Times like these

It was a long weekend like this one, except that it was in the spring. I was heavily pregnant.   I lay across our bed, watching the televised footage of the memorial concert for Freddie Mercury being held at Wembley Stadium.

I didn't know it at the time, but elder daughter would be born five days later.

Today, I wondered if she could hear all those Queen tunes from the womb, because, three decades later, she was at Wembley with a cousin and a room-mate, sitting up in the gods, attending the Tribute Concert for Taylor Hawkins, the Foo Fighters drummer, who died suddenly last March.

And technology being what it is, I was alerted that the concert had begun, by an Instagram picture posted by the cousin and tagging elder daughter.  Sitting with my early morning coffee at Moka House, I soon discovered that I could stream the concert on my laptop via the MTV YouTube channel -- with the sound muted, of course.  My iPhone earbuds are incompatible with my Mac.  (Gee, thanks, Apple.) When I had to leave to set up Demeter's breakfast, I followed the line-up via blog updates, until I could hurry home mid-morning.

I'm not a true-blue fan of the Foo Fighters, but elder daughter has been enthusiastic about them for the past five years, and so I'm reasonably conversant with about half a dozen of their better-known songs and familiar with a lot of their biographical details, having been exposed to documentaries about them during each of elder daughter's visits.

The real thrill for me was watching this Wembley show, knowing elder daughter was there -- much like her visit to three Court One games at Wimbledon, when the summer began.  I know a little about the Foo Fighters and far far less about tennis, but I knew she was in the crowd and excited beyond belief to be there.

The show had a bit of everything.  Hawkins' connections were everywhere in the rock/pop scene. When I got home, I was confronted with the very early-Seventies-style of interminable guitar solo, supplied by the James Gang, reunited after decades for this concert only.  (Not a criticism, I rather like "Closet Queen" with its variations on Ravel's Bolero, and Guaraldi's "Cast Your Fate to the Wind".)  

While getting Demeter's breakfast, I had missed the legendary Chrissie Hynde (totally in control at 70) and the Pretenders, Liam Gallagher, and Niles Rodgers, to name a few.  I caught what I'd missed later, before the lawyers hauled the YouTube video down, as I knew they would.

There was a seam of bereavement running through the performances, as well.  Wolfgang Van Halen played songs by his late father Eddie;  AC/DC lost Malcolm Young some time ago. Rush has lost Neil Peart, and tonight were playing to a politely bewildered crowd of Brits born in the nineties and "naughties".  I'm not unsympathetic - Rush has bewildered me for years.  Taylor Hawkins was a fan, though.

And then there was Queen - what's left of them.  And elder daughter now saw them in the flesh, from her seat up below the rim of the Wembley. Dancing with vicarious glee in the living room, I shared the moment with her - via texts, of course, this being the 21st century.

After a long parade of well-known musicians playing some of Hawkins' favourite music, the Foo Fighters took over.

At this moment, it became crystal clear that, for all of the variety of songs and musicians preceding this moment, it was a Foo Fighters crowd, come for a Foo Fighters concert. The singing had, up until this moment, not been as loud and cohesive. The thousands in the stadium now knew every word. 

And then Paul McCartney showed up. 

I thought he might, since he's a close friend of Dave Grohl's, but I still leapt to my feet in shock, texting an expletive to my daughter at Wembley, while  swaying eight times zones away.

The Foo Fighters were backed by a series of notable drummers, including 12-year-old Nandi Bushell, and Taylor Hawkins' 16-year-old-son Shane, in a frenetic and emotional performance that stood out among a day of many such moments.

I know just enough about the Foo Fighters to guess that the concert, which had last nearly six hours, was drawing to a close, when Grohl, standing alone on the stage, with half a dozen empty drum kits behind him, accompanied himself on guitar, while the vast crowd sang along to the quintessential FF song "Everlong".

I felt rather jet-lagged afterwards.

Maybe it was the stimulation of so much music.

Maybe it was because a piece of my heart is residing in London.  She got home long after midnight.