Seconds Out

Finally got to see Steve Hackett in concert, on the “Seconds Out: Genesis Revisited” tour. Originally booked to see this in Manchester in October 2020, but that was rescheduled, firstly to April 2021and ultimately to 24th September 2021.
Which was a problem, because the tickets I had to see “Genesis: The Last Domino” in Manchester had also been rescheduled to 24th September 2021. No way was I going to miss that one, so I put my Steve Hackett tickets up for sale and looked to see if he was playing anywhere else nearby. He was. Carlisle on 14th October, and there were 2 seats left near the front of the circle. Duly purchased, although not being able to sell both of the Manchester tickets did mean that I actually paid more to see the ex-Genesis guitarist than I did to see the actual band Genesis!
No matter, both concerts were excellent, albeit in different ways. But I do have issues with the organisation at the Sands Centre. Digital tickets and three separate entrances sounded very sensible and covid secure, but once you were inside it was just a free for all scrum if you wanted a drink/merchandise/toilets! I really don’t think they’d fully thought it through beyond getting us inside the venue in a socially distanced manner.
But at least we had a seat, which is more than we had at home! The painters were nowhere near finished and all the furniture was in the bedroom. Arriving home at midnight, we had to negotiate a small obstacle course before finally crawling into bed. But only for a few hours, as we had to be up very early for the return of the decorators. We do actually have some paint on the walls now, but the job is definitely going to drag on well into next week. We are currently sitting in garden chairs, watching the telly which is propped against a table (it’s normally wall mounted, but that was taken off for painting, and I can’t find the base that would enable it to stand on said table!) I’ll just keep telling myself it will be worth it in the end…