One contact lens knocked out in the first five minutes so a gig through half-sight? Check.
Post-gig condition commonly known as 'Beer Hair'? Check.
Ditto the above but 'Beer Chest'? Check.
Shoes ruined and wet through? Check.
Hardly any phone battery because of all the "Where are you? No I'm next to the lighting rig... WHAT? No the OTHER one!!" calls? Check.
Makeup literally washed off my face, and soaked through to my underwear? Check.
Ahhh it's been a good night. Wembley Stadium, Jay-Z, Coldplay, my excellent old friends and 89,994 other excited people. When Madhead offered me the tickets, I hesitated. Coldplay are, well, alright, in fact you can't knock that they're a talented band. But it's not like I ever chose to stick them on my iPod. Jay-Z on the other hand, rocked at Glasto last year and he's hip hop man of the moment (blew that one at the VMA's didn't you Kanye? Tit), so I thought, why not?
Shambolic from the start, Madhead, Essex Boy and the others turn up an hour and a half after I get there. And they had the tickets. So by this time, I'd missed Girls Aloud (was secretly quite excited about seeing them), White Lies (wanted to see just to cry to Death live since it's an epic, soaring track) and half the Jay-Z set. They, apart from Essex Boy who was driving, were all what can only be described as very, very drunk.
I was met with an overexcited yell of "heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyy-ohhhhhhhh!" in a style that was possibly meant to be hip-hop but was more Ron Burgundy. Ace.
The stadium is monstrously vast, I've never seen so many people inside one structure. We made our way in excitedly, Madhead doing his "listen guys, GUYS!" and ordering everyone around so that we could catch some Jay-Z. Beers in hand, we made our way down onto the pitch area into the masses of bouncing people, and I promptly lost everyone. So I watched Jay-Z alone, chanting "Bounce, bounce" with everyone else and having a thoroughly good time. Say what you like about him, the bloke's a superstar on stage and absolutely works the crowd. Singing along to Hard Knock Life with that many people is more fun than you could imagine. His stage presence is momentous.
So, the break between acts arrived and I finally hooked up with everyone else. Upon making our way onto the pitch area to get a good spot for Coldplay, Madhead manages to feel me up more than once and gleefully proclaims,
"The others [who I'd not met before this evening] were asking what you were like. I said Northern, funny and massive tits." Um, thanks for that. Possibly only two out of three are true.
As the crowd goes mental when Chris Martin strides on stage, we realise that yes, the stadium has no roof. Beginning with spitting rain, which was not altogether unpleasant, the heavens suddenly opened and by the time the band have started Yellow, it's literally pissing it down. Properly like when you're under a shower and you can't quite open your eyes in the force of the flow. Arm in arm, belting out this song along with everyone else, with beautiful (yellow, natch) lighting and the late summer rain soaking everyone through was pretty special. We were all grinning like morons, striking power ballad poses and jumping around in the wet.
The set was biiiiiig songs, not too much annoying talk from Chris Martin, rousing guitar and chorus breaks and a crowd who were all over it. We pushed our way through to near the front, I managed not to lose my shoes (my coral pink brogues which I think are now f*cked) or any of our party. In a suitable spot, Rather Drunk Girl was hoisted up on various shoulders then dropped her phone. I was very surprised at the gig sense of community, it took very little effort apart from the useless shouts of "has anyone seen a phone?!" to encourage a large group of moshing guys to part a hole in the crowd in the bouncy bit of a big song and help look for it - even offering their own mobile phone light to try and locate it on the muddy, scuzzy floor. Happily, it was found and this may have elicited a bigger cheer from us than any of the songs.
After decamping to a little acoustic stage and doing a commendable version of Billie Jean, Chris Martin asked the crowd to get their mobiles out and instructs them to do a phone Mexican wave round the stalls. The almost perfect choreography of the twinkling lights around the stadium was pretty inspired and got everyone all excited again for the big anthemic finale.
By this point, Drunk Boy and I had lost everyone else after a badly-timed trek through endless people for a loo break and we just spent the rest of the set annoying other people by weaving through them hand in hand muttering "Sorry! Sorry!" FYI people at gigs: deliberately digging your elbows in to get a few well-placed jabs as we pass, simply because we're slightly annoying you for a second is not good gig etiquette. What would Mr Martin or Mr Z say to that sort of lack of festive spirit? Hmm? You ought to get home and think about what you did. Not cool.
It took about 45 minutes to reassemble most of the group outside the stadium, not counting Rather Drunk Girl who'd dashed off into the front of the crowd during the acoustic set - she still hadn't been located by the time I made a break for it, so I hope she's been found and someone has given her some water. And paracetamol.
Another 40 minutes or so just to get to the Tube station, incredible police crowd control so tip of the cap to you, London Met police. I thought that my night had ended on a personal geeky high when I deliberately took the crowd routes right alongside the formations of police horses. One particularly magnificent grey beast gave me a friendly sniff as I passed and I got a whiff of my favourite smell in the whole world: horses and leather. I was content to find my way home with this nostalgic scent in my nose, bringing back memories of a lifetime spent at the stables.
But it got better. People-watching on the Tube, I was stationed next to a gaggle of twenty something Londoners and was giggling inwardly at one of them, clearly drunk, going off on a comedy monologue at his companion's expense.
"Ohh Hackney, everyone has funny hair and is really pretentious. Felix you're surrounded by those people you hate, but you're ONE of them!" *guffaw* Felix looked a bit sheepish.
Suddenly, a girl behind me squeals to them, "Like, Oh my GOD, are you the Maccabees?!" They admit that yes, yes they are, and took the intrusion into their boozy night out very well. They even sweetly agreed to various photos of them with said admirers in the packed tube. I got chatting to Felix's girlfriend who was very lovely - she told me I had nicely coloured hair and we agreed that we didn't really like Coldplay that much, after discussing the fact that most of the Tube carriage was returning from the gig. As we went through the Tube gates at Liverpool St, Orlando let me go first which was very gentlemanly. And, incidentally, he's very beautiful. Just saying.
All in all, a random, brilliant night. And Chris Martin, who'd I'd always thought of as a bit of a Bono-wannabe twat, was actually not as annoying as you'd think. And he certainly can put on a gig.
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