Covent Garden and Brad Paisley

We were planning to meet Jennifer for breakfast on Saturday morning but sadly Ben was unwell so she quite rightly stayed at home to look after him. Our Dad used to say “Look after those boys!” So he would definitely have approved. So we had breakfast with Cat at Pret A Manger in Paternoster Square before heading across the river to the Tate Modern. I wanted to see the current exhibit in the Turbine hall, which is Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus fountain. It’s supposed to satirise the colonial era fountains and monuments which are to be found in London by exploring the underlying slavery and racism. Hmmm, very worthy I’m sure, but I would have been more impressed if it had been more detailed and carved more skilfully. It could have been so much better if she had spent more time on it.
Off we then set for a rather rainy riverside walk along to Covent Garden where we had lunch in the old fruit market while listening to classical musicians and visited Stanford’s bookshop where James had a voucher to spend. It was lovely to wander around Covent Garden together.
Our big event of the evening was to see Brad Paisley at the O2 arena. It’s years since we have been to a concert there and we thought that there were more eateries than we remembered. The place was hoaching but luckily we had booked a table in Las Iguanas where we had a tasty meal. I loved the concert. James isn’t so keen on Country Music and naughtily insisted on calling Brad Paisley by the wrong name; Deke Stetson and Dwayne Spurs are only two of the many names he made up. But it was good-natured of him to come along with me and although he declared that “all the songs were the same” (this was not true by the way!) he admitted that Brad was a good showman, which he definitely was. Brad has a great voice, I love his music, and he was so enthusiastic and chatted to the audience about how much he loved being in the UK. We were treated to “Brad’s Magic Kiss Cam” which was great fun and he had good banter with his excellent support act, Chris Lane, who came on again to sing a song with him. Then towards the end of the concert Brad told us that he wanted to give us value for money, and said “Here is my buddy Keith Urban!” And sure enough Keith Urban came leaping up onto the stage and they played about four songs together. It was tremendous. The audience were all very excited by this, including me, however James remained unmoved and asked, “Is Keith Urban one of Midland?“ which I’m sure he knew fine well was not the case! It was a great evening.