A small group of us Heart n Soul people and all 3 of the Raging Horns all go to an Italian restaurant for a very late supper as one of us, a delightful young lady with whom I'm to eat breakfast on Show Day morning, was helping everyone check in at the hotel.
Early to bed.
Bank Holiday Monday 27th August
Very early start, leave the hotel at 07:30 after a few biscuits and tea in a function room. This minimal brek is because the Sheraton don't serve it until 08:00 am on Bank Holidays.
The coach takes us to the Olympic Park. We spend some time getting through security, back on the coach and off to the Green Room and dressing room building, a temporary construction but comfortable, and we eat a fine mess of victuals in the staff canteen.
Into the Green Room and there's a sofa where I can stretch out, elevating my leg, assuming the attitude of a potentate accepting offers of food and drink, the only difference being that I'm pathetically grateful!
The coffee's not bad here either! We watch telly, Robbie finds a news channel for me and suddenly I'm on my own.
Around 11:00 am we go to the Stadium for a run through of the pre-show. I'ts raining and I discover there's no cover on the stage or the wings but we're given clear plastic ponchos which are standard issue for all of the 80,000 people in the seats as they don't want umbrellas to obscure the pixels, the lights sited between each seat, which are used to display images across the whole stadium. But you know that!
Run through of 2 Heart n Soul pieces, the one I'm playing in is a 4-minute tune. All goes well and we return to the Green Room. A table tennis tournament ensues and our leader, now recovered from his day from hell yesterday, beats all comers!
Earlier our leader told the full story of his horrible day. It started when he went to Canterbury to get himself a pair of black trousers for the show. When he got home, he found the security tag was still attached so he had to go back to Canterbury to have it removed. Then his wife found that the tickets he'd ordered were not what he thought so weren't for the Paralympics Opening Ceremony,. They were for some athletic event on 2nd September. It was his daughters' and wife's disappointment that upset him and made him forget his case.
More hanging around and the dress rehearsal for the pre-show and the main show which starts at 8:00 pm. Our bit done and I and most of the others head back to the Green Room and then I go back to the hotel in taxis along with a few others who don't want to watch the whole dress rehearsal.
Tuesday 28th August
A day off, today having been kept free for any reruns should the rehearsals need to be rerun.
I have an appointment to have my wound looked at and redressed. I sustained my injury falling down stairs at work. Don't ask! I'm cabbed to my doctor's and back.
I'm back in my hotel room, it's lunchtime and no lunch! My only chance of getting anything to eat is room service. Well, maybe dinner would be late again! A simple ham salad, 2 nice bread rolls and French Dressing cost me nearly ~£17 but what can an old blind boy do!
All out for supper at Wagamamas. Very nice, a jolly time!
Some go off to the pub and Sensible old me goes back to the hotel even though he took his last antibiotic yesterday so could have a beer, but no, not he!
Wednesday 28th August, Show Day
A leisurely start, A late breakfast at 09:00 with a lovely young lady, Heart n Soul joining us in sleepy dribs and drabs. A jolly time together and I'm back to bed for more kip.
Sandwiches for lunch and on the 2:00 bus to the stadium. I've found the place to sit and it's right at the back where I can strech out my leg lounging in an elevated and horizontal attitude
On my back and in the Green Room again and I'm being brought things, like coffee and orange juice whilst chatting to young ladies!
Stephen Hawking's synthesised voice rings out, "Yes", "No" and "I don't know". I imagine these standard phrases are activated by a single click on his voice software.
6:45 pm and we go upstairs to get dressed for the show. Tonight the band is wearing grey shirts, black waistcoats, black trousers and black ties.
I trundle to the stadium, wait in a tunnel and then we're out on the wings of the stage. Matt Fraser is geeing up the crowd and I notice very rapid Mexican waves whizzing past!
Heart n Soul's Fish Police is first and now us, the Lizzie Emeh band!
I get on stage, am shown to my stool, my pre-tuned Strat is passed to me and I plug in the lead.
We play the 4-minute Lizzie Emeh song, Loud and Proud. Applause, applause, applause! We are the only fully live band in the whole show so damn right they clapped!
We're down in the tunnel and I'm trundling back to the Green Room. Change back to mufti and chill.
Now, we're halfway through the parade of nations bit and, of course, I want to be in the stadium in the show in one of the seats we've been given. Out with the wheelchair with only one foot rest! A lovely Lancashire lass pushes me a long way over to the other end of the stadium because the Green Room is at the posh end.
I am trundled into 2 lifts to ascend to the lofty gods of the construction. Wheelchair safely stashed in the Wheelchair Store and receipt in hand, we climb the last bit, find our seats and sit. Someone spots my daughter who got the 1 complementary ticket artists get for a guest. Down we go, along and up and I'm sitting next to my darling daughter!
The first game is "What's the Next Nation to Parade" at which my daughter is best, of course! She lists off all of the 'u's before they've entered the field of play and even remembers Uzbekistan!
Well, you've all seen the rest of the Opening Ceremony but what you didn't know is that 3 learning disabled members of Heart n Soul sang in the Opening Ceremony: 2 with the Spasticus Autisticus guy and one with the amazing Beverley Knight!
It's trundle back to Green Room time now. "Glass of bubbly?", "Yes please!", times two. They go straight to my head as I haven't drunk alcohol for over 2 weeks having been on antibiotics.
Thursday 30th August
Back on the coach to take us back to the hotel and it's party time! Connect that iPod to the system, laugh, sing and dance to the grooves!
Back in the hotel, fond farewells to those shooting off early later and off to bed around 03:00 am.
I'm first down to breakfast on the arm of a somewhat humourless Italian porter with whom I share my few phrases in his language which usually elicits at least a polite chuckle. He's been working at this hotel for 26 years! When I suggest tritely that the management must be good for him to have stayed so long, he grunts, "It's all right!"
Check out and taxi to my next appointment for my wound to be inspected and yet another course of antibiotics to be prescribed, 2 different kinds this time.
Back home for a couple hours and out for another rehearsal which goes very well indeed!
See you at Liberty Festival on Sunday 2nd or Royal Festival Hall, another freeby, next Friday 7th.
Love
Blind Lemon Magpie
No photos?
