No 14: Shepherds Bush Empire 2nd April 2004

This was to be the last big gig of the tour, and the Swedish Strings are Horns were back! The big news as far as we were concerned was that Bent had been sacked / had quit / not sure which. Different folks gave different stories, but whatever, we'd known he hadn't been happy for a while.

We were booked into the Kensington Hilton, which we knew from Scottish Keith, who is a great pal of Mike's, was where the band were staying as well. Bent had always been our contact as far as the filming was concerned, so Lizzy and I decided we would just go to the gig as paying customers and not worry about filming - it could be a pain, although you always got a great view. We met up with Caryne and SK down in the foyer, just as Mike and Rusty appeared - we had a chat and then our contingent decided to go to a pub near Goldhawk Road tube station where we were meeting some other fans. On the way we ran into Kose who told us that Arthur's camera was going to the gig, but we had already made our minds up that we were just going to be spectators this evening - that also meant we could drink more than usual, we'd found it preferable to be sober when filming.

A few beers later, and some food for me but not for Lizzy, and we're off to the SBE. We make our way down to the front, trampling on some young folks who'd decided to sit on the floor in the process. We're right in front of the horn section, the lovely Bjorn and his pals are there, as well as the strings. Its a great show - I'd forgotten how much the orchestra add to the overall sound - and it's good as well not to have the responsibility of being in charge of Arthur's camera for the duration.

We hang around at the end and Troels and Kose pass us some of the special yellow tickets needed to gain access to the after party in the backstage bar. There's a good turnout, including Bobby Gillespie again and the two guys from the Whisky magazine that we met at the Forum. They remember us, and have been following Mike's online diary, so know all about the videoing etc. No Arthur though.

After a while I head off to the Ladies - while I'm in there, two ladies come in, one of my age or thereabouts and a much younger one. I leave - and outside the door is Arthur, all by himself, obviously waiting for the two ladies who've just gone inside. I say "Hello Arthur", he says "Hello Lizzy", and I say, "No I'm the other one, Tina". He say "Are you two sisters?" and I say "No we're old friends". He then says - and I quote "Its a damn shame you didn't film the show tonight, a damn shame". I explain that we didn't know who to contact with no Bent, and we have a chat about this and that, I tell him its wonderful for us original fans that he's doing all these shows, that we;re both aged 50, he says he's 60 next year etc etc, it goes on in this vein for a few minutes until his friends reappear and then we all go into the party.

I go over to Lizzy and Caryne in some excitement and tell them I've been taking to Arthur, then he comes over and joins us, he's very jocular and happy for his picture to be taken with all and sundry. The older of his lady friends introduces herself as Lynn, who is an American living in London - she's a real hoot and tells us some great stuff about the old days - most of which is unrepeatable here. I have her phone number somewhere and we were told we should stay with her next time we were in London.

When the time comes to leave, we head back towards the hotel with Whisky Jim. We grab bagels on the way, then I nip up to the hotel room and grab the bottle of gin I had the foresight to bring with me. We sit in the lobby with Jim and are shortly joined by a bunch of Swedish Strings and Horns and Danish Crew - the gin gets consumed and Jim falls asleep on a sofa. Lizzy and I try to move him when we're off to bed, but he's completely gone so we leave him - its about 3am by now. I check the next morning and he has gone.

Next morning, Lizzy is ill - I go down to breakfast and bring her some yogurt back to try and get her stomach back to some degree of normality. We make it down to the lobby at about 11am with a view to saying goodbye, where we see in rapid succession :
1) Mike, who gives me a 20 euro note from Arthur as he had heard we'd paid for our own tickets (I still have it in my possession)
2) The entire Fulham Football Team (very smart)
3) Arthur and his entourage, including manager Glenn Povey. Arthur comes over and introduces us to Glenn, who is actually apologetic about being rude to us at the Forum! Arthur then tells us again that its a shame we didn't film last night's gig, and that in future we should contact him personally about the arrangements. He then gives me his email address.

Afterwards, Lizzy and I ponder that when we were teenagers in Newcastle in 1968, huddling over the Dansette listening to Forever Changes and being awestruck, we would never have imagined in a million years that we would ever (a) actually meet Arthur Lee (b) have him give us his email address (not that email had been invented in 1968).

Needless to say, I email Arthur after a few days so as not to appear too keen.........he never replies.