London in 2025

On June 18, 2026 By StevenIn International Travel - The United Kingdom5 Comments

When I started this blog all the back in the long, long ago year 2011, the whole purpose was just to keep my friends and family updated on what I was up to – I was at the start of a multi-year assignment in Germany for my job, and I figured the blog format was the way to go. Through my time abroad, I fell into a travel blog format, because I was going all over the place and there was always something fascinating to see and to share. In more recent years, especially since 2020, I hadn’t been traveling as much. I did manage to squeeze in two international trips last year, and I want to talk about both of them. I’ll start with the second one, because it was just in November.

I realized as we approached the Thanksgiving holiday that I had the actual Thursday and Friday of the holiday off work, so if I took the Monday and Tuesday of the following week, I could have a solid five day visit to my favorite city in all the world – London!

I didn’t choose London as a destination just because I love the city- I chose it because there was a revival of Starlight Express running there in Wembley, and I desperately wanted to see it. Long time readers of this blog will recall that I’m a huge musical theater nerd, and that I went to Bochum to see the German version of Starlight that had been running there continuously since 1989. I never got to see the original 1984 version of the show, however, despite loving the crap out of it since I first heard it. It did run on Broadway for a while, but I was still a proto-Steven and could not travel on my own yet to see things.

Not so, now – I had the time off, and the money, and only needed the reason to go- and now I had it. I got myself some airfare, booked the Starlight ticket, reserved a hotel with points that was located in a convenient location, and set about populating my trip with Cool Shit To Do™. Then on the Wednesday night, I took Metro to the airport and hopped across the Atlantic Ocean.

Strap in, folks- this is going to be a long one. I’ll take it day by day.

Day One: Thursday the 27th of November –

My flight got into Heathrow around 10am, and getting through customs and passport control at the airport didn’t take all that long. The Heathrow Express took me from the airport straight to Paddington Station. My first order of business was finding the Paddington statue in Paddington Station. This might be my foggy recollection, but I’m pretty sure he’s been moved since I was last there about ten years prior.

From there, it was a short walk to my hotel to check in and drop off my bag. My original plan was to walk around a bit, perhaps over to Hyde Park, but I can’t sleep on airplanes and I was a bit shattered as a result, so I instead had a bite in the hotel restaurant while I waited for my room to be ready. This was the first of many great sandwiches on this trip – a delightful tuna and cucumber sandwich. England’s sandwich game is strong, and I still have dreams about the things I ate from the M&S Food store.

That didn’t take long, and I was able to have a brief nap in the hotel room before heading out for the evening’s plans. On my way to the Tube, I stumbled across public art – The Wild Table of Love. It turns out this (or a duplicate of this) is presently in New York as well, but I don’t think I’ll have a chance to go find it.

While this is not important to my story, it made me laugh and I would have failed my readers if I did not also give you a chance to laugh at this bus:

Onward to the Tube! I was delighted and surprised to learn that the Oyster Card I had purchased for my very first trip to London in 2012 still worked perfectly- it even had a remaining balance of a little over £10 to get me started.

This is my original 2012 Oyster Card from when London was hosting the Olympics

I rode the Tube to the Electric Ballroom on Camden High Street for Pop Will Eat Itself, an alt-rock band that started in the 1980s. It was an exceptionally good show, and I’m glad I was able to manage it.

Pop Will Eat Itself playing at Electric Ballroom

At no point on this entire day did I remember that it was Thanksgiving back in the States.

Day two: Friday the 28th of November –

I woke up, and hopped over to South Kensington for a behind the scenes tour of the Royal Albert Hall. I had been to the Royal Albert twice before for glorious performances, but a tour is a fascinating look behind the scenes.

The Royal Albert Hall is a pretty great place to see music. Lots of people gribe about the acoustics, but I like it.

I have a fondness for visiting what, to my mind, are the holy places of music and performance. The Ryman in Nashville. Chess Records in Chicago. You get the idea. The Royal Albert Hall tour was like that for me.

After the tour, I took the Tube over to Blackfriars to go to St Paul’s Cathedral. Longtime readers of this blog also know that I am a bit King-Kongy, in that whenever I’m in a new city, I like to find the tallest thing around and climb it. I had previously been to the Shard, which is obviously much taller, but St. Paul’s has a self guided tour which you can take, and which allows you to climb the Dome, up to the three Dome Galleries. The three galleries are basically levels at which you can stop climbing to look around, before going on to the next level. They’re called the Whispering Gallery, the Stone Gallery and the Golden Gallery, but honestly I missed how they go their names – I was too busy climbing and panting. All those steps were a lot easier when I was in my thirties.

Totally worth it, though. Check out the view from the top!

After St. Pauls, I went back to the hotel for a short break before the evening’s festivities, but not before a quick burger and beer at a really great local spot.

In the evening, before taking in a show at the West End, I decided to check out a little sculpture walk called the “Scenes in the Square Sculpture Trail” in Leicester Square. My goal of seeing most of the sculptures was complicated enormously by the GIANT FRICKING CHRISTMAS MARKET going on. Solid pun on the ice skating rink though:

Here’s the parts of the sculpture walk I did find – you can see a complete list of the sculptures on the official site.

After I was done there, I walked to the theater for the evening’s real entertainment: Disney’s Hercules. I’ve always liked the music from this one, and I was skeptical about translating it to the stage, but it actually worked really well.

Day three, Saturday the 29th of November –

On Saturday, I had a leisurely start because the first scheduled event of the day was the show that prompted this entire trip – a matinee of the new revival of Starlight Express!

It was so, so good. My inner twelve year old was delighted. This show is reportedly touring internationally in 2027, and I am here for it.

After Starlight Express rocked my socks off, I grabbed a quick dinner before starting a walking tour of London’s Historical Pubs. This tour was fascinating as hell, and I was well and truly buzzed by the end of it.

This next picture is not really important to the retelling, but I just liked how the tunnel between tube lines looked:

The tubes between Tubes could have been in any sci-fi movie.

Day four, Sunday the 30th of November –

Lunch at a pretty great place in Hammersmith called “Charlotte’s Cloud,” before walking over to Riverside Studios. Riverside Studios was founded in the 1930s as a film studio. It became a BBC television studio later, and some of Doctor Who’s earliest episodes were filmed there. The blue plaque pictured below is about Verity Lambert, the founding producer of Doctor Who.

Riverside Studios is a working studio and Doctor Who filmed here in the 1960s.

Nowadays, it’s an arts center with facilities capable of hosting fairly amazing shows. I was there for the immersive Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy experience/show. It was a fully interactive “play” rather than the kind where you sit in place and watch the story on a proscenium stage. The night started in a working bar, at a surprise party for one Arthur Dent.

Ford Prefect talked to me a bit before things started and as a result, I was referred to for the rest of the night as “David from Virginia.” I'”‘m still not sure whether he misheard me or simply chose to misname me for comedic effect, but I was David for the rest of the evening. At one point, Arthur Dent joked that “David rules the state of Virginia with an iron fist.” It was that kind of a night.

Day five, Monday, the 1st of December –

Met up with my dear friend Charlotte. When we first met, she she also lived in Germany and had a WordPress blog. We’ve kept in touch in the years since, and even met up when we were both in Tokyo. This makes the third country in which we’ve seen one another, which is kind of amazing. We had lunch and walked around a bit.

We also stopped at Liberty, a famous department store that’s been around for 150 years.

While we were walking around, we stumbled across this very funny reminder that the month of December had begun:

Lastly, we tried to go up the Fenchurch Building (the one that looks like a walkie-talkie), but it was closed that day, so we wound up finding another tall building called Horizon 22 with an observation deck instead.

In the foreground, The Fenchurch Building (walkie talkie) and in the background the Shard (big pointy)

In the evening, I went to see Hans Zimmer at the O2 Arena. In the days before this trip, I waffled between the Hans Zimmer show and Roxette playing across town, and in hindsight I wish I’d gone to see Roxette. The O2 was uncomfortable for me, and I was so far away from the stage that it was like watching an animated musical postage stamp. I think I would have had more fun at Roxette. Oh well, sometimes I make bad choices.

This was the line at the O2 to get into the Arena.

Day six, Tuesday, the 2nd of December –

It was time to head back to the airport to fly home. London is just like Disney in one regard: You exit through the gift shop.

Lots of London gift shop stuff at Heathrow airport.

I had wanted to wake up in London on my birthday, and in that I was successful. I was kind of hoping that the actual minute of my birth would occur in international airspace so that my birthday would be negated and I wouldn’t age another year. That plan was a bust though, because we were already over Canadian airspace by the time that minute rolled around.

This photo was taken at the exact minute of my birthday, US east coast time.

Still, the international travel made my birthday last 29 hours. That’s quite something, isn’t it?

3/52

Dudes Who Rock

On November 10, 2025November 10, 2025 By StevenIn Pop Culture1 Comment

I promise that not every post is going to be about music. I will absolutely talk about other things on this blog in the future.

But not yet. Because this one is a direct followup to the last one.

After the previous post with the list of musical artists that Past Steven (2021 Edition) wanted to see, my good and dear friend Jenny pointed out that the entire list was roughly 80% female artists and 20% bands, with no solo male artists. I replied back with a very long list of male artists that I’ve seen in the last few years.

A very large portion of that list was made up of established artists, many from the 1980s. I’ve gone out of my way to see the likes of:

Gary Numan – Most folks know him from Cars, but he’s been making new music for decades and it’s awesome. Samples: Intruder, My Name Is Ruin
Howard Jones – You’ll probably know him from No One Is To Blame or New Song.
Alice Cooper – His live shows are over the top and amazing, just like his music.
Tom Jones – This Welsh crooner has been doing his thing for decades, but did you know he did a collaboration with The Cardigans of Burning Down The House?
Andy Bell – Yes, he’s half of Erasure, but he also has some pretty great solo stuff.

The list goes on and on for the legacy artists from past decades, but I have to admit that Jenny made a good point- the style of music I gravitate toward in newer artists is usually done by female vocalists. There are definitely exceptions, though, so here’s a list of five newer artists I’ve seen and enjoyed since I moved up to the DMV.

Jake Wesley Rogers – Rogers recently opened for Cyndi Lauper on part of her North American tour, but I saw him headline his own show at Union Stage, which holds about 250 people. He’s got a very dramatic style in the same mode as icons like Elton John and Lady Gaga.

Spencer Sutherland – Sutherland opened for Big Time Rush a few years ago, but I also saw him headline his own show at Union Stage. That place books some really great musicians.

Declan McKenna – McKenna is a British singer who first gained recognition for winning the Glastonbury Festival’s “emerging talent” competition with a protest song about the Fifa World Cup, and he makes bops that often have social commentary.

JP Saxe – Saxe is our first Canadian on this list, and his most well known song is a duet with Julia Michaels, but he’s got a few of his own albums out in the world.

Dermot Kennedy – Kennedy is Irish, and he started busking as a teenager, and was even asked to open for Glen Hansard at one point.

And that’s a wrap on five newer artists who have played shows here over the last few years. Because I am indecisive, here are two bonus artists to check out:

Marc Broussard – Broussard sings Bayou soul, which is a sort of funky Southern rock/blues type of music.

Daði Freyr – Finally, say hello to the most well known Icelandic singer who is not named Björk or Laufey. I first became aware of him when I was first learning about Eurovision while living in Germany.

Which of these lads is your new favorite?

It’s good to have (concert-going) goals.

On November 8, 2025November 8, 2025 By StevenIn Life At Home, Pop Culture7 Comments

I was looking back at one of the last posts I did in 2021, in which I talked about going to concerts and how the pandemic lock-down had shuttered so many that I had wanted to see. At the time of the post, January of 2021, Covid vaccines were only just starting to be distributed and concert venues had only just barely started to spin back up. In the post, I said,

I went to 28 ticketed shows in 2019. In 2020, I went to seven.

When I wrote the post, I was still five months away from the first new concerts after Covid, but I really went for it.

And when I say I really went for it, I mean I kind of… over-corrected from the lack of music in a massive way.

28 shows in 2019. Seven in 2020. In 2021, as things began to reopen and wake up, and concert venues checked vaccination status before you could go inside, I managed 43 shows.

After that, I really went off the rails. 177 shows in 2022. 179 in 2023. 158 in 2024. This year I’ve been trying to slow it down and be a little more selective, so I’m on track to only see about 125 shows this year.

:cough:

I realize now that in the four and a half year gap between regular posts and now, I probably could have talked a little bit about the music. I’m not a concert reviewer, and I have no desire to be one. There’s still a lot to say, though.

In the 2021 post, I talked about a not-really-very-short-list of artists that I had not managed to see, but really really wanted to. Now seems like as good a time as any to do a quick status check on that musical to-do list.

From the “I had a chance to see them, but circumstances kept me away from the show and I’m still mad about it” file:

• Betty Who – She played downtown Orlando and I was otherwise engaged.
• Ciel Gloss – She did a show in New York when I was there in December of 2019 and I couldn’t make it work.
• Imagine Dragons – I actually had tickets to this show, and was unable to go at the last minute.
• Mindy Gledhill – She played a Northern Virginia venue really close to here. I wasn’t here yet. Timing is everything.
• Kesha – This is another tour that was canceled by the pandemic.
• Janelle Monae – Another Orlando show that I am KICKING myself for not catching.

I’ve now seen ALL of them. Twice each for Kesha and Janelle Monae. I would still love to see Mindy Gledhill again.

From the “I deeply respect their artistry and I really really really wanna see them live despite all the hype!” file:

• Taylor Swift – Does Taylor Swift really need commentary from me?
• Mavis Staples – This woman is a badass and she’s toured vaguely near me a few times and I really should have just made the drive.
• P!nk – Pink is one of those shows that I really just should have ponied up the money to see when she played Orlando.
• Lorde – I wonder if she’ll ever tour outside of New Zealand again. Damn, I hope so.
• Carly Rae Jepsen – I actually saw her once, and the show was so good that I would absolutely see her again. If your opinion of her is based solely on “Call Me Maybe,” you should check out some of the other stuff on her five albums.

I’ve seen every single one of these now, and twice for Lorde. Three times for Carly Rae, because she’s a party.

For Taylor Swift, I took the train up to Philadelphia because that was the closest the Eras tour came to DC. Totally and completely worth it. The entire Amtrak train was full of Swifties, and it emptied out hilariously when we reached 30th Street Station.

From the “I learned about this artist after their last tour concluded and then a pandemic happened and now I want to see them live so badly it probably looks like I have to pee” file:

• Meg Myers – I was introduced to this artist by another friend, right after her tour in support of “Take Me To The Disco” ended. If I had a time machine…
• Grendel – This band has been around for 20+ years already, but I was unaware of them until just recently, and I love what I’m hearing.
• Marit Larsen – I’m not sure if Marit Larsen ever tours in North America- she’s from Norway and has mostly stuck around Europe and the Nordic countries. Maybe once it’s safe to fly long distances again.
• Kelsea Ballerini – She’s a much newer artist with one song that got plastered all over the radio, but I’ve listened to more of her stuff and she’d be a blast to see live.
• Ladyhawke – She’s another New Zealander, and I have no idea if she tours the US.
• Jackie Venson – I first saw Jackie Venson on Austin City Limits, and she kicks ass.

This list is the first one from the original post that still contains artists I haven’t seen live – the three of them who are based outside of the US: Marit Larsen, Grendel, and Ladyhawke.

From the others-

Jackie Venson was one of my 2021 shows, and the first artist I ever saw at Songbyrd Music Cafe in DC. Jackie came back to DC last month, but it was the same night as Gary Numan and that’s a hard choice.
I saw Meg Myers in DC, and her vocals are amazing but it was just her and a synth. I think she would have been better with a backing band.
Kelsea Ballerini was also a 2021 show and that show was, hilariously, the first of three times I accidentally saw the Jonas Brothers. Yes, I said accidentally. I have never deliberately set out to see the Jonas Brothers, but they keep bringing incredible opening artists who I really want to see, and, well, that’s how you wind up at a Jonas Brothers show without really intending to.

I think I really ought to make a new list of artists that I want to see but haven’t yet. In some cases, it’s really easy- No Doubt is doing a few shows at the Vegas Sphere in the new year, for example, and I’m gonna try to make it out there to see them because I never did in the 90s.

I had more to say about all of this, but I just spent thirty minutes trying to re-learn how to use WordPress block formatting after my four and a half year gap, and I’ve lost my original point in a haze of irritation at how non-intuitive the WordPress editor is. :flail:

I guess I’ll leave you with this, a band that I only just learned about yesterday, but I’ve already bought a ticket to their Spring tour because they’re kitschy and fun and amazing and I love them already. Here’s some Steam Powered Giraffe.

What’s the next concert you’re looking forward to seeing?

2004 Steven Was A Big Dummy

On January 6, 2021January 6, 2021 By StevenIn Pop Culture21 Comments

In April of 2004, I complained in a LiveJournal post that the $76.50 ticket price for a Prince concert was just too expensive. I was an idiot and a first-class buffoon. If I could time-travel, I would absolutely go on a tour of my stupid decisions, and I would repeatedly slap these younger stupid Stevens.

I did see Prince once, with Jade Walker and another friend. The year was 1997, and Prince was going by “The Artist” at the time. The show took place at the Miami Arena, a venue which has since been demolished and turned into a parking lot. The price for that ticket was a smidge over fifty bucks, and I would happily pay a much, much higher fee to see His Royal Purple Badness one more time.

I never had the chance to see David Bowie live. I didn’t really know how much I loved Queen until Freddie Mercury was already gone. I never saw Michael Jackson or George Michael. I missed Oingo Boingo’s touring days, although I did finally manage to see Danny Elfman in London.

Music is life. I say that so, so often on this blog, but it’s more than just a pithy slogan for me. Concerts are so much a part of my identity that I push through travel anxiety and a dislike of crowds to go to them over and over.

I went to 28 ticketed shows in 2019. In 2020, I went to seven.

Thanks to the pandemic, almost all the shows I wanted to see for the other nine months of last year were either canceled or postponed. It will be months before we can really do concerts again- there’s a sprinkling of new shows available at a few venues, but at greatly reduced capacity, and in a very different form than what I’m used to.

Now that vaccines are starting to be distributed, I’m more impatient than ever to get back to regular concert-going, and I have a not-really-very-short-list of artists that I would go far, far out of my way to see.

From the “I had a chance to see them, but circumstances kept me away from the show and I’m still mad about it” file:

Betty Who – She played downtown Orlando and I was otherwise engaged.
Ciel Gloss – She did a show in New York when I was there in December of 2019 and I couldn’t make it work.
Imagine Dragons – I actually had tickets to this show, and was unable to go at the last minute.
Mindy Gledhill – She played a Northern Virginia venue really close to here. I wasn’t here yet. Timing is everything.
Kesha – This is another tour that was canceled by the pandemic.
Janelle Monae – Another Orlando show that I am KICKING myself for not catching.

From the “I deeply respect their artistry and I really really really wanna see them live despite all the hype!” file:

Taylor Swift – Does Taylor Swift really need commentary from me?
Mavis Staples – This woman is a badass and she’s toured vaguely near me a few times and I really should have just made the drive.
P!nk – Pink is one of those shows that I really just should have ponied up the money to see when she played Orlando.
Lorde – I wonder if she’ll ever tour outside of New Zealand again. Damn, I hope so.
Carly Rae Jepsen – I actually saw her once, and the show was so good that I would absolutely see her again. If your opinion of her is based solely on “Call Me Maybe,” you should check out some of the other stuff on her five albums.

From the “I learned about this artist after their last tour concluded and then a pandemic happened and now I want to see them live so badly it probably looks like I have to pee” file:

Meg Myers – I was introduced to this artist by another friend, right after her tour in support of “Take Me To The Disco” ended. If I had a time machine…
Grendel – This band has been around for 20+ years already, but I was unaware of them until just recently, and I love what I’m hearing.
Marit Larsen – I’m not sure if Marit Larsen ever tours in North America- she’s from Norway and has mostly stuck around Europe and the Nordic countries. Maybe once it’s safe to fly long distances again.
Kelsea Ballerini – She’s a much newer artist with one song that got plastered all over the radio, but I’ve listened to more of her stuff and she’d be a blast to see live.
Ladyhawke – She’s another New Zealander, and I have no idea if she tours the US.
Jackie Venson – I first saw Jackie Venson on Austin City Limits, and she kicks ass.

I’m aware that most of the names above are in one particular genre of music, but I promise there’s other stuff on my radar. Don’t get me wrong- this is by no means a complete and unabridged list of who I want to see live- I’ve already got tickets to see eleven different shows later this year, and I’m watching carefully for announcements about others.

Music is life. And I miss living.

What concert do you most wish you’d seen when you had the chance?

2/52

Whamageddon Memorial

On December 24, 2020December 24, 2020 By StevenIn Pop Culture11 Comments

On the 24th of December, at 1:12 PM in the afternoon, I have ascended to Whamhalla. It’s my own fault, I suppose- I was listening to a Pandora holiday station, but I thought I was going to be safe because they were playing the likes of Tony Bennett and Gene Autry.

Good luck, my fellow Wham Warriors who are still in the game- just eleven hours remain on the East Coast!

#whamageddon

Whimsy. Tacos. The DMV.

Tag: music