The Hunt for Placebo

and finding much more...

 

I had these ambitious plans to write up a step-by-step account of my trip to England but once I started it I realized that 1) it would be hellishly long, 2) it would be hellishly boring to anyone who wasn't there, and 3) it would be hellish to write, 'cause I tried and it *was*.

Therefore, you're getting the very condensed version. Just the highlights, without any witty observations, which I couldn't think up, anyway. Short and sweet. Just like Netia, lol.

Netia, btw, designed my first website, The Lure of the Ring, so there's a bit of history there. She and her husband Rob graciously invited me to stay with them during my visit, and in fact became my tour guides for everything. They pretty much put their lives on hold for me and considering they run their own business *and* have four young, very energetic children, that's no small thing. I'm indebted to them for their kindness and generosity. They showed me an incredible, memorable time.

On with pics and stuff...

Rob and Netia live in this beautiful, old mansion in a small, charming village. They live across the street from a pub called The Wheatsheaf, which I just love. Their house is incredibly old and yet it's in marvelous condition. Never drafty, all the gorgeous old wood flooring in great shape.

This is the view from my window. The yard is their's. There's a river running behind the property. Next door is a bit more modern with a pool and tennis court. I prefer Netia's backyard. Her children play soccer -- excuse me, *football* -- back there. I'm used to desert landscaping since we're in a drought in Las Vegas so all this greenery is like heaven to me.

This is the remains of the Tichfield Abbey. It blew my mind that this huge thing is just sitting there, unmolested. No one else was even there when we first got there. No kids playing in it; no tourists. It would have been a beautiful place for a picnic. The outside walls are intact (most of them, anyway). You go inside and you're in this empty stone building and you can see crumbling stairs and even the second floor, though there's no way to get up there unless you rock climb. I rock climb, so the thought did cross my mind.

The interior of the abbey. Cool, huh?

All these niches leading to rooms with crosses cut out of the windows. It was very interesting and made you try to imagine what it must have been like with all the walls and doors intact.

I had to overexpose this since the lighting was behind me. Here I am posing at this freezing body of water after we picked up Netia's boys, Henry, Freddie and Guy. Freddie (I think he's 11) gave me a shell from the beach. To the right of this picture are houses and an inlet. Lots of cranes, which I'd never seen outside of a zoo. Lots of yellow daffodils. I posted this picture to show you how good I am at disguising the fact that I'm nearly hypothermic. It's *freezing*! And windy, which is particularly annoying to someone with long hair because your hair literally gets tied in knots.

I'll be whining like this throughout, so be warned...

I can't remember if it was this same day or later, but Netia and Rob took me to Winchester. We went shopping; I bought some crystal and herb books at The Speaking Tree, a mystical bookstore that's supposedly located on the convergence of powerful 'lay lines'. I don't really believe in all that stuff, but I can go along with it for the fun of it. We stopped in a store called The Stinky Fish and I bought some crazy oversized pants with straps and rivets and safety pins all over them. They're so heavy I'll only be able to wear them in Las Vegas in the winter. Also bought a patchwork jacket and some goth makeup. What the hell, I'll try goth.

Here I am as we're waiting to board the London Eye, which is a giant ferris wheel that overlooks the Thames River. Behind me is Big Ben and the Parliament. Check out my newly purchased New Rock boots. Friggin' expensive, but worth every penny :)

Now with Netia.

Here's Netia and Rob in front of the Eye. They're so cute together :)

Lots of people can fit into these cannister things. You have to make a reservation for your "flight". It moved very slowly, so it wasn't scary for anyone afraid of heights.

Amazing, complete view of London.

It was a nice sunny day while we were in London. It's extremely noisy walking along the city streets and parking is surprisingly scarce. I expected each hotel to have its own parking or even *close* parking -- even San Francisco has that -- but no, we had to park at a garage something like five blocks from our hotel. Poor Rob was in charge of bringing our luggage to the hotel, but he lucked out and hailed a cab just outside the parking garage.

The hotel reminded me of the hotel I stayed in in Paris. The Paris hotel cost me $67 dollars. This one cost me $120. It's bathroom was smaller than the bathroom I shared with my brother on board the Alaskan cruiseship. If you were an oversized person, you'd be hanging out of the shower. Everything in it was plastic and instead of a handle for the toilet, you had to push this big plastic plate in the wall. My fondest memory of this hotel is that I requested a wake-up call from the front desk for 7:30 am and was instead awakened by Netia and Rob knocking on my door at 9 asking if I was ready to go. Lovely.

Because I'm a tourist, I took a pic of the bathroom. The toilet's in the lower left. That's the shower curtain on the right. You can see the doorway in the foreground. And that's it, lol. It cracked me up.

In London, the goal was to shop 'till we dropped. I nearly did. I'm from Vegas and no one walks anywhere. I'm not talking about the Strip where the casinos are, I mean where the locals live. The farthest I walk is twenty feet from my car to a restaurant or something. In England, you walk everywhere. I don't really have shoes to accomodate striding along, so of course I got this humongous blister on my heel. It was like, two inches wide and an inch tall -- all bloody and oozing. I was limping along like a gimp and Netia and Rob probably thought I was just lazy. Every night for about four nights I had to peel off my sock, which would become saturated with pus and blood and stick to me. Ewww. Tricia is not a power-walker.

Netia and I on the Tube. I liked taking the Tube and I liked taking cabs. No walking, lol. Notice my snazzy Placebo jacket. Also notice the pin on my backpack that I bought at the Stinky Fish. It reads: "Make Me Feel Cheap". Sadly, I didn't find anyone cute to do so.

At Camden Market, I spent the majority of my money. That had been my plan all along, so I was perversely pleased. Camden Market consists of a long street bracketed on either side by tons of alternative clothing shops. I was surprised at the lack of shops selling electronics and general crap. Most of the stuff was what I was there to buy, so I was thrilled. My favorites were Punkyfish, Black Rose and Cyberdog. Cyberdog was cool because it plays techno music and it's lit by UV lighting, so everything in there glows, just as it's supposed to. Las Vegas is sadly unadventurous when it comes to club clothes. Everyone shops at Charlotte Russe or Bebe. So when I go out, I always stand out, which is good. Still, I couldn't go *too* crazy with the cyber clothes, so I restrained myself and didn't go for the more outlandish stuff. It was fun to look at, though.

That night was the Placebo concert. Excited doesn't fully convey my feelings leading up to the event. This was the reason I was in England, blowing all my money. This was *it*.

We took a cab to Brixton, which is shady and seedy. Just perfect. Our plan was to get in line early so I could run to the stage lik a fan girl. There was a line already wrapped around the building when we got there, so that plan was nixed. The crowd was dressed mostly goth and was way younger than I'd anticipated. We're talking twelve year-olds here. That was a surprise. The line moved quickly, but once at the door I got my camera confiscated, which really sucked.

The Brixton Academy is beautiful and old. They kept the doors open or else had great air conditioning because it never got hot even though the place eventually filled up. The circulating air was a good thing because this was the first concert I'd been to where everyone was allowed to smoke. And being a European and English crowd, there was a lot of smoking going on.

A couple of boring bands opened. I wanted them to get off the stage. I'd managed to squeeze my way to about six feet back from the barricade, right in front of where I knew Brian would be singing. Also, this crowd was short. Maybe it was because they were all teenagers, but I was able to see over almost everyone. I was psyched. Netia and Rob had warned me about moshing, but Placebo has never struck me as the type of band to warrant moshing. It didn't make sense to me, so I kind of ignored them.

Then it started. I'll give you my honest assessment because I have to.

First, the bad:

Netia and Rob were wrong about the moshing. At least, the kind of moshing I'm used to, which is Linkin Park moshing where there's a pit and people are running at each other and slamming into each other. This was like English soccer human wave crushing. Everyone just got slowly smothered in undulating waves. It was pointless. My hair got caught behind me, so for the first two songs my head was pulled back at a forty-five degree angle. I finally couldn't take the pulsing crushing -- it was like being slowly killed by a boa constrictor -- and squeezed my way to the side of the crowd.

The Brian I've seen in videos and in interviews is a different person from the one who performs in concerts. I'd always gotten a sense of vulnerability and thoughtfulness from him in media, but on stage, I'm sorry, he's a total bitch. I'm sure it's part of his 'act', but I was surprised. He didn't act like anyone I'd want to know personally. There was a strange lack of connection with the audience; almost as if he didn't give a damn if they liked what he was doing -- he was going to do it anyway. I'm sure he's just feeding into the Brian Molko personna, but it was disappointing. There was a lot of attitude, not as much heart.

This was a strange performance. For one, I normally can't hear anything during a concert. Not myself as I'm singing, nor anyone around me. During the concert, not only could I hear myself, but I could hear people behind me having a conversation. I want my eardrums to bleed..

Also, there were a lot of pauses between songs when the crowd just waited awkwardly while the band changed instruments or fiddled with equipment. Once, Brian's guitar wasn't plugged in. Another time, he started singing into a microphone that wasn't hooked up so no sound come out. It wasn't a smooth performance at all. Oh, and English Summer Rain didn't sound very good live. Sorry.

Now that you Placebo diehards hate me, here's what I *loved* about the concert:

Steve and Stefan came out on stage. They looked normal. And then Brian came out . . . and it literally made me gasp. He looked like a beautifully made up doll. He had on lipstick, blush and tons of black eye makeup. His hair's a little longer, teased into spikes kinda reminding me of what he looked like in 'Taste in Men'. He was in all white -- jeans or maybe they were twill pants, T-shirt with a long-sleeved shirt underneath it. But it was his face that stunned me. He was so heavily made up, especially in comparison to his bandmates who looked like they were wearing nothing, that he looked unreal to me. Larger than life. Not in a bad way. In an incredible can't-stop-staring-at-him way. It was worth it just to see him up close like that. And when he looked out at the crowd, his eyes were just luminous. He is truly an amazing looking man.

His voice is just like it is on the albums. Strong and confident and wonderful. And of course his guitar playing rocked. I could do without the dancing, though. During 'Protect Me' he danced like Michael Stipe from R.E.M., which is funny. And on a side note, when Stefan dances, he dances really, really gay. The crowd appeared to love it, but I'll admit it made me cringe and laugh.

I give them a lot of credit for making themselves available to the crowd for pictures because they approached the edges of the stage on both sides, quite often. Damn my lack of camera!!! I could have great close-ups!

Netia had gotten a tip from a friend that if I wanted to catch the band for autographs I should duck out during the encores and wait by the stage door. I did, waiting in the cold and dark in seedy Brixton, only to find out from a security guard I tried to charm for info that the band was going directly to an afterparty to celebrate Stefan's birthday. So no autograph.

After the concert, I bought a shirt and a poster of Brian from someone selling them outside on the street. By that time, we'd all had coffee and nothing to eat, but nothing was open, so we returned to the hotel, starved and tired, but thinking of the concert.

It may sound like I didn't enjoy myself, but I honestly did. Being in the same room with Brian is electrical. I've since found someone on Ebay selling footage of that exact concert, so now I'll have a momento of the event. I'm curious to see if my impressions of the concert are the same after seeing the performance a second time. I have to remind myself that some of the best concerts I've seen were while I was under the influence of - ahem - fun things, but this time I was not, so that might have contributed to my nitpicking. I'll definitely be seeing them when they come to the US for their next tour, regardless. I *need* to see Brian again. Yes, I am a stalker.

So that was London. Mission accomplished.

Next day we were back home and I got to meet Niki, aka Mia V, who's drawing 'Revenge is Sweet'. She's so darling. She's like a transplanted Japanese girl. She dresses totally cute and can fill any silence with an interesting anecdote. I got the great fortune of looking through her portofolio and what impressed me most was not simply her obvious, impeccable talent (she draws without references), but the fact that she can draw several styles. Her portfolio looks like it's filled with work by twenty different artists but it's all hers. That impresses me a lot. Later, I met her fiancee, Chris, and he's just as personable and fun as she is. They make a great pair.

Niki and Netia at Avebury, which is a stone 'henge' like Stonehenge, only it's so big it surrounds the town of Avebury. Netia was very much into the 'feel' of the area. I think she's a wannabe Wiccan, lol. I'm glad she has access to such magical places.

Speaking of witchy-people, don't I look like one here? Check out the other stones leading off into the distance. They're all over the place. Just like the sheep patties. Ugh.

I just thought this was a cool pic. Those are all roots from these wonderful, winding trees.

Next stop was Stonehenge.

The obligatory Stonehenge pic. You can't tell from this picture, because I'm an excellent actress apparently, but it is f***ing freezing at this moment. The entire week I was in England, I was informed that the weather was surprisingly good and warm. I was lucky, I was told. Well, from someone who's acclimated to the weather in Las Vegas -- a *desert* -- it was ass-freezingly cold. I was shivering. My fingertips were blue. Right here at Stonehenge, the wind is gusting around and it's dark and gloomy. It ended up raining just as we made it back to the car. It was a pity, because you're given little electronic devices that play information about the site. You pause at marked locations and the commentary changes accordingly. But I was so damned cold I couldn't stand in one place for longer than a minute. I made the circle around Stonehenge and thought hallelujah, let's go. I'm so bad. How did the druids do it, wearing their cloaks or robes or whatever? At night, that place would have been tortuously cold. Maybe I'm a wimp.

My last view of Stonehenge as it's starting to rain.

At the gift store I bought Honeybees -- lozenges that taste like honey, while Niki got her coveted fudge-- and then I bought a hot chocolate and a chocolate chip rock cake, which Niki joked was made from pieces of Stonehenge. Tasted pretty good...

The next day was rest day. We were wiped. Then after that was an excursion with the whole family on Saturday.

Here I am at the H.M.S. Victory. This was a cool experience, especially with 'Hadrian Ascending' in the back of my mind. It's one thing to see a ship on 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. To actually walk the deck and see all the rigging and the wood was wonderful. I wanted to take pics belowdecks but it wasn't allowed, which is a pity because they have everything set up just as if the crew were still on board: tables are set up for eating with wooden bowls and bone spoons (even some kind of hard biscuit that looked like something you'd clean your floor with); hammocks and chests contain the clothes and knickknacks the sailors would use (the hammocks looked surprisingly comfortable; not net, but thick cotton). The captain's quarters were particular nice. Lots of windows and leather, also large dining tables that seated 20, which surprised me. I was most impressed with the galley, which had a large wooden counter, a spit, stove and oven. They had tableus set up in the surgeon's office (vicious-looking surgical instruments), in the various stock rooms and officers' berths. It was very informative.

What nearly killed me, though, was how low the ceilings were. I'm 5'8" and I was practically bending at the waist the entire time. Sometimes I had to bend my knees, too, to clear the beams. A couple of times I wanted to say to hell with it and just drop down to hands and knees and start crawling. Finally emerging outside was something of a relief. My back was starting to hurt. Those guys must have been small back then.

Okay, I lied, I did get one pic belowdecks before I was yelled at by an old guy. This is the deck with all the canons (see them on their rolling platforms aimed at the windows?) On the left you can see one of the hammocks -- that canvas thing suspended by ropes.

The back of the ship, or aft. You can see the windows for the captain's quarters. It's just beautiful.

Sunday was another rest day. We went out to lunch with Niki and Chris. Oh, yeah, that was after Netia and I went to Fareham and got pierced. She got her belly button done and I got the top of my ear done. Looks good. I think I might be addicted to piercing now. I want to get one under my lip or a hoop on my lip, something like that. My mom will flip.

Anyway, had lunch, but by now I'm sick. At least I came down with it on the last day. Previous to all this (going backwards, sorry), Rob, Netia and I went down to the local graveyard.Wow, they just don't have graveyards like that in Vegas. Man, if I'd had access to that when I was a kid I would have had loads of fun.

Actual headstones. Cool.

Standing between two tombs. Netia said the groundskeepers had just cut back all the lovely ivy that was growing up over everything. I still thought it was beautiful. Some of the tombs are cracked open. It's wonderfully gothic. I would have worn a black skirt and peasant top for a more gothy feel, but *again*, it was freezing!

Isn't the background beautiful? Those are the windows of the abbey. And yes, we're sitting on a tomb.

Here's me with Rob in the doorway of the abbey. He's a great guy. I loved talking with him.

My last cool pic.

That's it. Netia and Rob braved rush hour traffic to drive me to Heathrow, which is horribly designed. My plane was an hour delayed, which gave me the opportunity to buy a Harrod's mug for my mom and for myself: cold medicine that didn't work. Nothing like mopping at a runny nose while on a 10 hour flight!

It was one of the best vacations I've ever had and I'm really hoping to get to return the favor for Netia and her family here in Vegas eventually. I know what a hassle and stress it is to have a visitor invade your life and need to be entertained. It was especially tough since they had their children to contend with. But they made me feel welcome and wanted and I honestly enjoyed myself tremendously. I'm indebted to them. Big hugs, Rob and Netia!

And to anyone considering visiting England, I highly recommend it. Despite the common buzz, the food is *not* terrible. The country is lush and ancient. The people are friendly and talkative. It's well worth the effort.

More pics here, courtesy of Netia

 

Tricia

April 7, 2004