The LeBon Factor!

I put off writing this blog this morning until I could find a way to write it with humor.  That’s how I tend to deal with the most stressful of situations, with humor.  Otherwise, well…I’d cry.  Or rock in a corner.  Or bite my nails off.  (the last two I’ve already kind of done this morning….)

So by now every Duranie around knows that Simon has laryngitis.  Not fun.  I’ve lost my voice more than once over the years, and nothing pisses me off more than opening my mouth to yell at my kids and not having anything come out.  Conversely, I’ve never seen children have such joy as I did the first time that happened.  Oh how I love being a parent sometimes.  Brings you right back down to Planet Earth every time, doesn’t it?  I digress… So far the band has canceled Newcastle, and today they canceled Glasgow.  (I should mention here that they plan to reschedule both of those dates, and an announcement should be made for them in the next day or two)  The question now becomes: how long will Simon be out?

That IS the question, isn’t it?

Before I go into the insanity that took place here this morning as Amanda and I moved through the 7 stages of grief during ONE phone call, I’d like to give a brief commentary on the fan community at large and how they handled the news.  As is typical, there seems to be at least two factions of Duranies.  Those that believe the news for what it is, and those that do not.  The first group believes that Simon really is sick.  Those within that group recognize that this kind of thing does happen, and that it’s not really his fault.  They might be disappointed about the loss of shows, but ever the optimists and positive thinkers – they remind everyone of what is really important here.  The second group thinks that the band and their management are completely full of it, to be honest.  This is all about ticket sales or the lack thereof.  Some within that group are able to pull ticket sale numbers out of what I believe to be complete and total THIN AIR.  It’s really amazing! (unless you are willing to tell me on a message board how you know exactly how many tickets are left for a venue, I don’t wanna hear it.  Give me a BREAK people.)  It’s not that I don’t doubt that shows are canceled due to lack of sales – I know for sure that there are.  During my short stint working for a couple of local bands, I learned a lot about what goes on behind the stage curtain, and a lot of it isn’t pretty at all.  A lot of it IS business, and it sucks – and yes, a band member will do whatever management TELLS them to do.  It’s life, and it’s what they signed on for and get paid the “big bucks” (HA!) to do.  I just think it’s pretty chicken s**t to go around spouting senseless numbers, and then when someone asks for the source of the information, it’s a big secret and the question is politely ignored. It’s not that I don’t believe the numbers exist, it’s that I want to know where they can be found!  Regardless of where one sides on the issue, there’s no argument that a lot of fans out there have had better weeks lately.

As for Daily Duranie, let’s just say this tour has presented more than it’s fair share of issues and obstacles.  One might even say that there’s been enough roadblocks that should have completely deterred us by now.  We motor on.  Stupid?  Nah.  Insane?  Probably.  I’ve done a lot of rocking back and forth today, that is for sure.  It’s only 10:20 am my time, but I’m really thinking it’s time for a stiff drink.  We’re no different than any other fan though.  We planned for these shows, and hell yeah – we’re disappointed that shows are being canceled.  In our case, they aren’t OUR shows.  Yet.  We arrive on Saturday for Birmingham.  We have 4th row center seats.  I’m hoping to be screaming for Dom and Roger (and John and Nick of course!) …and maybe even that LeBon guy if he smiles the right way.  I still have great hope.

There was talk this morning about canceling the whole thing.  My writing partner has quite a bit more on the line for this than I do – I don’t work, my time off is *always* unpaid (as is my time ON, for that matter), and I have a husband to back me up.  That’s not the case with her, and as such she has to consider her options.  We started off with shock and denial “there’s no WAY they’d cancel shows, are you kidding?”, moved on to pain & guilt: “why did we do this to ourselves – we could have just waited for them to come here!”, next came anger “Those BASTARDS.  Don’t they know they owe it to us to do the damn shows after everything we’ve been through!” (yes, we really do call them bastards at times.  Sorry.  Imagine what I must call my husband sometimes through my bared teeth and under my breath!!),  then the depression sunk in more, “You know, this was our only real chance to see them in the homeland.  We probably won’t have another opportunity.  It’s never going to happen for us.” Then suddenly we started to think about just going to the UK and making the best of it.  After all, without shows, should that happen, we’d have some extra time on our hands to explore.  That’s called “the upturn”.  With that, Amanda and I started thinking about what alternatives we could come up with – including throwing out ideas of how they could reschedule the shows so that we could make them, or devising a plan to head to Berlin (assuming Simon is well by then)!  It’s reconstruction and creativity at it’s finest.  Finally, we came to acceptance and hope.  We both realize there’s a good chance Simon will not be well by Saturday, and if that happens – we’re taking a field trip to John Taylor’s manor.  We’ll hang with the peacocks.  (Yes I’m kidding.  There’s no reason to call the guards, John.  We’d get very, VERY lost before we’d ever even make it, so no worries. 😀  However, if you see two slightly disheveled, seemingly American girls wandering a road somewhere in England….)  We’re hoping Simon gets better very soon though, because let’s be honest – the whole reason we planned this trip was to see the band and meet fellow fans.  We could still meet (and WILL still meet) fellow fans, but without the band it wouldn’t be the same.  We need some shows!  🙂   Yes my friends, this occurred all in one simple phone call.  Amanda and I rock that way.

So, we have hope.  We accept the fact that this trip is a gamble.  We also believe that we’re going to do whatever needs to be done in order to insure that we’re going to have a good time.

We also hope that Simon is on some fabulous meds, that Cecil continues to take good care of him (what dog tweets at what must be 3 and 4am UK time???), that John doesn’t let my bad attempt at humor stop him from tweeting, that Dom sees us in the audience at these upcoming shows, and we all have a great time at our meet ups!

Two more days.  BTW – I’m almost packed!  I fit everything into a suitcase much smaller than I’d thought, and I’m under the weight limit by about 20 pounds right now. (that will change as I remember more of what I have to take!)

-R