the piano man

The week has been uneventful due to the abundance of germs but was brightened considerably by the announcement of Billy Joel performing in the city next June and very conveniently just before my birthday! This was closely followed by The Foo Fighters declaring they would also be coming to celebrate my birthday - performing at the Etihad the same week. how kind but two concerts in one week – are we up to that? We will try!

Despite being poles apart Dave Grohl and Billy Joel are very similar in their approach to live music – obviously, both being extremely talented helps but their interaction with the crowds and the ‘show’ they put on makes their concerts unmissable. We are a family of eclectic music lovers – we love the music not any specific genre and watching performers live is the ultimate treat. Time to enter the stressful world of purchasing tickets.

The first time I saw Billy Joel I was aged 18 or 19 and had to travel to Birmingham NEC – I successfully did that on a work night – probably wouldn’t even consider it now! Back then you had to telephone for tickets or even more shocking go to the venue or a ticker seller to purchase! Who remembers Piccadilly Records and the giant sheet of paper they would pull out with the available seats on! Once you had purchased your seats they coloured them in!  How times have changed. Now you sit nervously at your device watching the clock tick down to on sale time. If the website doesn’t crash on release then you pick your seats trying to work out what sort of a view that will be - If you don’t like the tickets they offer you go to the back of the queue – only 5 minutes to complete this section – what’s the password for my card verification…. hard to believe we ever manage to get any!

Once had a holding page for the Royal Albert Hall which informed me I was 4638 in the queue! Two hours later and I managed to get us tickets so maybe don’t give up! Course the joy of managing to get some tickets is then slightly dissipated as you see £8 added on for admin followed by £2.95 for postage or even if you have then emailed. How can it possibly cost £2.95 to email tickets for you to print yourself? Still its pay up or give up so hopefully we will be successful and fingers crossed for a musical June. 

​Viv