This week, a friend of mine from Ireland decided to come over. No, he didn't really come to see me, there was a gig on near me and he wanted to go to that and figured he could shack up at my place for a couple of days. Which is fair enough, actually, since he took me with him.
The gig in question was some NME tour thing, sadly nothing of interest to me but what the hell, it's an excuse to go out with a friend for a laugh, eh?
Four bands were playing this night, buy my friend only really wanted to see one of them, Florence and The Machine. You may have heard of her (yes, her). I certainly hadn't, but Sylvia Patterson of the guardian believes that "Florence and the Machine's mad art-pop will be 2009's most beautiful noise". To be fair, she's actually quite hot, so I can't blame the guy:
Luckily she was the first act, so once she had played her set, we could fuck off to the bar near the stage, get a drink and sit down and have a yarn while the rest played.
As I'm the non-drinker, I was the one who decided where to sit and I strategically found a place that was just far enough away that you could hear each other talk over the music and there weren't too many people around (My friend Becky is absolutely correct - people are shit).
So there we are having a drink and a laugh and then my friend asks "Should we not sit somewhere else, maybe over there where there's more people?". I tell him I'm not really arsed.
Then, not more than a few minutes after he said this, guess who of all people walked passed our table to a little spot in the corner? That's right - Florence.
He's a little bit shocked at this point and it didn't help when I said "Dude! Go get her autograph!".
"I err...ahh...ummm...I don't have a pen!" he shouted.
"...I have one!" I shouted back. And this is possibly the most shocking event of the whole eventing - I never have a pen when I need one.
"Oh oh oh oh! Umm...shit...I'll never get passed the bouncer [standing in front of her little corner]" he says.
"Pussy. I'll do it then." I respond.
"Ummm...ok, here" and he handed me the pen and his ticket to hopefully get signed.
So up I get and casually walk over to the bouncer, "Any chance of an autograph, mate?"
He looks behind him at Florence and says "Off her? .....why don't you go ask her?" and steps aside.
Excellent.
So I walked over to Florence and introduced myself. She was lovely. "Could I have an autograph, please?" I asked. "Certainly! What's your name?"
Since this was really for my friend, I had to lie. "Oh, uhh...Martin".
"Martin, eh? Ohhh where are you from?"
"Belfast" (Remember, I currently live in Liverpool, so I certainly don't sound like the locals...thankfully)
"Ohhh, Belfast? Hey, come you over here and talk to me" she says as she moves to sit down and sign the ticket.
At this point, my friend must have suddenly got a bolt of courage, as he appeared right next to me.
"Well, actually Florence, my name isn't really Martin. THIS is Martin, he was just too shy to come over here" I said, while pointing at him.
She smiled "Oh so YOU'RE Martin! Aren't you cute!" she said, as she latched on to him and gave him a great big hug.
And then we stood around had a bit of a chat, got his picture taken with her, had a bit of a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I think I still have some of her glitter on my face.
Florence is lovely. I wish her all the success in the world, she was extremely nice to us and definitely seems to deserve it. And her music wasn't bad, either.
Suffice to say, my friend was (and still is) over the moon. And I'm happy I had balls when I needed it. I am officially a man now.
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