So, last night I went to the Beacon and saw Billy Bragg and Robyn Hitchcock play. It was really great. My seat was in the third row on the aisle on the right, which was exactly where the other surreptitious photographers were going, and I took 8 rolls of film with a long lens, and think I got some really great stuff.

That was actually one of the really cool thing about the Beacon, that they have giant signs all over threatening to confiscate cameras, and everyone who works there is as mean as a guard at Alcatraz, but the one thing they really didn't seem to care about were the people laying in the aisles with cameras.

The neatest part of last night was the fact that I met for the first time some online friends! I'm a member of the Billy Bragg Mailing List (and Robyn's also, but only for a week or so) and a bunch of them got together, and I managed to get up the nerve to do same, so I met Steph, the coolest chick in the wide wide world, or at least the World Wide Web; Andrea, with whom I had tried to meet up with at Tower in the Village a couple of months ago, but she described herself as having "short blonde hair and bright red lipstick and wearing black", which is like describing yourself as Asian and trying to meet up in Chinatown; Andrea's husband Sean, who, quite clearly was the last cute smart straight single guy in NY until Andrea married him four months ago; Mary the librarian, who was sweet as nanaimo bars; Emily, who brought this fantastic Billy fanzine that made it quite clear that she has access to free Xeroxing, Paul the t-shirt bootlegger, who kept making mathematician jokes (which were funnier than that sounded), and Bill, who, I have to admit, has a good English accent for an American.

Andrea mentioned that, from reading this page, they all thought I would be really tough and confident and fabulous. Guess I surprised them!

After the show, Steph-who-knows-everyone got us all After-show passes, and we hung around in the house, and Billy came out and talked to everyone. Andrea really wanted to get a picture of Billy with herself and Sean, and it looked like he was leaving, and Mary said "I think Steph is counting on getting us backstage, but I don't think that's gonna happen." Ten seconds later, we were ushered backstage.

Never doubt Steph!

Of course, what really happened was we all were in a long queue behind Billy, and the visigoths at the door let him, Steph, and Steph's mom through, and then wouldn't let the rest of us by. They said "Billy said that was it, you'll have to leave now", and they opened a door and started to shove us out, and Mary started stalling by putting on her coat, and then Grant, Billy's sound guy, Steph's friend, and our guardian angel, came up and said no, no, let them in, they're part of the group!"

I'll be remembering Grant in my will.

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Last Updated Fri 21 August 23:26:09 1998