I’m sorry to say it but my favourite thing about London is leaving. I’m not saying I hate the place so much that I want to leave (although I’m sure I have said that before). I’m saying that when I am leaving the city I find myself most in awe and overwhelmed by it. That is when I leave by car or van though – not by train, which probably provides the most boring route out of anywhere ever; all bricks and lights but no people. Just pitch black, basically. After our last London gig I was just sitting in the front seat looking out totally wide-eyed. I caught myself off guard actually feeling like I liked the place somehow. The lights were bright and multi-coloured, illuminating everyone who was out on the street, and combined with all the red and white car lights it all seemed to shine like a golden crown studded with plenty of diamonds. All the drunks, the bums and the dealers were out, and were smiling. The gig had been particularly good, that probably had something to do with my sudden elevated spirit. I was in a particularly joyous mood. We all were.
Watching all the lights and people and taxi cabs and greasy chip shops I didn’t register where we were until we were zipping along Holloway Road. By the time we passed underneath Hornsey Lane Bridge (a bit of a landmark for us out-of-towners) I was starting to put a list together of bands that would have driven north after a London gig before and had possibly thought the same things I was thinking. The list grew and grew, all the way along the A1, I could name hundreds. The Great North Way seemed like an eminently fitting name for that stretch of road. I mused on the thought whilst the stereo played and everyone was quiet for a rare moment. It seemed like déjà vu; an ancient tradition somehow. Once upon a time there were the Romans making inroads through the country, now it’s bands.
That idea of a band - any band doing their thing north of London - having played their gig in the capital loading their gear back up and setting off up the M1 has now become engrained in my mind as some sort of romantic vision. The darkness being the only thing to see out of the windows. The radio blaring, beers and smokes being passed around a loud and excited crew – all probably getting their wires of tiredness hopelessly crossed. Maybe a member or two incapable or asleep, but the driver keeping their beady caffeine-fuelled eyes on the concrete ahead thinking of home, home, home. The inter-van party usually loses momentum as people get more and more tired and wasted as the motorway just hums on and on underneath and home gets closer and closer.
Usually I leave London by train, and take home a feeling of both anonymity and dread with me. Not anymore though, as I’ve found a new way to look at it. Everyone is anonymous in big cities, it’s true, but that’s not the way you should look at it. I’ve found it helps to think of the city as a place where more lives intersect than usual; where you brush up with all sorts of folks who have all sorts of things going on in their own lives, which are anonymous to everyone but themselves. Instead of wanting to meet everyone one should keep the veil of mystery hanging and wonder – it’s more interesting.
