Dying In Public

We went to see the train wreck that is Amy Winehouse last Saturday. Needless to say it was a blooming disaster, or rather, she was a blooming disaster.

Touts outside were selling tickets at over four times face value. Due to other stuff that was going on for us over the course of the day, we didn't turn up at the Hammersmith Apollo until near half nine which is the latest that I have ever turned up for for a gig, though I insisted to the other-half that this would not be too late, since her average from previous gigs was 45-60 mins late, I still worried if tonight would be an exception.

My worries were unfounded. As we waited to get our tickets scanned at the entrance, I could see loads of people at the bar beyond. She wasn't on yet. *phew*

Turns out she was due on at 9pm, so it's just as well for us that she was still locked in her hotel room refusing to leave when we arrived.

The place was rammed solid. We got ourselves some drinks, stood at the back and waited...and waited...and waited some more.

Each time a song from the music they were playing ended, the crowd started booing as a new one started up. I'm not sure what time the support finished but if it were around about half eight, then these people would have to have waited an hour and forty-five minutes for her to come on. No wonder they were booing!

And when she did arrive, we all thought that she might as well have stayed locked in that hotel room.

Taken as performance art, it wasn't too bad. Her impression of a washed up addict was first class.

She jiggled from side-to-side with strands of hair hanging out of her beehive and what looked like a tampon string dangling down the side of her dress. Fag hanging out the side of her mouth, she made noises during the first three songs that were in tune with the band with the occasional word or line thrown in for good measure.

Some people in the crowd booed. Some even cried.

I thought, well this is what we all came to see isn't it? A modern day Jim Morrison letting it all hang out in public. Except that she's only twenty four and hasn't lived at all and here we were watching her die already.

She did get a bit less worse during the middle stint of the gig though. I thought that her ska and calypso songs covers went down well. Some still booed but then that's probably what they were there to do. Perhaps they'd got lost on the way to the last Big Brother eviction night and ended up here instead?

Well, if pantomime is what they wanted, then they'd be happy.

Amy wandered off randomly in between and sometimes during songs leaving her main backing singer to introduce the band and then finally departed mid-way through her last song, "Valerie", leaving the band to finish it, and us to look on bemused, feeling cheated out of a good fifty quid.

The record company of, course, won't refund unless the gig had been cancelled.

Which is what it should have been. Thanks a million!