Stevie Wonder, £200 Tickets and a £1 Uber Saving
There’s only one living artist left on my musical bucket list.
Stevie Wonder.
Now, anybody who knows me, or has followed my musical adventures, will know that my formative years were spent listening to punk.
Loud guitars. Angry young men. Three chords and a healthy disregard for authority.
But there was always another side to my musical tastes.
Northern Soul.
Motown.
Soul music in general.
Music that makes you want to dance, even when your knees are telling you otherwise.
And right at the very top of that particular musical tree sits Stevie Wonder.
A musical genius.
A man responsible for some of the greatest songs ever written.
And somebody I’d somehow managed to go 64 years without seeing live.
Until now.
Rules Are Made to Be Broken
I’ve got a rule when it comes to gigs.
I don’t pay more than £80 for a ticket.
I go to a lot of gigs, and if I started paying ridiculous prices every time somebody I fancied seeing announced a tour, I’d soon be bankrupt.
But then Stevie Wonder announced his Songs in the Key of Life at 50 tour, including a date at Manchester’s Co-op Live.
And there was a problem.
Stevie Wonder was the one living artist I still desperately wanted to see.
Even worse, it was my lad Archie’s idea.
Now, I was delighted that Archie wanted to go. Here’s a young man who loves Songs in the Key of Life, an album released fifty years ago, and appreciates music that was around long before he was born.
But I still had my £80 rule.
Then my daughters got involved.
“You’ll regret it if you don’t go.”
They had a point.
Stevie isn’t getting any younger.
Neither am I.
So I decided to break my rule.
And that’s where things started going wrong.
The cheaper tickets were available.
I was ready to book.
There was just one problem.
Archie was asleep.
I wanted to make sure he was happy with the tickets before spending the money, so I waited for him to wake up and confirm.
Meanwhile, the decent cheaper seats were disappearing.
One by one.
By the time Sleeping Beauty finally woke up, the tickets we’d been looking at had gone.
And I was left with a decision.
Forget the whole thing.
Or pay £200.
TWO HUNDRED BLOODY POUNDS!
For a gig ticket.
My £80 rule hadn’t just been broken.
It had been taken outside, given a good kicking and left for dead.
But I’d made my mind up.
I was going to see Stevie Wonder.
And Archie was coming with me.
Even if I did spend the next few weeks reminding him how expensive his little nap had been.
The Joke We’ve All Heard
Of course, telling people you’re going to see Stevie Wonder brings out the comedians.
“I’m seeing Stevie Wonder tomorrow.”
“Well, he won’t see you!”
Oh, how we laughed.
The first time.
By the tenth time, I was beginning to wonder whether everybody had been issued the same joke book.
It reminded me of going for a drink with a lad who was six foot eight.
Everywhere we went, somebody would comment on his height.
“Bloody hell, you’re tall!”
Really?
He’d probably never noticed.
I get a similar thing with my beard.
Father Christmas.
Santa.
Usually accompanied by somebody looking incredibly pleased with themselves for thinking of it.
And I’m standing there thinking...
That’s the third time today.
I suppose when there’s something distinctive about you, people feel obliged to mention it.
Stevie has spent his entire life dealing with comments about his blindness, and he’s been known to make jokes about it himself.
But there’s a difference between somebody making fun of themselves and hearing the same tired joke from everybody else.
Anyway, I was going to see Stevie Wonder.
Whether he could see me or not.
The Road to Stevie Wonder
This was going to be my first visit to Co-op Live in Manchester.
I’d never been before, so I had absolutely no idea what the parking situation was like.
But I knew one thing.
It wasn’t going to be cheap.
Having already parted with £200 for a ticket, I wasn’t particularly keen on throwing even more money away just to leave my car somewhere for a few hours.
So I did a bit of research.
Found what looked like the best Park and Ride option, with a tram taking us to the venue.
Perfect.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, Manchester United were playing.
And that presented a slight problem.
Thousands of football supporters, all trying to get somewhere at roughly the same time as us.
I was hoping we’d get through before the match finished and the masses descended on the transport system.
We got on the tram.
Lovely.
Plenty of room.
This is easy, I thought.
Then we stopped.
More people got on.
Another stop.
More people.
And another.
By the time we reached our destination, the tram had gone from almost empty to full, then from full to absolutely bursting.
It was like watching one of those circus acts where they keep squeezing more people into a tiny car.
Except this wasn’t a circus.
It was a Manchester tram.
And I was somewhere in the middle of it.
Still, we’d made it.
I’d avoided the expensive parking.
Survived the tram.
And was about to experience Co-op Live for the first time.
All I needed now was for Stevie Wonder to justify the £200 ticket.
No pressure, Stevie.
Wow. Just Wow.
As we got off the tram, there it was.
A massive Co-op sign dominating the skyline.
Bloody hell.
This place was impressive.
Right next to Manchester City’s football ground, the Etihad Stadium, stood this enormous entertainment venue.
Now, I’m not usually a fan of big arenas.
Give me a small, sweaty music venue where you can get close to the band, feel the atmosphere and occasionally get covered in somebody else’s beer.
That’s my kind of gig.
But this was different.
We’d paid for fast-track entry, although as it turned out, we probably didn’t need it.
The queues were minimal.
We were inside in no time.
And I was impressed.
Really impressed.
Then we found our seats.
Now, when you’ve paid £200 for a ticket, you expect a decent view.
Actually, for £200, I was half expecting Stevie to come over and personally thank me for attending.
But the seats were brilliant.
Despite the enormous size of the arena, I didn’t feel like I was sitting miles away from the stage.
I could actually see what was happening.
Without binoculars.
Result.
For somebody who generally dislikes arena gigs, Co-op Live was winning me over.
And Stevie hadn’t even appeared yet.
The Young Lad at the Gig
Walking around Co-op Live, I noticed something else.
This wasn’t my usual gig crowd.
There weren’t quite so many youngsters in band T-shirts, bouncing around with pints in their hands.
There were plenty of people who’d clearly grown up with Stevie’s music.
And, for once, I felt relatively young.
At 64!
That’s not something that happens very often at gigs these days.
Of course, I’d dressed for the occasion.
Hoodie.
Shorts.
Exactly what I’d wear to see a punk band in a sweaty little venue.
I’m not suddenly going to start dressing like I’m going to the theatre just because I’m seeing a musical legend.
Although, looking around, I did wonder whether I’d missed a memo about the dress code.
But that’s one of the wonderful things about music.
It brings different generations together.
And looking around that arena, I knew there were thousands of people who’d spent decades listening to the same songs.
Songs that had accompanied first dates, weddings, heartbreaks, celebrations and probably a fair few questionable dance moves.
And now we were all here.
Waiting for the man who created them.
The only living artist I’d felt I absolutely had to see.
And thanks to Archie and a little persuasion from my daughters, I’d finally broken my £80 rule.
Now all Stevie had to do was make it worthwhile.
Not much pressure, then.
Ladies and Gentlemen... Stevie Wonder
And then there was Stevie.
What a star.
Decades of incredible music behind him, and here he was, still entertaining thousands of people.
And not just with his songs.
With his personality.
He joked about his age.
He joked about his blindness.
He told stories about his family.
He spoke about stopping wars and the need for people to come together.
There was warmth about him.
Humour.
And a genuine sense that he was enjoying being there.
Remember all those people who’d been making the same tired joke about Stevie not being able to see me?
Well, here’s the man himself making jokes about his blindness.
And somehow, coming from Stevie, they were actually funny.
But then there’s the music.
Bloody hell.
The musicians surrounding him were something else.
The best of the best.
Every single one of them seemed capable of stealing the show.
And Stevie was more than happy to let them have their moments.
Each musician got an opportunity to show off their talent.
And then came the keyboard solo.
Now, I’ve seen some talented musicians over the years.
I’ve watched guitarists do things with their fingers that don’t seem physically possible.
I’ve watched drummers perform solos that have left me wondering how they haven’t dislocated something.
But this keyboard player...
Wow.
I looked at Archie.
Archie looked at me.
Neither of us needed to say anything.
We’d both just witnessed something extraordinary.
And then Stevie made a joke about it.
He complained that the keyboard player was too good!
Even Stevie Wonder was taking the piss out of somebody for being ridiculously talented.
And that was the beauty of the evening.
There was no massive ego.
No sense that the musicians were simply there to support the star.
Stevie was clearly enjoying their performances as much as we were.
Here was one of the greatest musicians ever to walk the planet, surrounded by extraordinary talent, and still finding time to have a laugh.
It was wonderful.
And sitting there with Archie, watching it all unfold, I started thinking about that £200 ticket.
Perhaps my daughters had been right after all.
Isn’t She Lovely?
One of the lovely things about the evening was how much Stevie talked about his family.
At one point, he started introducing them on the big screens.
One by one.
And another.
And another.
By the time we got to child number eight, Archie and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.
Now, I know Stevie Wonder is blind, but clearly he’s never had any trouble finding the right hole.
Sorry.
I couldn’t resist.
And neither could Archie.
But what followed was one of the highlights of the night.
Isn’t She Lovely.
One of the greatest songs ever written, inspired by the birth of his daughter.
And here we were, listening to the man himself performing it.
Magic.
But to pick out one song as the highlight would be doing the rest of the concert an injustice.
The whole thing was brilliant.
The songs.
The musicians.
The humour.
The stories.
The atmosphere.
Everything.
I’d gone into this gig wondering whether any concert could possibly justify breaking my £80 rule quite so spectacularly.
By this point, I wasn’t wondering anymore.
It was worth every penny.
Even the ones Archie had cost me by sleeping through the cheaper tickets.
The £1 That Nearly Broke My Son
Now, we’ve all been to big gigs where the journey home becomes an event in itself.
Thousands of people leaving at the same time.
Queues for trams.
Queues for taxis.
Queues to join other queues.
We knew the score.
So as the last song finished, we made our move.
Straight out of the arena and towards the tram stop.
And our timing was perfect.
A tram was just about to leave.
We jumped on.
No crush.
No waiting.
No problems.
This was going remarkably well.
Which, in my experience, usually means something is about to go wrong.
And it did.
We got to Cranbrook, where we needed to change lines.
Only there was a problem.
No trams appeared to be heading in the direction we wanted.
Archie had a simple solution.
“Let’s get an Uber.”
Sensible.
Straightforward.
Easy.
But then my natural tightness kicked in.
“Why don’t we get the tram as far as we can, then get an Uber from there?”
Archie wasn’t convinced.
But I was determined.
After all, I’d already spent £200 on a ticket.
There was no point throwing money away unnecessarily.
So we carried on by tram and eventually ordered an Uber for the final part of the journey.
And do you know how much my clever little plan saved us?
One pound.
ONE BLOODY POUND!
Archie couldn’t believe it.
All that messing about.
All that extra travelling.
To save a quid.
I thought it was excellent financial management.
He thought I’d lost the plot.
And then came the final insult.
I asked him if he’d “phoned for a taxi”.
He looked at me.
The sort of look only your children can give you when you’ve said something that apparently belongs in a museum.
“Oh my God, you are old.”
Charming.
I’d taken him to see one of the greatest musicians of all time.
Spent £200 on a ticket.
Introduced him to the joys of saving a pound on public transport.
And this was the thanks I got.
But he was right.
I am old.
I’m 64.
I still wear hoodies and shorts to gigs.
I still refuse to pay over £80 for a ticket, although that particular rule is now looking a little worse for wear.
And apparently I still phone for taxis.
But you know what?
Yes, I’m old.
But I’ve seen Stevie Wonder.
And I got to share it with my lad.
That’s worth a lot more than £200.
Although saving that extra pound was pretty satisfying too.
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