It's Britney, Bitch

Last night I saw Britney Spears in concert for the first time. Scarf and I got tickets from her boss, who gave them to her even though he knew she was going tonight as well. When she e-mailed me yesterday saying, what would you do if I told you I could get box tickets for Britney tonight, my first thought was that she was winding me up. My second was absolute disbelief. I have made no secret of my love for Britney, so when we first found out she was coming to London, it seemed like someone had just dropped a diamond in my lap. Now I was about to get two diamonds? Surely that can't be right!!

But it was. Scarf got the tickets, and we met up with two of her colleagues at a pub in Greenwich for drinks beforehand, all 4 of us scarcely able to believe our luck. One of them even bought a bottle of Moet to celebrate! Nothing's too much for our girl Brit, he said adoringly. Yes, he's gay.

We'd been told by Scarf's boss that you get free booze all night in the boxes at the O2, so we were buzzing almost to the point of vibration by the time we arrived at the arena. Even when we were told by security that the free booze rule didn't apply for Britney's shows - possibly because of the vast contingent of underage girls in attendence - it couldn't dampen our spirits.

So we settled down with our £20 bottle of wine and watched as Ciara opened the night.

After a 15 minute circus show with some truly amazing acts (hula hoop girl anyone?), it was time for Britney to appear. The noise from the crowd was deafening as the world's most famous pop star was lowered from the ceiling in a giant sparkly ring. She kicked off her three ring circus extravaganza with - of course - Circus, and segued straight into Piece of Me, a definite highlight of the night. Other awesome tracks were a sick remix of Slave For You, a bass-heavy dance version of Baby One More Time and a thunderous production of Toxic which had the whole crowd on their feet.

The show ticked all the right boxes. Massive yet perfectly slick production with insane special effects? Check. Superb dancers with exciting choreography? Check. Circus performers wowing the crowd with death-defying stunts? Check. Charismatic pop icon holding the audience in the palm of her hand? Check...no wait. Scratch that. Pop icon. Check. Charisma and complete audience captivation? Negative.

Everything was in place for the show of her life except, perhaps, her spirit. Britney is no longer the world's sweetheart. She's been chewed up and spit out by the relentless machine that is modern celebrity, and it shows. Yes, she knows her steps. She doesn't forget her lyrics, even though they're all mimed. She smiles in the right places. She greets the crowd, just once, with "Hello London, I'm so happy to be here tonight!" But the x factor that put her on top of the world is missing. The light in her eyes that made you unable to take your own eyes off her is gone.

This is the first time I've seen Britney live (ok ok, "live"), but I've watched all of her other concerts on DVD or TV specials. If you watch her 2002 Dream Within a Dream Tour, you will see what I mean about not being able to take your eyes off her. At the pinnacle of her fame, she could captivate an audience like no other. Now? There is no connection with the audience at all. The spectacle is well worth the watch. I would happily pay twice what I did for my ticket, because seeing her onstage was the fulfilment of one of my dreams. I just wonder if being Britney Spears is still one of hers.

Give Me a Sign

In my last post I mentioned that something was bugging me, and after saying I'd write about it, I then practiced passive avoidance by not reading anyone else's blogs so I wouldn't feel guilty for not writing that post! It's amazing how we bloggers start feeling beholden to the promises we make to our readers, no matter that their daily lives are not at all affected by our decisions. Therein lies the truth that ego is essential if you are going to put your life online.

In fact, it's not that big a deal, but I decided I wanted some perspective on it before I told you. Just over a month ago, Shoes bought a motorbike. We'd spent some time planning for this. He did his £800 bike license at the beginning of the year; we spent tons of money on gear and accessories, not to mention the bike itself, and overall it was a huge decision for us and a massive financial undertaking. So 2 weeks ago when he went downstairs to our secure parking garage, ready to ride to work, and found the bike missing....well, it was a bigger blow than it might have been had it not been such a challenge for us to get in the first place. Add to that the fact that we have not been able to go longer than 6 months in London without some catastrophe befalling us, and the result was two very miserable people who had just about lost all hope for anything good to ever happen in their lives.

As I said, I needed perspective, because any time a tragedy occurs, no matter how big or small, you need time to realise that it's not the end of the world even when it feels like it is. To cut a long story short, insurance has paid out, and Mark is off to fetch his new bike tonight. He is over the moon of course, and delighted that this bike is even better than the last one. It also comes with a security system to rival that of Alcatraz, so we need never again worry about being easy pickings for the chav kids who hang out around our flats (we have CCTV footage of them wheeling the bike away).

But the whole experience has reiterated a few truths for me, which were further confirmed by my good friend Bear. London has proved very tough on us as a couple. By comparison, our life in CT really was quite charmed. Some of our experiences have been down to bad planning, others to sheer bad luck, and some to what I like to call Fate's Fuck You Special. It involves a curve ball, thrown really hard by a particularly bad tempered spirit, which bears the words "Oh really? You think you're tough? Catch this and we'll see if you're still standing afterwards!" Those are the disasters that go beyond just bad luck; the ones that make you believe that if Karma is real, you must be one deviant person, because no-one actually deserves to get shot down like that over and over again - at least, not if you're a nice, normal type.

But in the midst of all the trials, we have managed to maintain what I think is a pretty damn positive outlook on life. Sometimes we get exhausted from the efforts of overcoming the obstacles, or of anticipating when the next disaster will hit and planning on how to minimise its impact. But we've managed to count our blessings anyway, and we've remembered to take a moment to look for the flowers beneath our feet, even when we think we've stepped into a desert wasteland. We've learnt to laugh when things are at their absolute worst and we can't see a way out. We've learnt to work together as a team to overcome the challenges, rather than take out the stress on each other. We've learnt that as long as we face everything together and never take each other for granted, it doesn't matter what gets thrown at us - we'll get through it, or we'll make a huge noise and put up a big fight trying to!

And so it gets me thinking....has all this happened because this is something we needed to learn? If the most important thing in my life is the strength of my relationship with Shoes, it follows that I would be willing to do anything to protect and nurture that. Is this God's weird way of giving me what I want the most? If so, I will certainly have words with Him when I see Him one day! But as much as I don't always like it, it does make perfect sense.

Ok, enough philosophising for the day. The two most awesome things in my life right now, in random order:

1) The joy on Shoes face when he gets home tonight with his new bike

2) The fact that I am going to see Britney Spears in concert not once, but TWICE in the next two days!!!! Will explain tomorrow...for now, I'm off to see my girl lip synch her way through her greatest hits and I am UBER excited!

She's So Lucky She's A Star

I just have to take a moment today to bask in the total satisfaction of fulfilling a lifelong ambition: I bought tickets to see Britney live on her Circus Tour of London next June!!!!! Damn it feels good to say that!

My Britney obsession is well known amongst my friends. Since the first time I saw the video to Baby....One More Time, I've secretly wanted to be Britney Spears. She was just so pretty, she danced like a demon and man, she had abs that made me want to actually want to go on a diet and work out 7 days a week - for about 5 seconds. Then reality came crashing down (7 days a week? In what lifetime?) and I hit on a much better idea: follow Britney's every move like a stalker and live THROUGH her. That way I'd be part of the global phenomenon, but could enjoy her life from the comfort of my couch, potato chips in hand.

Since then, I have adored her from afar for pretty much her entire career, give or take a few episodes of umbrella-wielding crazy and a head shaving incident or two (and even then I followed the madness religiously, so she never lost my loyalty; just my respect for a short time). I say pretty much her entire career, because there was a brief spell in my first year at Cape Tech where I became too cool for Britney Spears.

I'd recently met Shoes, and he was into house, back in the day when the scene was still referred to as "rave".I very quickly immersed myself in the club scene, and suddenly I found that the only kind of raving I could do was with glowsticks and lots of shiny lycra; raving about Britney Spears was very much frowned upon. We were far too cool to listen to "commercial" music.

So I denied my Britney obsession for all I was worth, and instead listened to electronically manufactured beats with soaring female lyrics about peace, love and chasing the rush. To this day I still love club music, psy trance being my particular favourite. But it was always on the cards that I was going to give in to my guilty pleasure and return to the pure pop paradise that is Miss Spears.

I was one of the millions who watched in horror as one of the world's biggest ever celebrities paid the ultimate price for superstardom, and one of the loyal-to-the-point-of-dementia fans sitting tight in her corner, cheering her on as she seemed to pull her life back from the brink. In my heart of hearts, I will always think that Brit Brit is a little piece of crazy, but that just makes her more interesting. I'm glad for her that she's got things back on track, partly because, hey! she's human and deserves to be happy, just like the rest of us.

And partly because on 4 June 2009, I will be watching in awe as the Queen of Pop throws down for London's O2 arena. It will be one of the highlights of my concert trips: fire jugglers, live animals, lip synching and all. The only difference between then and now? With the wisdom that comes from experience, I would now much rather be Lopz than Britney. But I will never get tired of dancing to Baby...One More Time in my room, hairbrush in hand!