LONDON – KINGS CROSS, CAMDEN AND CRYSTAL PALACE BOWL
With London on our doorstep, we decided not to head off travelling, but to stick around this weekend and explore some local haunts.
It’s handy living in a city where so much is going on.
KINGS CROSS AND CAMDEN TOWN
Our first stop on Friday evening was Coal Drops Yard, which sits behind Kings Cross and St Pancras Station. This was a part of London that most people would have avoided back in the 80’s and 90’s. It used to be full of dark, dangerous corners, and ladies of the night swinging their handbags!
Now completely transformed, with an open-air cinema, water play areas for kids, and lots of pubs and restaurants alongside the retail facilities, it’s been somewhat gentrified, but still has a bit of an edge to it worth experiencing.
Over the past few years, and since being tarted up, Kings Cross has hosted a free festival called Summer of Sounds. I heard it being talked about on a local radio station a few days earlier, so thought I’d give it a whirl.
We got there early, grabbed a deckchair and a cold beer before being thoroughly entertained by some great-quality musicians. We saw Len Blake and Little Grandad perform before heading off down the towpath towards Camden.
Camden is a short 15-minute walk away and opens up to a wide range of venues, many with live music and DJs banging out the latest (and not so latest) tunes.
We ended up in the Camden Head, which is a nice little pub halfway along the High Street. There is a little comedy club upstairs, but we sat in the main bar, grabbed a bite to eat and listened to the resident DJ before heading home, still wearing short-sleeved shirts, with temperatures remaining in the 20s.
PALACE BOWL
Luckily, we had been gifted a pair of tickets for an all-dayer at the Palace Bowl (thanks Fran), involving sets by:
- De’Wayne
- Brooke Combe
- Joss Stone
- Leon Thomas
- Lenny Kravitz
Our train was delayed a little, so we ended up arriving at the end of Brooke Combe’s set. We found a bone-dry patch on a piece of ground overlooking the stage and settled in for the afternoon. The sun was shining in between some much-welcomed cloud cover.
A group of four Americans wearing heavy metal regalia were sitting/standing in front of us, which got me thinking they’d booked tickets to this event by mistake… Fair play to them, they applauded, joined in to Joss Stone, and appeared to be enjoying the afternoon like the rest of us.
Loved the height-hack that one lady was wearing on her feet. Genius!
At 8:30pm, Lenny Kravitz entered the stage.
Well, what can I say…. He completely blew us away with his energy, professionalism, charisma, kindness and, I have to say, his physique! This 62-year-old was wearing the body (pecs and six-pack) of someone many decades younger. He commanded the stage like a god, full of confidence, but far from cocky.
The set lasted 2 hours and 10 minutes and was absolutely relentless.
Now, not being a Kravitz die-hard fan, I didn’t know many (if any) of the back catalogue of tunes being played tonight, so for at least 90 minutes everything I heard was “new”. But every single one was a blinder: massive guitar riffs, heavy drums, solid bass lines and an incredible voice. It wasn’t until the very end that the more familiar “hits” made it onto the set list, but by this time both Kravitz and his band had won us over.
The entire crowd around us were dancing; it was more funky/soulful than I’d expected. That said, it was interlaced with some pretty hard rock too – I’m guessing this was the draw for the group of Americans we’d bumped into earlier… and if not, I’m sure they would have approved!
On the train ride home, Emma and I were kind of stunned into silence, reliving the moment we’d just experienced and trying to recall a time when a performance had caught us so off guard.
It truly exceeded all of our expectations and catapulted our Kravitz experience into our top ten performances of all time.
A clear 10/10.
