London calling - AMY, AMY, AMY
After months of excitement, Joe Fountain turns up to see Amy Winehouse play live
You have no idea of how upset I am this morning. I had been looking forward to last night since December, when I bought the tickets straight after downloading Amy Winehouse's (then) new album Back to Black. Not only was I really looking forward to seeing her perform live - because I think she is a really great artiste - I was even quite excited about coming home straight after and writing my weekly contribution about her. For once, I thought, I won't have to spend a sleepless Thursday night tossing and turning, thinking up opening sentences.
I thought I'd be getting back home on such a high, the words would just flow out. I even took a camera with me - even though nowadays photography is not allowed (though that doesn't stop everyone from using the cameras in their mobiles).
And then she cancelled!
It was only when I got home later - having had a couple of glasses of wine at the pub which are making my head a bit fuzzy this morning (oh where have the days of a bottle of vodka and no hangover gone?) - that I found that at exactly 6.08 p.m. - just after I'd left work, and less than an hour before the theatre doors were supposed to open - I'd received an e-mail from the company I'd bought the tickets from, informing me that "due to unforeseen circumstances" the performance had been moved to April 16. As it were, I found out after a 50-minute bus ride from Chelsea to Sheperd's Bush, which should take no more than 20 minutes under normal circumstances. This is when I really miss the old Routemasters. You can't jump on and off the back of these new ones anymore. It's very frustrating.
This is not the first time Miss Winehouse has done this. Last January she played G.A.Y. and left the stage after one song because she was "not feeling well". The story doing the rounds later was that she'd had a bit too much to drink and had not been able to perform. Some said she even threw up on stage, although a friend who was there says that never happened.
The joke outside the theatre last night was that Amy had followed Robbie Williams into rehab - the reference, of course, being to the first hit from the album - which I am sure most of you are familiar with by now (if you're not, I suggest you get your hands on the album ASAP). "She's probably in the pub next door," (to the theatre), I heard a woman tell her friend upon being notified by the theatre staff about the cancellation. "In a heap, on the floor!"
Yet none of this makes us like Amy any less than we did before. How can you? When faced with a creature of such an extraordinary appearance, gifted with such a spectacular talent? All you have to do is look at Winehouse and you're hooked - the tattoos, the beehive, the heavily kohled eyes. Once she opens her mouth - instantly sweeping away every dull as dishwater Dido and Natasha Bedingfield - you're in there deeper. You can't help but love her for being such a bad girl.
Luckily for me, I'll be arriving from (another) weekend in Barcelona the day before the rescheduled performance - unlike my friend, who's birthday present this was, who is going to fly back in on the night (It's worked out well for him anyway, he gets a ticket to George Michael at Wembley instead). I'm not going to get too excited about it though, because with Miss Winehouse, you never really know it's happened until it's all over.
I thought I'd be getting back home on such a high, the words would just flow out. I even took a camera with me - even though nowadays photography is not allowed (though that doesn't stop everyone from using the cameras in their mobiles).
And then she cancelled!
It was only when I got home later - having had a couple of glasses of wine at the pub which are making my head a bit fuzzy this morning (oh where have the days of a bottle of vodka and no hangover gone?) - that I found that at exactly 6.08 p.m. - just after I'd left work, and less than an hour before the theatre doors were supposed to open - I'd received an e-mail from the company I'd bought the tickets from, informing me that "due to unforeseen circumstances" the performance had been moved to April 16. As it were, I found out after a 50-minute bus ride from Chelsea to Sheperd's Bush, which should take no more than 20 minutes under normal circumstances. This is when I really miss the old Routemasters. You can't jump on and off the back of these new ones anymore. It's very frustrating.
This is not the first time Miss Winehouse has done this. Last January she played G.A.Y. and left the stage after one song because she was "not feeling well". The story doing the rounds later was that she'd had a bit too much to drink and had not been able to perform. Some said she even threw up on stage, although a friend who was there says that never happened.
The joke outside the theatre last night was that Amy had followed Robbie Williams into rehab - the reference, of course, being to the first hit from the album - which I am sure most of you are familiar with by now (if you're not, I suggest you get your hands on the album ASAP). "She's probably in the pub next door," (to the theatre), I heard a woman tell her friend upon being notified by the theatre staff about the cancellation. "In a heap, on the floor!"
Yet none of this makes us like Amy any less than we did before. How can you? When faced with a creature of such an extraordinary appearance, gifted with such a spectacular talent? All you have to do is look at Winehouse and you're hooked - the tattoos, the beehive, the heavily kohled eyes. Once she opens her mouth - instantly sweeping away every dull as dishwater Dido and Natasha Bedingfield - you're in there deeper. You can't help but love her for being such a bad girl.
Luckily for me, I'll be arriving from (another) weekend in Barcelona the day before the rescheduled performance - unlike my friend, who's birthday present this was, who is going to fly back in on the night (It's worked out well for him anyway, he gets a ticket to George Michael at Wembley instead). I'm not going to get too excited about it though, because with Miss Winehouse, you never really know it's happened until it's all over.