[186/365] Janelle! (and barefeet)
Jul. 5th, 2019 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguist"This is going to be a funny story soon, isn't it," I told diffrentcolours as Issat in a taxi with my shoes in my bag instead of on my feet.
"Yep," he said. "Once you've had some sleep."
I have, and it is. Now I can say with confidence that seeing Janelle Monáe was so good that even having to come home barefoot couldn't ruin it.
I wanted an excuse to wear the cute knee-high boots he'd gotten me. So I'd worn them with some shorts that need tights under them, and had a great time at the gig (with the exception of getting told at security I couldn't take my bag in; it didn't have anything objectionable in it but it was Too Big, despite being the same size as other bags I saw inside, so I had to queue and pay at a nearby hotel reception to check the bag; fucking security theater).
We learned that Strongbow Dark Fruits is indeed just cider and black but apparently slightly worse (I'm having to takediffrentcolours's word for that as I think anything blackcurrant-related is inedible anyway.) There's a cute selfie of us specifically angled to show my boots -- good thing too as it was practically the last thing I did in them! We found seats at the top of the grassy bank furthest back from the stag. There was a row of trees there so it wasn't that grassy and was more twiggy but it was still nice to have a seat and stil have a view.
The first song is one of my favorites, "Crazy Classic Life," and it was pretty funny to hear the qoute from the Declaration of Independence on the fourth of July. I heard a bunch of my favorites, as well as a bunch I don't know because I'm not as familiar with Janelle Monáe's back catalogue as I clearly should be. Her backing musicians were really impressive -- I'm sure the dancing and visual stuff was too but I am the worst person to ask about that!
As always, I loved her fierceness and her love for groups that never get enough. She specifically mentioned trans women, then black queer women. She said "We have to fight for people in the LGBTQIA+ community. We have to fight for reproductive rights. We have to fight for immigrants. We have to fight for disabled people. We have to fight for lower class people in working areas." And then, "We have to impeach Donald Trump."
She'd already told us that she wanted this gig to be something we could remember "on your dark days, and your happy days." She said, "I -- we -- want this to be something you remember and tell people about, because that's how we live on." It was a magical evening, listening to "Pynk" as the sun was going down, people waving at trains that went along the bridge over our heads to our left.
Though another annoying thing is that there weren't nearly as many disabled people there as there coulud've been. I know of three wheelchair users who wanted to go but didn't get tickets in time. And since the "accessible viewing area" was just an arbitrary fenced-off bit, it could've easily been fenced off bigger and offered more reliable seating for ambulatory people too -- a friend told me about someone who'd bought a disabled ticket because they need to sit and before the gig had been told there weren't enough seats for everybody and they couldn't be guaranteed one. Really disappointing at a concert of one of the few (as far as I know) non-disabled people to specficially mention disabled people in her list of who needs to be fought for; disability justice is often overlooked by many people committed to racial, LGBT+, or other kinds of justice. Though I know she isn't responsible for the provision of accessible tickets personally, of course, it's a shame that people who I know would really enjoy the concert weren't able to go and hear her standing up for them.
Finally it got dark and near the end of the gig I noticed someone awkwardly scuttling down the hill in front of us, which was quite steep in places and really full of people you wouldn't want to crash into. I realized that going up the hill in the first place had been totally unremarkable, at the perfectly-well-lit time of seven-thirty, but going down it at ten-thirty in the dark didn't sound like something I was going to be very good at.
When the time came and I finally had to stand up, this is when the shoe malfunction got noticed. The sole of the left shoe had come almost completely unglued! It was just hanging on by the toe. It'd have been hard enough to walk on flat ground like that, but the shoes suddenly became an absolute hindrance in getting down the hill. Nothing for it but to take them off. Thendiffrentcolours held my boots in one hand, and I grabbed his other arm, and skittered down the hill that way. (In some ways it was actually easier for me because I could feel everything under my feet, whereas the one downside of platform boots is that I don't get any of that tactile feedback I'm used to while I'm walking, esepecially useful on such an uneven surface as this steep hill.)
During the process of us discovering this problem, me getting the boots off, and us figuring out how to get me out of there, we must've been harried along by three or four of the event staff, all of whom nagged us to get out of there, none of whom seemed to notice the white cane I was now using or the fact that I was taking off and then not wearing my damn boots. I was severely unimpressed with that too; I know they have a job to do and it's in everyone's best interests for us all to fuck off, but part of getting everyone out of there should be offering help or at the very least patience to people who very obviously look like they need it.
I'd have been okay then if I could leave but we had to stand in a big queue of people who needed their bags back (almost all women, which made me even more annoyed at the gendered nature of "no bags unless we say" discrimination because women are so much more likely to need a bag because clothes for them almost never have useful pockets). Then I had to stand in an even longer queue for the toilets. Lots of women were going in the men's (to the point there was even a queue in there, and while it was two or three people rather than curling out the door and down the hallway like the other queue, the men were really grumpy! bless them). I considered it but having heard stories about men's loos and seeing what the gender-neutral ones at my uni are like, I was not about to go get strangers' piss on my tights.
By the time I got out of the loo,diffrentcolours had retrieved my bag and put my useless boots in them (totally vindicating the presence of my apparently freakishly large bag!) and asked the hotel to call us a minicab because the other option for getting home was me walking across the city centre with no shoes on.
It was in the cab on the way home that I told him I could already tell this was all going to be a funny story one day.
It's also a story about how I'm proud of myself though, and grateul fordiffrentcolours who was very good at managing me when my anxiety threatened to overflow, first about having to go without my bag and having been treated with some hostility by the staff who told me that, and then about the shoes. Both things left me unsettled and feeling vulnerable. And I felt like I'd been a lot of extra effort and cost for him (he paid for bag-check and the taxi). But I knew that was nonsense and D was calm and reassuring when I told him all this, which I knew he would be but it still helped to hear. In a silly way, I felt bad about the boots because he'd bought them for me, as if I'd neglected or misused them and thereby disrespected the gift, when obviously I hadn't done anything wrong and it's not my fault they fell apart the first time I wore them further than my own house. Brains are weird.
While I was a little rattled when I got home and went to the unusual step of asking Andrew to make me tea before I went to bed, I had managed to fend off an anxiety attack or two which I was really proud of. (Not to say that having anxiety attacks is something to be ashamed of, but my mental health has really been at a low ebb lately so any sucessful management of it feels like an extra-big deal, is all.)
I am glad I can now say that I had the most fun you can have while feeling entirely too much of Manchester under your feet.
diffrentcolours as Issat in a taxi with my shoes in my bag instead of on my feet. "Yep," he said. "Once you've had some sleep."
I have, and it is. Now I can say with confidence that seeing Janelle Monáe was so good that even having to come home barefoot couldn't ruin it.
I wanted an excuse to wear the cute knee-high boots he'd gotten me. So I'd worn them with some shorts that need tights under them, and had a great time at the gig (with the exception of getting told at security I couldn't take my bag in; it didn't have anything objectionable in it but it was Too Big, despite being the same size as other bags I saw inside, so I had to queue and pay at a nearby hotel reception to check the bag; fucking security theater).
We learned that Strongbow Dark Fruits is indeed just cider and black but apparently slightly worse (I'm having to take
diffrentcolours's word for that as I think anything blackcurrant-related is inedible anyway.) There's a cute selfie of us specifically angled to show my boots -- good thing too as it was practically the last thing I did in them! We found seats at the top of the grassy bank furthest back from the stag. There was a row of trees there so it wasn't that grassy and was more twiggy but it was still nice to have a seat and stil have a view.The first song is one of my favorites, "Crazy Classic Life," and it was pretty funny to hear the qoute from the Declaration of Independence on the fourth of July. I heard a bunch of my favorites, as well as a bunch I don't know because I'm not as familiar with Janelle Monáe's back catalogue as I clearly should be. Her backing musicians were really impressive -- I'm sure the dancing and visual stuff was too but I am the worst person to ask about that!
As always, I loved her fierceness and her love for groups that never get enough. She specifically mentioned trans women, then black queer women. She said "We have to fight for people in the LGBTQIA+ community. We have to fight for reproductive rights. We have to fight for immigrants. We have to fight for disabled people. We have to fight for lower class people in working areas." And then, "We have to impeach Donald Trump."
She'd already told us that she wanted this gig to be something we could remember "on your dark days, and your happy days." She said, "I -- we -- want this to be something you remember and tell people about, because that's how we live on." It was a magical evening, listening to "Pynk" as the sun was going down, people waving at trains that went along the bridge over our heads to our left.
Though another annoying thing is that there weren't nearly as many disabled people there as there coulud've been. I know of three wheelchair users who wanted to go but didn't get tickets in time. And since the "accessible viewing area" was just an arbitrary fenced-off bit, it could've easily been fenced off bigger and offered more reliable seating for ambulatory people too -- a friend told me about someone who'd bought a disabled ticket because they need to sit and before the gig had been told there weren't enough seats for everybody and they couldn't be guaranteed one. Really disappointing at a concert of one of the few (as far as I know) non-disabled people to specficially mention disabled people in her list of who needs to be fought for; disability justice is often overlooked by many people committed to racial, LGBT+, or other kinds of justice. Though I know she isn't responsible for the provision of accessible tickets personally, of course, it's a shame that people who I know would really enjoy the concert weren't able to go and hear her standing up for them.
Finally it got dark and near the end of the gig I noticed someone awkwardly scuttling down the hill in front of us, which was quite steep in places and really full of people you wouldn't want to crash into. I realized that going up the hill in the first place had been totally unremarkable, at the perfectly-well-lit time of seven-thirty, but going down it at ten-thirty in the dark didn't sound like something I was going to be very good at.
When the time came and I finally had to stand up, this is when the shoe malfunction got noticed. The sole of the left shoe had come almost completely unglued! It was just hanging on by the toe. It'd have been hard enough to walk on flat ground like that, but the shoes suddenly became an absolute hindrance in getting down the hill. Nothing for it but to take them off. Then
diffrentcolours held my boots in one hand, and I grabbed his other arm, and skittered down the hill that way. (In some ways it was actually easier for me because I could feel everything under my feet, whereas the one downside of platform boots is that I don't get any of that tactile feedback I'm used to while I'm walking, esepecially useful on such an uneven surface as this steep hill.)During the process of us discovering this problem, me getting the boots off, and us figuring out how to get me out of there, we must've been harried along by three or four of the event staff, all of whom nagged us to get out of there, none of whom seemed to notice the white cane I was now using or the fact that I was taking off and then not wearing my damn boots. I was severely unimpressed with that too; I know they have a job to do and it's in everyone's best interests for us all to fuck off, but part of getting everyone out of there should be offering help or at the very least patience to people who very obviously look like they need it.
I'd have been okay then if I could leave but we had to stand in a big queue of people who needed their bags back (almost all women, which made me even more annoyed at the gendered nature of "no bags unless we say" discrimination because women are so much more likely to need a bag because clothes for them almost never have useful pockets). Then I had to stand in an even longer queue for the toilets. Lots of women were going in the men's (to the point there was even a queue in there, and while it was two or three people rather than curling out the door and down the hallway like the other queue, the men were really grumpy! bless them). I considered it but having heard stories about men's loos and seeing what the gender-neutral ones at my uni are like, I was not about to go get strangers' piss on my tights.
By the time I got out of the loo,
diffrentcolours had retrieved my bag and put my useless boots in them (totally vindicating the presence of my apparently freakishly large bag!) and asked the hotel to call us a minicab because the other option for getting home was me walking across the city centre with no shoes on.It was in the cab on the way home that I told him I could already tell this was all going to be a funny story one day.
It's also a story about how I'm proud of myself though, and grateul for
diffrentcolours who was very good at managing me when my anxiety threatened to overflow, first about having to go without my bag and having been treated with some hostility by the staff who told me that, and then about the shoes. Both things left me unsettled and feeling vulnerable. And I felt like I'd been a lot of extra effort and cost for him (he paid for bag-check and the taxi). But I knew that was nonsense and D was calm and reassuring when I told him all this, which I knew he would be but it still helped to hear. In a silly way, I felt bad about the boots because he'd bought them for me, as if I'd neglected or misused them and thereby disrespected the gift, when obviously I hadn't done anything wrong and it's not my fault they fell apart the first time I wore them further than my own house. Brains are weird.While I was a little rattled when I got home and went to the unusual step of asking Andrew to make me tea before I went to bed, I had managed to fend off an anxiety attack or two which I was really proud of. (Not to say that having anxiety attacks is something to be ashamed of, but my mental health has really been at a low ebb lately so any sucessful management of it feels like an extra-big deal, is all.)
I am glad I can now say that I had the most fun you can have while feeling entirely too much of Manchester under your feet.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-05 04:42 pm (UTC)Glad you got to see Janelle.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-07 12:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-05 06:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-05 09:20 pm (UTC)But clearly not reversed soon or publicly enough for everyone who needed it which sucks.
Sounds like a great gig and I hope Janelle was able to stress to the promoters that bad access is not OK.
GRRR to wanky inconsistent bag policy and indeed staff being unhelpful despite your visible mobility aid - sounds like they could have done with being MORE helpful and better trained like TfL staff apparently are.
DifferentColours sounds marvellous. As of course you are too.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-07 12:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-05 09:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-07 12:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-06 05:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-07 12:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-06 06:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-06 11:00 am (UTC)Check out Janelle's Glasto performance on the iPlayer if you haven't already - I too squeed at her shout outs! Steve got to see her at Primavera and I am still well jell :)
Also check out the ArchAndroid, an *amazing* concept album (itself the second and third parts of Metropolis): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ArchAndroid - Come Alive (The War of the Roses) is one of my fave songs ever!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-06 12:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-06 06:03 pm (UTC)Thanks for sharing the concert
Date: 2019-07-08 09:54 pm (UTC)Hooray for maintaining in extreme circumstances. (I find that even positive extremes can trigger my anxiety.)
Fuck security theater in the ear.
Re: Thanks for sharing the concert
Date: 2019-07-09 06:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-07-05 03:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-07-05 09:36 am (UTC)