Famous People I've Sat by at a Concert

[amateur51]

[QUOTE=Mandryka;66674]

Oh - and I once walked into a famous American songwriter's dressing room while he was engaged in coition with his manager. The persons in question shall remain nameless.

Oooooh THEM!!

[MrGongGong]

I sat behind Simon at a concert of Ligeti and Stockhausen at Huddersfield a few years ago

[MrGongGong]

This one I mean

http://www.chesternovello.com/Default.aspx?TabId=2431&State_2905=2&composerId_2905=60

[Chris Newman]

The year after I left school I returned to see their school play The Royal Hunt of the Sun. I had a seat near the back and in the interval became involved in an excited discussion with the man sitting next to me who seemed to know a lot about the play. I asked him if he was an English teacher. He said "No, I'm Ronald Pickup. I played several small parts in the premiere at the Old Vic". I felt a bit of a wally when I realised that one of my old English teachers who was helping back stage was his brother Dave.

Lowering the tone again: a few years later I worked at Burlington House in a library for The Chemical Society (now the Royal Society of Chemistry) next to the Royal Academy. We shared our section of the building with the British Academy (now in Carlton House) whose director was Sir Mortimer Wheeler along with his "assistant" Jacquetta Hawkes. Sir Mortimer was a bluff but very affable man. He discovered where the Chem Soc staff coffee machine was and made use of it. Sometimes he would sit and chat with us. He was a football fanatic and I had to peep at the sports pages on the train to work to check the main events as he convinced himself I was a football follower. One day I went to the loo and stood at the wall. Almost immediately the door opened and in swept Sir Mortimer (still wearing his Verdi hat which rarely left his head indoors and out, his cloak and scarf although it was summer) and stood next to me. He was old, probably 80, and grunted and farted unable to pee. I was overawed and embarrassed, unable to pee. He broke the ice:

"Oh, for Christ's sake! Go and run the tap. Then we can both piss in peace!"

It worked.

[Petrushka]

Lowering the tone again: a few years later I worked at Burlington House in a library for The Chemical Society (now the Royal Society of Chemistry) next to the Royal Academy. We shared our section of the building with the British Academy (now in Carlton House) whose director was Sir Mortimer Wheeler along with his "assistant" Jacquetta Hawkes. Sir Mortimer was a bluff but very affable man. He discovered where the Chem Soc staff coffee machine was and made use of it. Sometimes he would sit and chat with us. He was a football fanatic and I had to peep at the sports pages on the train to work to check the main events as he convinced himself I was a football follower. One day I went to the loo and stood at the wall. Almost immediately the door opened and in swept Sir Mortimer (still wearing his Verdi hat which rarely left his head indoors and out, his cloak and scarf although it was summer) and stood next to me. He was old, probably 80, and grunted and farted unable to pee. I was overawed and embarrassed, unable to pee. He broke the ice:

"Oh, for Christ's sake! Go and run the tap. Then we can both piss in peace!"

It worked.

That just has to be the best story I've ever read on these boards. Great stuff!

[Petrushka]

I was at a Bruckner 5 Prom conducted by Abbado and in the seats behind me were Ian Hislop, Elvis Costello and Bob Geldof. I had no idea that St Bob had any interest in classical music let alone Bruckner. Can anyone enlighten me?

[Colonel Danby]

As a bookseller in a major chain of shops (you all know which one I mean) one of the few perks of the job (the pay is terrible) is to look after authors for signing sessions, so I've become a little blase about so called "celebrities". But I did look after Simon Rattle when he came down from the CBSO to sign copies of the history of the orchestra (he only wrote the foreword, but obviously he drew the crowds). Before he had to face the sweating masses, I took him up to the office to sign copies, and I asked him if he wanted anything: he said there was an art book for his son Sasha he would like, and I voluteered to get it for him. And he gave me his credit card. Dazed, I went out onto the floor and exclaimed "I've got Simon Rattle's visa card...rejoice, I say again rejoice!"

Apart from this rare outburst of shameless namedropping, I have been at 30000 feet with Sir Colin Davis on the Heathrow-Frankfurt flight, and I served Ollie Knussen in the shop.

Just one more thing, and I'll stop as we could be here all night: and it's not really musical, but Alec Guinness wrote his memoirs and came to Manchester for a signing: but it was announced that under no circumstances would he discuss "Star Wars", which is a little rich as he was paid for that film in shares, and he was a very rich man as a result. It was absolute pandemonium notwithstanding, as everybody want to glimpse Obi Wan Kenobi in the flesh.

I'll shut up now...

[Colonel Danby]

Oh yes, getting back to topic, I've sat next to Placido Domingo at Covent Garden for Bryn Terfel's Wotan in 'Rhinegold', shortly before he made his Proms debut as Siegmund (naturally I was on the front row for that too, darlings).

[Petrushka]

...I have been at 30000 feet with Sir Colin Davis on the Heathrow-Frankfurt flight...

And I have been in Red Square, Moscow, with Sir Colin.

Wandered backstage after a 1992 Royal Albert Hall Prom to see a several of the Vienna Philharmonic without their trousers on!

Once stood next to Joanna Lumley in the bar during a Prom interval.

[Serial_Apologist]

At the jazz trumpet player Kenny Wheeler's 80th birthday concert at the RAM, in January 2010, I found myself sitting behind the great British-born, ex-Miles Davis bass player Dave Holland. At the end of the concert as everybody was getting up to leave I boldly stepped forward to offer my appreciation of his contribution to jazz. "Oh thank you, thank you, that was most kind" he replied, wiping away tears. "You must excuse me; that music we've just heard was just SO moving!".

A few years I was assigned to do a review of a concert of brand new music at the Almeida in Islington. Positioning myself beneath one of the lights so as to be able to see what I was writing on the notepad I'd brought along, I began writing, "This is some of the most difficult music I have ever been asked to review..." Presently I became aware of someone peering over my shoulder. It was.......... the composer!!!

S-A

[Mary Chambers]

Did I ever mention the time I bumped (almost literally) into Rostropovich in the music shop in Aldeburgh? I probably did And I sat behind Peter Pears in the cinema there, and the church.....rather a long way behind in the church. I was only there because I thought he would be.

I chatted with Michael Chance before a concert we were both in......he in a rather more important capacity than I! He was very nice. He said he was just a humble alto too, or words to that effect.

Edit: I've just remembered that I was in a hotel lift with Michael Tippett once.

[Roslynmuse]

I once stood next to Michael Tippett in the gents at concert venue in the North West.

Apologies for lowering the tone...

[Bax-of-Delights]

Oooh....I only just discovered this thread. What an opportunity for namedropping.

As we are already in the gents let's start there:

Sharing the stalls with Chris Patten (at a crime writers do in Bath). If only I had my futuroscope working I could have had some direct influence on R3 programming!

Chatting at a launch party with Sidney Nolan (Australian painter) in 1968.
At a George Macbeth poetry reading on a very warm evening in the upstairs room in the Lamb and Flag, Covent Garden, 1969. Afterwards he said to me and my girlfriend at the time that we shouldn't be listening to poetry at our age but out in the town enjoying ourselves. (After his rendition of his Chi-Chi, An-An I had to agree.)
John Wain, Elizabeth Jennings and Charles Causley poetry launch party at Macmillan, publishers. Alan MacLean (brother of that MacLean that did a bunk to Russia) was a science editor at Macmillan at that time.
Bumping into Harold Macmillan in foyer of his publishing offices, Margaret Thatcher at Glyndebourne ("this way, Dennis!"), and Edward Heath looking somewhat lonely and forelorn (with bodyguard looming behind him) at the same venue.

Dimitry Shostakovitch - well, OK, he wasn't actually next to me but he was in the same concert hall - at the premiere of his 15th in London.

Kissed Susan Hampshire in the Strand (that is not a euphemism). She was promoting a charity outside a theatre in which she was appearing and I'd said I'd donate if I could have a kiss. Shameful I know but chances like that come just once a lifetime.

Manny Shinwell, Barbara Castle (small and perfectly formed), Vic Feather (everyone's favourite uncle), George Brown (yes, well, let's just draw a veil over that one) - all in the days of working at Gollancz (Livia Gollancz, still with us, knew the Finzis very well). J.G.Ballard, Arthur C.Clarke (a little tetchy), Bob Shaw, Colin Dexter and Dick Francis (both charmers).

Harold Pinter (gloomy and doomed) and Lady Antonia (in there somewhere behind the paint) at a crime writer's party. Lord Longford shaking my hand and thanking me for inviting him to a party at the House of Lords where Leslie Charteris was guest of honour. I was a guest as well but was just standing by the exit. I suspect all that pornography watching had shortened his eyesight.

Sat behind Bob Geldof at Stoppard's "Arcadia" a couple of years ago - he was last to his seat at the beginning and at the end of the interval.

(That's enough namedropping - Ed)

[Panjandrum]

I once stood next to Michael Tippett in the gents at concert venue in the North West.

Is that a euphemism?

[Serial_Apologist]

I once stood next to Michael Tippett in the gents at concert venue in the North West.

Apologies for lowering the tone...

I once stood next to the other Tippett (Sir Keith) in the gents at a jazz gig held in a posh hotel in Bristol. "Isn't this supposed to be where all the big nobs hang out?" he asked.

I think that was a euphemism...