I promise you I will learn from my mistakes...

i had a big, fat rufus quote for today's entry, out of respect for the wireless festival yesterday, but i just heard coldplay on the radio and i can't think of a more appropriate quote what's happened this week.

first, i must say that i have the greatest friends of all time here in london. so much drama caused by one seriously bad apple only proved how incredibly amazing the rest of the bunch is.

i'd had a feeling for a while that the wireless festival was going to be a small soap opera staring me, but i had no idea how the opera would play out. the eve of wireless, tuesday night, proved to be a nightmare of misunderstanding, miscommunication, and mistakes brought on by a shockingly-adolescent series of quasi-threatening text messages. at one point i couldn't help but marvel at the world we live in, what a wonderful technology text messages truly are... totally replaced the standard hate letter in the mail, or even the bitchy email that could potentially take days to be read. text messages: when you want your hatred to be conveyed instantly.

as i pub-hopped with helen and peej, the wine kept flowing and i grew increasingly unaware of the fact that i was being sucked into a world i didn't want to be a part of. i proved, once again, that i will always be my own worst enemy. jumping to conclusions and not taking people at their word.

it took a thunderstorm, a broken shoe, and a late-night phone call to wisconsin before i was able to see the complete and utter stupidity of the entire situation, and laugh at my own ability to over-react at all the wrong times. i mean, i really feel for people who are miserable, and i know that misery loves company, but bringing down other people for the sheer fun of it is just sad, and you need help.

anyway, paid the debt in blood, and washed my hands of the entire situation. got up wednesday, it was a beautiful day with just a trace of storm clouds. met up with the amazingly calm and rational michael in hyde park for some soul searching before we made our way over to the festival and partied all VIP-style. hehehe. james blunt was fantastic! can't wait til he tours in the states. keane and martha wainwright were great, as expected, but the star of the night was, of course, my boy rufus! :) love him. got to hear 'in my arms' with him and martha, great stuff. it rained off and on, during which michael and i would retire to the rain-free vip tent. hehehe.

went back to melrose for a late night meet up, where i was reassured and loved by the greatest group of friends you could ever have. tomasz and michael generously shared murphy with me in absence of brian.

will definitely have to think harder about people i chose to become close to, in the future. now it's time for damage control. so glad i had an amazing weekend, definitely helping me keep the faith!

~cfc

"Tears streaming down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears streaming down your face and I

Tears streaming down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face and I

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you"
~coldplay

you know how some people have magnetic personalities?

some weekends are so unbelievably fun, it's scary... :)

i feel like last friday was 4 billion years ago, and i'm so sad to be back at the office today, but at least it's a four day work week! yay, wireless festival!!

friday i left work and went home with every intention of pouting my life away, when nicola rang and started the party. white wine with south africans is always the best start to a weekend. michael met up with this, and we all made our way over to the walkabout in covent garden. several shots of tequila later i got word that a certain hottie from NYC was back to cause trouble, so i made my way over to a hotel suite bigger than my entire flat.... posh posh posh. good good times though. :)

saturday morning after trying to learn german from hilary duff (see below), i went home for a long winter's nap that just didn't seem long enough. headed up to central london for some dinner and margs with helen in leicester square, before going to our new favorite pub, the ball and bat. used my infinite power over the universe to give fate a little push, by introducing helen to the drummer of her dreams (hehehe), only to have less than stellar results... but there's always more time, says i. ;-)
saturday night was a crazy explosion of text messages, photography, and the dave matthews band, and i'm slightly scared about developing the pictures... sunday morning after saying goodbye to the case full of wellies, (read: galoshes for glastonbury) i went back home to PASS out. very sad.

sunday night was another pool party at melrose place. :) too much wine made me miss the last tube so it was another bus nightmare!! ugh! if only i weren't in boring ol' clapham where nobody ever wants to go!!! found out the party raged on til 3AM!! man oh man, these friends of mine, hehe.

~courtney

funniest quote of the weekend:
"the problem is, you and i have magnetic personalities...we obviously attract each other, but when magnets are turned inside out they repel other magnets... so when you and i are around people are just repelled by us because we're just too strong personalities. we could probably clear out entire rooms if we tried hard enough."
~ajl

zing zing

sad, but true, story:

lounging about one of london's super posh hotel rooms this morning, having one of those "do i want more sleep or should i just get up" moments so i flipped on the telly and what to my wondering eyes should appear???? the lizzie mcguire show!!!! i literally sat upright in the bed and went "YESSSSSSSSS!!!" :) :) :)

then i realized it was in german!!! so i layed back down with a "NOOooooo!!!" :( :( :(

note to self: get gitta to teach me german!

~cfc




ps - i watched it anyway. hehehe.

Trying to figure out this life...

ahhhh i've been sitting here all day completely (and happily) convinced that it's friday... when to my horror i just realized it's still THURSDAY! GROSS! IDIOTS!!!!!! go build me a cake or something...

well the big day is here for the DMB fan community. Red Rocks ticket requests begin tonight at 7pm EST. ahhhh the drama!! the horror!!! will we? won't we? how much fun is it to be totally in debt forever and ever???

sat in the park on my lunch break, eating a banana from the bottom up in memory of david, listening to the avril cd i borrowed from brian. (what can i say? it's an avril kind of day!) anyway, so "i'm with you" comes on and i nearly laughed myself silly remembering that fateful dante concert (featuring some guy... ben... folder? folded? folds? ... not sure)
anyway, yeah at the dante show an avril look-alike walked by and yusef and i serenaded her... ("i'm with YOUOOOUUUUUU!!!!!!") it was sooooo funny.
...and remembering all this made me realize i'll never find a man that makes me laugh the way yusef does... or takes care of me the way brian and tomasz do... or understand the theraputic realities of obession the way micah does... perhaps my b-o-i-z are stopping me from meeting a b-o-y by being too wonderful.... just a thought!

~courtney

"Wont you take me by the hand
take me somewhere new
I dont know who you are but
I... I'm with you"
~a.lavigne

it's tuesday!!! WOOOO!!

why is it only wednesday???? it should be at least friday, if not saturday.

i'm v. sad today as it is david's last day.... the peaceful warrior is moving on and i'm so upset to see him go!!! we all went out to lunch and everyone had wine except for me... think i had enough last night, hehehe.

this morning i learned that no amount of makeup can cover up a hangover. fab night though! not sure what exactly it is we were celebrating, but celebrate we did!!!

ahhhhh 10 people, 12 bottles of wine... you do the math!

ugh, too tired/hungover to write about damien. will do tomorrow!

red rocks red rocks red rocks!!!

~cfc

she broke down the other day you know

amazing show last night. much more on this tomorrow.

head spinning. big news.

~cfc


"there's always time
on my mind
so pass me by
i'll be fine
just give me time"
~d.rice

unplayed piano...

Happy Damien Rice Day!!!!

what a joyous day it is indeed! after one amazing weekend!! no one will ever understand the power of sunshine over my mood. truly remarkable.

after work on friday, martine and i went back to 'taste of london' and met up with gitta and chris. tried about 6 different types of vodka, including toffe and chocolate flavored (so good) and had lots more great food. headed back to melrose place to meet up with the gang for some patio drinks and i tried to make plans to have a pool installed so i can eventually push someone in it, (a la jane & sydney, hehe...)

anyway, saturday was another fabulously sunny day, spent in st. james park before rushing to the barfly to meet up with helen for the kubb show. £5 shows, classic! great night, got the setlist! thanks to helen's eagle eye and polite requests to the guitarist. :)

sunday was father's day, placed an early call to my dad and spent nearly an hour by the time all things were said and done. had a lot of planning to do for the big trip. headed back to melrose place for the weekly sunday family roast, this week courtesy of chef gitta... bruschetta, salad, pasta, ice cream... DELICIOUS! and, of course, lots of wine wine wine... even german wine for the german chef... but now, sadly, it really *IS* my turn... (quoth brian: "so what are you going to make? and no, pizza is NOT an option!!", ouch, there goes that idea!) lounged about the patio eating cherries in the sunshine... gitta got some great pics, hehehe.

and NOW :) :) :) best of ALLLLLLLLLLL it's DAMIEN RICE DAY!!!

just to clarify, the order of musical importance in my life is as follows:
1 - DMB
2 - Rufus Wainwright
3 - Damien Rice *tied w/* Ben Folds
(after this is just gets blurry depending on my mood)

Regardless.... CLEARLY... this is a big day for me!!!! Haven't seen damien since April '04 in NYC with d, m & y, so i am LOoooooOOOOoooong overdue. the palladium is actually just across the street from my office, so i moseyed on over during my lunch break and watched the gear being unloaded. until i noticed another girl doing the same thing and realized how sad i must look... hehehe. then i went to HMV and bought the new single 'unplayed piano' on both vinyl and cd... yes, i'm that serious. :)

don't hate me because i live in the most fabulous city in the world and amazing musicians play here on a daily basis,
courtney


"i've got nothing to hide
i've done nothing wrong
So why have i been here so long?"
~d. rice

martini? yes, please!

today i enjoyed an extended lunch break with my co-worker martine... we went to taste of london... (www.tasteoflondon.co.uk) and we're going back after work!!! WONDERFUL food and i got to meet 2 (apparently) very famous chefs. some italian dude and some chinese dude. gwen stefani was there walking around!! so weird. we each had 3 martinis on our lunch break and so the afternoon is DRAGGGGGGING by. But, i have a fabulous weekend ahead of me! and then damien rice next week!

and, best news of all, the trip is booked!!! watch out eastern europe, here come the caldwell sisters!!! :) :) :)

~cfc

"Oh what good is it to live with nothing left to give
Forget but not forgive, not loving all you see"
~coldplay

forgive me, for i am born to be what i must be...

Rainy rainy day here in london… perfect for my mood!!!

Ha, just kidding, I’m actually in a really good mood. Very tired. Over-rested, I think. That is, too much sleep this week. Damn Judges day on Monday screwed up my whole system… I can’t believe it’s just now Thursday. Can we say, longest week EVER? I feel like it’s the week before Christmas or my birthday…. I’m just TOOOOOO impatient for next week to get here already for all the Damien Rice excitement!!!! :) when you float like a cannonball…

I “splurged” yesterday and bought the james blunt import single for ‘beautiful’… (it was a whooping £1.99) and I was amused to hear that the edit changes ‘f*cking high’ to ‘flying high’… doesn’t really have the same effect if you ask me. I know I’m on the slowboat, but I’m finally getting into tom mcrae… don’t think he’s quite the “legend” that mr. d. rice is, but he’s pretty f’in good. Made the tube ride in this morning quite nice.

Just finished a nice jacket potato from café pronto on carnaby street. love jacket potatos!!! Who’d have thought this weird English thing could be so good? Also, have become quite addicted to mine & david’s morning prêt run. Love the pretzels!! Will def miss prêt when I return to the states, but have heard there are prets in NYC, one more reason to visit.

Tomorrow’s the taste of London in regent’s park!!! Everyday I love my co-worker Martine more and more and more…. She has the best connections to everything you’d ever need. Free tickets to taste of London? Just ask Martine!!! Next week we’ll be attending a conference for events managers, and we’ve reserved places in a seminar called ‘how to make the most of personality differences’ hahahahahaha, considering that we have the world’s biggest personality problem working two desks away, martine and I felt we could use some free advice. I know that I am not the easiest person in the world to deal with, but good lord! canadians suck! (j/k nadine)

They’re putting the pressure on more and more each day for me to make a decision about extending my stay here in London. Ahhh… can’t decide! I know I’m depressed beyond belief about leaving London, but I also know I can’t wait to see my cats and selected friends back in the states. Mostly my cats though… (no offense to my friends, but you guys aren’t nearly as cuddly…. Not that I’d want to cuddle with most of you anyway) I digress….

I cannot believe that it’s already June 16th. My return flight to the US is two months from tomorrow. I just want to reach out and grab the world to stop time from marching on, because I’m not ready to enter the next phase of my life, whatever that may be…and I’m loving London too much to have this phase end so quickly.

~cfc

"if songs could kill,
this one's for you..."
~tom mcrae

Rufus and I go together in certain ways...

the rufus in ireland pics are up! go here! Many thanks to the amazing Helen for fixing the money shot for me!!! :) more pics will be up soon, starting with the insanity of brian's BBQ.

had a great welcome home party last night with Brian and Tomasz!! it was better than christmas!! gifts galore!! :) :) :) went off to ciao bellA (thanks for catching that, gitta!)with the boyz, gitta, and michael.... for some wonderful italian and lemon shots to end things!

today's the day i find out the rest of my summer plans. how exciting but also how horribly scary. :)

~courtney

from the Chicago Sun-Times, June 3, 2005:
Last summer, Wainwright and Folds came together at the end of the show for a joint encore of George Michael's "Careless Whisper." What will they do together this year?

"I don't know," Folds admitted. "The other reason Rufus and I are great together is that we're both really lazy. The rehearsing, the sound checks -- he's actually worse than I am, and that's something. To get us to do anything other than sit in our dressing rooms is a challenge. Who knows what will happen?"

he's taking advantage of your passion...

I have survived! I can honestly say that, by all accounts, the 2005 Medical Futures Judges Day was a complete success!!! Martine and I had the entire day running smoooooooth as silk and I must say that I love this events management schtick! So fun!! Very high pressure and intense but a really good natural high from running around coordinating things. I arrived at the royal college just after 7AM and immediately forced into action. The judges and entrants started arriving around 9am, even though the nerds weren’t due til 9.30. I seriously don’t understand people that like to be early… such a waste of good sleeping time!!! Hahaha.

LOTS and LOTS of hot hot hot doctors!!! Can’t wait for the big awards night in November. I think once you make a certain salary, you can’t escape a certain amount of confidence, because these doctors were walking around like they knew just how hot they were. I had more than one doc comment on my accent and ask me where I was from and I was sooooooo tempted to say ‘I’m from DC, I’m nearly 25, and I’m single! By the way, I think I just sprained my ankle, care to take a look at it?… I’ll just hold on to your arm for support… Oh My! What big muscles you have!! And look how blue your eyes are!!!!’
heehee. I managed to restrain myself, however….

But by and large it was a great day. Martine (my UK hero) looked at me right around 10AM (the height of the chaos) and said ‘don’t you *dare* think about leaving me in august!!!’ hehe, yeah need to decide something pretty soon. Came home and COLLAPSED into bed and slept for nearly 12 hours straight. It’s so wonderful to look at your clock at 2am and realize you still have 6 hours of sleep!!

Helen, my other UK hero, managed to fix my pictures!!! Woo hoo!!! Putting the rufus wonderfulness up on the yahoo page today, hopefully!!! Yay!!!!!!

Brian and Tomasz are FINALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY back from south Africa!!!! I swear it felt like they were gone for 5 billion years. Michael did a wonderful job babysitting me and Murphy while the boys were away, but I’m pretty sure Murphy’s only slightly more excited than I am to have them back!

Went out to a wonderful Chinese meal with Gitta (who finally came back from Budapest!) and Michael Sunday night after my full work day… Gitta’s going to help me plan the german part of the big trip! :)

Got kubb coming up, then next week is damien rice, farrah, and then the rufus wainwright crew rolls back into town, hehehe.

I’m so depressed about the big entertainment news this morning... No, not the totally UN-shocking verdict... I’m talking about DESTINY’S CHILD!!! It’s like, whaaaa?? How could you girls do this to me??? Sooooo sad.

~courtney

"girl, you don't have to be hiding
don't you be ashamed to say he hurt you
I'm your girl, you're my girl, we're your girls,
want you to know that we love you..."
~d.c.

drinks drinks drinks

working an eight hour day on a sunday is horrible.
working an eight hour day on a sunday with a raging hangover is the worst.

thank goodness the madness ends tomorrow!

great weekend though! drank all the alcohol in london last night with vikki, and was prohibited from entering a gay club because we aren't lesbians. hilarious. got wayyyyyy too chatty over international waters before passing out. but at least i was able to disprove my nightmares of late by confirming that anthony j is, indeed, still alive and kicking in san diego. :)

more details to come!

~courtney

Both say that we never before have felt as recently...

last night i dreamt that i was at a ray lamontange show at mason in the concert hall. a lot of people i knew were in the audience including some of my professors from mason. i ended up sitting front row in a group of loveseat-type things next to one of my exboyfriends. (won't say which one... we'll call him 'the dj') ... when we first sit down i thought, "well i'd rather sit next to someone else but no big deal...." but then the show's getting ready to start and the dj begins kissing me and i tell him to stop b/c i'm not making out with him anywhere, much less in mason's concert hall but he won't stop... so i moved away from him and then he started kissing the back of my neck. i look around and realize that everyone is watching us, including ray lamontange on stage. so i literally punch him hard on the arm, call him a jackass, and leave the show.... i go outside and run into my cousin ashlie, (who for some reason apparently lives next door to the concert hall) and i tell her what happened and she invites me up to her apartment for a drink, only as i climb the staircase it gets smaller and smaller and i realize i have to go down to go up and i can hardly breathe.

WOAH. anyone good at analyzing dreams?

so anyway, if that isn't weird enough, i actually managed to get a seat on the Northern Line northbound service during peak commuting hours! BIZARRE!

in unrelated news, i managed to pry the coldplay album from my discman and put on some happy live DMB for a sunny day. :) gorge in august.... red rocks in september??? hmmmmm....

~courtney

"Recently I've been
All of content and dreaming I have been"
~dmb

That a song like this just might go down in history

fabulous phantom planet with an unpleasant dose of reality thrown in.

after work (looooong day, can't wait til the big event next monday is over!), i went down to the mean fiddler to meet up with the magnificent helen for the phantom planet show. decided to skip the first opening band to go have some food and white wine! :) finished an entire bottle by the time we realized it was we needed to hurry if we planned on catching any of farrah's set. (saw farrah when they opened for hanson in march... pure pop fun!)

all was good.... phantom planet ROCKS! meet three cute little boys, probably around age 15, that were sooooo intrigued with me when they realized i was american. hehe. quizzed me on my knowledge of p.planet, and what i thought of their albums... then they offered me weed. ha, precious lil darlings. sadly i had to turn them down, but it was the thoughy that counts.

then, during the encore break when i made the mistake of glancing down at my phone, and saw that i had missed a call from my mom. i was instantly worried, since she never ever calls me. i knew it was either jimi or my granddad. sure enough, checked the voicemail and granddad's in the hospital. (his blood pressure was way down so took him to the emergency room... ) it was almost literally my worst nightmare come true about being over here.

fortuneatly, he appears to be doing well. phoned him when i got home last night and he said he feels fine, enjoying a chance to flirt with cute nurses! :) still makes the distance seem massive.

~courtney

"Cause this whole world needs an Anthem
And I'm trying to put the words where they belong
Yeah this whole world needs an Anthem
And I'm hoping everyone will sing along"
~phantom planet

just say you'll wait... you'll wait for me

the new coldplay is really really good. much better than i'd expected! had to physically stop myself from dancing down regent street during my lunch break today... hehe. my brother scored 8th row to the nissan pavilion show. lucky bastard!

off to phantom planet tonight with helen!! yay! £10 shows are the best!

~courtney

"For you I'd wait, 'Til kingdom come
Until my days, my days are done
Say you'll come, and set me free
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me"
~coldplay

519

Sitting on the Victoria line (one of the underground train lines, aka the tube) this morning, like a chump, riding up to oxford circus when this woman sitting beside me turns to me and shows me this map she’s printed out and asks me if I can help her make sense of it. I look at the map and realize, I actually CAN help her make sense of it b/c it’s a map of the Royal College of Physicans…..!!! the very same place I have to be next Monday, the 13th. I had a really brief heart attack moment when I panicked thinking I’d entered the twilight zone and was actually supposed to be there today. But no… just another bizarre coincidence! It just weirds me out the most b/c I just borrowed ‘the davinci code’ from brian and apparently there is no such thing as a coincidence….. (cue: twilight zone theme song)

Anyway. Fabulous weekend! Had a great dinner Thursday night with the gang before brian and tomasz headed off to south Africa! This time Michael cooked and it was DELICIOUS! J I’m just afraid because at the rate we’re going, it will quickly be my turn to cook and that is dangerous ground…….

Friday was the big UEMO conference… my company hosted a debate Friday afternoon… UEMO is basically like the UN for healthcare in Europe… every country has a representative, and they’re all very very important people. The main room of the conference, where the debate was held, looked like an Olympic judging panel, with every third person wearing headphones that translated English into whatever language they speak. I’m about 99.9% sure I was the only American there… which was great when our debate started (the topic: obesity), and nearly ever single panellist started bashing Americans!!!! Not sure if everyone back home is aware or not, but Europe, especially the UK, is terrified of becoming like America…. Literally! We’re the fattest nation on the planet and we disgust just about everyone. They love to blame it all on mcdonalds and the fact that America worships the TV above all else. I was like, what about the fact that you guys get 40 billion more holidays than we do??? It’s easy to be active if you have every other Monday off from work. Oh well, couldn’t really argue too much. The most ironic part was that just outside the doors of the debate, in the hotel lobby, they served coffee, tea, and trays upon trays of King Sized Kit-Kats. Hahahaha. Now THAT’S healthy!

Friday night came home, placed the obligatory birthday phone call to Nadine…. Had a definite senior moment when I called Stacey thinking she’d be on her way to the DMB-Chicago show, only to find out that the show was the night before! Oops! Passed out like a champ before 10pm even!!! Too exhausted after a great week.

Saturday met up with Nicola and the amazing South African Crew!!! Dinner and drinking and a crazy round of 30 Seconds in Wimbledon before Nicola and I made the long march home to Earlsfield where we saw about 14 billion foxes running about. We stayed up late late late talking about family and boys and the vastly different situations we grew up in. I felt like a completely ignorant American as she told me about the circumstances in South Africa right now, and Zimbabwe. I just kept thinking about Americans…. “so much we take for granted….”

Sunday I headed up to Melrose Place (knolly’s house) to have traditional Sunday Roast with Michael and Phil, and Murphy!…. Sooooooo good! (and, now that phil has cooked, it’s getting REALLY close to my turn!!!! Yowza!) we talked nearly the entire day away, …life, love, sex, … the whole shebang. Raj made a late appearance…. And I think we went through 3 bottles of wine total! Not too shabby. I’m becoming obsessed with wine. (except red wine, that makes me loopy. – ironic then, that my favourite drink is also red, vodka & cran… I digress….) After dinner I stopped off at the computer lab on my way home and got a big smile from a chat to NYC. Hehe.

Anyway, big week ahead. Very stressful at work til the big event next Monday. Then it’s smooooooth sailing til concert festival season and the big trip!!!

~courtney

and I'm indifferent to the loss...

I am the happiest girl in the world! Wonderfully amazing show last night from Mr. Ben Folds at the Barbican. He is so amazing and will never stop being amazing. I was brought to tears over and over again… from laughing, of course…. (except for one time, even my cold, cold heart can’t escape the amazing-ness of ‘evaporated’… the words just hit too close to home… and I really wasn’t expecting to hear it.)

Went with my new friend mark from brian’s legendary BBQ… he is a true music lover and we had a fabulous time. He knows the barbican like the back of his hand and was happy to show me all around. I think I love the barbican… it’s very formal but at the same time really 80s-retro…. The grand hall is really formal… kind of like an indoor wolf trap…. ben created an impromptu song about the venue when ppl kept shouting at him to ‘rock this bitch’… the song was HILARIOUS!!!! All about how you can’t rock the barbican too hard because it’s nobody’s bitch. I *heart* ben. Seeing him is like a piece of home. I must say that the audiences in the UK are much more respectable than American audiences… and it still kinda weirds me out… especially at a show like ben folds where there’s so much audience participation required. But I’m also kind of afraid that I will get back to the states and be totally grossed out by how entirely obnoxious everyone is…. Oh well.

I really really really missed having my usual ben folds gang with me, ie micah, yusef, and sarah. I had to giggle to myself thinking about how different the show would be if the dream team was there to liven things up a bit. I really missed micah’s classic background peformance (“you were not the SAMEEEEE!!!”) hahaha.
Anyway, I’ve decided that since the UK is soooooooooo slack about people taking pictures at shows I’m just going to start stealing other people’s pictures from shows I attended. See the yahoo photo page (http://photos.yahoo.com/kourtanay) ....stole some london rufus, gavin and ben. Hopefully get some more before it’s over. Not to mention that I *still* haven’t gotten my pics from Dublin developed. Crikey!

Random outburst: you know, I came here with big dreams about meeting lots of hot men with hotter accents but it seems that the most interesting men I met here are Americans... Case in point, last night, met a hottie from LA waiting in line to get into ben… and he actually invited me to a show tonight… so weird. too bad i've already got a hot date with mr. wainwright on the BBC2... but, maybe American accents aren’t entirely horrible…. ;)

The set list was as follow:

In between days
Gone
Cooler Than You
Purple Haze (!!!!)
Jesusland
b*stard
Still Fighting It
Carrying Cathy
All U Can Eat
You to Thanks
Landed
Rock This (Barbican) Bitch ("The Barbican is NOT your bitch, it is a respectable place")
Zak and Sara
Bitches Aint Shit
Emaline (SOLO)
Evaporated (SOLO)
Army (SOLO)
Where's Summer B?
Rockin' the Suburbs
Annie Waits
Popcorn
LatePhilosophy
---------------------------------------
Encore
Not The Same
One Angry Dwarf

big hairy work event tomorrow... at least i'll be out of the office!

~courtney

“here I stand,
sad and free
I can't cry -
and I can't see
what I’ve done
oh god, what have I done?
and I poured my heart out
and I poured my heart out
it evaporated...”
~b.folds

If you say that I'm the one...

I love London and I don’t want to leave. The fact that I’m in such a terrific mood on a horribly gray day such as this indicates to me that I’m going to be devastated when it’s time to go back to the states. Whether that is August, December or even later, London is kind of becoming home! So weird!!

FANTASTIC evening last night! Sold some extra Ben Folds tix in Hammersmith before heading up to La Scala to meet Rebecca for gavin degraw! Sadly the third time was the charm and my luck ran out regarding free tickets, but we haggled with the tout (aka scalper) til we got tickets for just over face value. Made our way upstairs to the balcony and joined a group of kids reclining on comfy leather couches, which, I must say, is the best way to watch a show…. So comfortable. I pouted about having to pay for my tickets… when suddenly it occurred to me that my larger than life self-image has got to be knocked down a level!!! Hahah, so,,, thank you scala, for bringing a bit of reality into my life!!! A british band named Kubb opened up, they were really good. Must find out more about them….. Gavin played most of ‘chariot’ and a lot of new ones. Out of the new ones I think I’d only heard ‘cop stop’ before. But they were all really really good.

during 'just friends' i couldn't help but think of the spring of 2003 when i was working at FYE in hoodbridge and listening to the gavin sampler in the dave-mobile.... closing the store every friday in a big hurry to meet courtney s & crew at the o'tools in centreville... even though yusef was always yelling at me not to go there anymore... driving with one hand on the wheel and the other hand on my mobile wondering if this would be the day my car finally collapsed trying to make it up the massive hill in occoquan... good times. i miss the original dave-mobile more than anyone will ever understand!!! haha.

but anyway....
*sigh* why do I love gavin degraw? Let me count the ways…..
#1 – he never fails to impress… quoth Rebecca post-show “wow i am so glad we paid to get in! I did not expect to like him so much!”
#2 – he never fails to recognize me and give me the most amazing hugs ever…. quoth gavin “hey!!! It’s so great to see you again!!!” hehehe.

…. Actually 2 reasons are all I have right now, but in my book, that’s enough. Great night!!!

Tonight is ben folds at the barbican. Never been there before so I’m looking forward to a new venue in my life. Ha.

And best news of all…. Live Aid 8 in Hyde Park!!!! Possibly fulfilling my life long dream of seeing The Madonna????? Hmmm….

~courtney

"I've had other options too
But all I want is you"
~g.degraw