The hastily renamed all star music trip report (Madonna concert and London) COMPLETE About This Page:

[chezp]

All star sports and music!

Pre-trip report:

Dates: Saturday 4 – Sunday 5 July
Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (36) and DH Mark (43)
Resort: Express by Holiday Inn, Wimbledon
Celebration: Seeing Madonna live and watching live tennis at Wimbledon

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to see Madonna live. That’s really the starting point for this trip. I remember seeing her Blonde Ambition tour on TV, which must’ve been in about 1990 and that’s where it started. Since then, I’ve never come close on any of her tours. Either I’ve had other commitments whenever she’s played or I’ve been nowhere at the time.

Fast forward to last year, when it was announced that she’d be playing at Wembley Arena in September. I began to drop what I thought were very unsubtle hints, words to the effect of “I’ve always wanted to see Madonna live” and “she’s my idol”, but all I kept being told by Mark was that he wasn’t keen on seeing her live and various other excuses. So much for me being unsubtle…

I was hoping that perhaps he’d twig and get me tickets for my birthday, but I was to be sadly disappointed. It was a point that was finally rammed home when I gave Mark his birthday present – tickets to see Queen with Paul Rodgers. It was either that day or the next day that realisation suddenly struck and he said to me “you wanted me to buy you the Madonna tickets for your birthday, didn’t you?!” I nodded sadly and was then told “well, you could’ve said something.” After pointing out what I thought was my exceptionally unsubtle behaviour, I was told I’d been too subtle and next time to just say “get me this for my birthday”. OK, lesson learned.

I figured that was it, but a couple of months later, it was announced that Madonna’s Sticky and Sweet tour would be returning to the UK in July and she would be performing at the O2 arena, which is our side of London. Even better, it was on a Saturday and that day was American Independence Day, so I knew we’d be in for a good show. The next challenge was to get tickets.

As always, the darned things go on sale in the morning when I would be at work. Well, the site wasn’t barred, so I got on and tried to get tickets. I tried about three or four times and, on each occasion, the darned thing timed out. Depressed and convinced that I was never going to get tickets, I gave up for the day.

When I got home, I went online, convinced that there would be no tickets left. I couldn’t have been more wrong… I guess the high price had put people off and, at this point, in fairness, they were still on pre-sale. First time, I managed to get some tickets and located some that seemed to be central to the stage, although a fair way back. They were similar to where we’d been when we went to the O2 to see Queen and Paul Rodgers, so I figured that the seats should be OK.

That was one part of our weekend sorted out, but the other part took a lot longer to come to fruition. Every year, I enter the ballot for Wimbledon tickets. The way it works is that a proportion of tickets for Centre Court and Number One Court are sold every year through public ballot for each day of the championships. Despite entering for about the last six years, we’ve only been lucky once, back in 2007, when we got front row seats on the first Saturday. Sadly, we suffered the great British curse of rain and only saw an hour and 20 minutes’ worth of play as a result, but at least half our money was refunded under their scheme.

We both really enjoyed it and I applied again last year, but with no joy. It was the same story this year… or so I thought. Usually the ticket allocation comes out in the early spring and, by the time we came back from Japan, and there was still no sign of any tickets, I figured we had just missed out again. Imagine my shock when, one day in May, a letter turned up, telling me that we had been offered tickets on the final day of the Championships – men’s single’s finals day – but on Number One court. Instantly, we had a dilemma.

The finals will always take place on Centre Court, unless there’s a huge amount of rain and then they may end up using Number One Court to clear the backlog, but even then, as far as I can recall, it’s only for things like semi-finals of the doubles. When I checked online, our court would offer finals of perhaps the juniors or the veterans tournaments. We’ve seen a lot of veterans’ matches before on TV and they can be a lot of fun, so after much deliberation, we decided to go for it. After all, isn’t part of it about the atmosphere and being there, rather than having to see the finals?

That decision made and the tickets paid for, I then spent the next few weeks worrying if we’d done the right thing or not. That got even worse when Nadal pulled out of Wimbledon the day before it started, leaving our very own Andy Murray as effectively the second seed for the Championships and with a very good chance of getting through to the final. That would be agony, as if he made it, it would be the first time a Brit had made it to the final in over 70 years.

As the tournament wore on, Murray continued his march through and the fever grew for him. Henman Hill (named after one of our previous popular British players) where the giant TV screen shows the top matches of the day became increasingly inundated with people and, by the time we got the quarter and semi finals, there was no space to be seen on that hill. It was absolutely packed out and the place was mad! We began to worry what the place would be like on Sunday, if Murray got through….

Well, as we all know, there’s no way we’ll find out this year, as sadly he got knocked out by Andy Roddick. I can’t begin to tell you how long I stomped around the house after he was dumped out of the tournament, I was so upset, but at least the place should be a little less insane.

So that’s how the weekend of all star music and sports came around… Madonna on the Saturday night and then a day at Wimbledon on the Sunday. It should hopefully be quite a weekend.

[Lemap760]

Sounds like you're in for a fun and busy weekend. Have a great time.

[lauren-roxy]

Sounds like a really fun weekend Cheryl!!

[Colexis Mom]

Have a great time!!

[DrDolphin]

Have a great time this weekend!!!

[travismom]

What a great weekend.
We watched Wimbledon yesteday and are going to watch it also today and tomorrow.
But DS, Travis, told us to watch the rugby match today on ESPN HD. I think it is USA vs. Canada, not really sure. So this weekend will be a sports watching weekend!
Have fun!

[magic mickey]

Have a great time. What a fun weekend!

[duck addict]

Originally Posted by magic mickey

Have a great time. What a fun weekend!

Hmm Will there be pictures of Cheryl dancing and screaming her head off at the Madonna concert (Hope Mark is there with camera in hand

[Grammy Grumpy]

Hope the concert and tennis matches are great!

[pamcarey]

What a great title for this TR!! Have a great weekend!

[Starla4436]

Madonna! WOW i can't wait to hear all about it.
And cute title.

[chezp]

I hope to start on this report soon (maybe tomorrow?), but I just wanted to start by did not pan out for various reasons, which we’ll come to in due course. That’s why it’s become the hastily renamed all star music trip report, which may give you a clue, as to which bits didn’t pan out.... as to how and why, you'll have to stay tuned for that....

[chezp]

I hope to start on this report soon (maybe tomorrow?), but I just wanted to start by did not pan out for various reasons, which we’ll come to in due course. That’s why it’s become the hastily renamed all star music trip report, which may give you a clue, as to which bits didn’t pan out.... as to how and why, you'll have to stay tuned for that....

[KMB733]

Hope you had a great time this weekend. Today's Men's Final at Wimbledon was certainly something to enjoy.

[Colexis Mom]

Sorry you didn't make it to Wimbeldon (well, it sounds that way)!! Such a great match (although I know you were supposed to be on the other court)!