I didn't take many pictures, while you are messing about with cameras, you're not *there* and I needed to take as much of my day in as I could.
I found much to my delight, I'm nowhere near as singular as I had thought (!) I'd say fully half the ten ish thousand strong audience was about my age. (if you read this stewedrat, say hi)
Teignmouth is an utterly delightful sleepy little town, it's own little backwater world, the people are unfailingly friendly and polite being geared entirely towards the summer visitors.
A little more of the MUSE jigsaw falls into place.
But as I well know, no matter what you think of where you grew up, sooner or later you need to go home and if you can make EVERYONE know about it, so much the better :-)
I spent about 3 hours sitting on the stone edge of one of the seafront flower beds waiting for the 6pm 'doors' opening. For some reason for at least 2 of those I was joined by members of the Teignmouth & Shulden rotary club who had come down to soak up the atmosphere.
I didn't catch any of their names, but they were utterly charming people, we discussed this and that and they were genuinely interested in hearing about MUSE. One of the ladies was particularly excited to find that their plumber (he did all the work on our new house!) was the uncle of Lead man Matt Bellamy.
They were going to come down later with some sherry and sandwiches and sit on the front and listen to the concert on the other side of the hoardings. ('do you know, I really wish we had bought tickets now!') I REALLY hope they enjoyed.
The one thing I did glean is that the licence for the concerts was given on understanding that the sound level would not be above 84 decibels. I have wondered if either the council has no idea what a decibel is or whether it was to be measured from some point on the edge of town - or maybe the next town - or the next county - at the bottom of a well - with earmuffs on. 84 db is not very loud. This was at such a level seismic sensors all over the South west must have been redlining. You could actually *see* the bass lines on the video screens as the cameramen were physically shaken by them. You had to breathe between drumbeats as your internal organs were rearranged.
It was wonderful.
And at the houses and apartments across the road from the Den (a seafront strip of charming park) every window and balcony was filled with the (mostly elderly) residents watching every moment.
Inside every old person is a young one wondering what the **** happened, and for just a few hours we were all 30 years younger..
I will see them again at the O2 this November, and I can't wait, but this was a truly special utterly magical evening and I do hope that now maybe Teignmouth has cracked its shell they will have the nerve to fully break out. I know my friends at the Rotary club want to...
Muse are there again tonight, have a brilliant night guys, I truly wish I could be with you again but I have had one night of magic and maybe, just sometimes one night is enough. And I have Chris Williams' engagement party to host.....
