Pally Archdukes
“Got no lights like Ally Pally in our village” rang the chorus of one of the songs in a truly terrible musical I was forced to take part in at school. I’d never heard of Ally Pally before that point and it was only when I used to hurtle past Alexandra Palace on East Coast mainline trains between London, York and Newcastle that I put a building to the name. It really is a rather beautiful place, with its gilded and turquoise tiles, triangular roof and large round window, but not one renowned for its lights as far as I’ve ever noticed. Now it’s a permanent fixture on the horizon of the view from our lounge window. Given its history as the home of the first television broadcast by the BBC, the vista of its transmission tower makes it all the more hard to comprehend why we have no network TV channel reception in our flat. We had to get Sky just so we could watch BBC2.
Ally Pally has many purposes these days, the main one for us being a pleasant (and slightly invigorating given its gradient) Sunday afternoon stroll up through its park with visitors so we can show them the magnificent view of London you get from the top. Unlike the London Eye, this one comes for free. Alexandra Palace has a wonderful weekly farmers’ market and one of the best firework displays in London on the nearest Saturday to Bonfire Night. It has an ice rink, a garden centre and regular trade fairs for knitting, dinghy and model railway enthusiasts. It’s part-derelict from being bombed in the war and round the back of the palace you’ll find a Soviet style pleasure park, with concrete skateboarding ramps, a harsh-edged lake and miserable-looking pedalos.
Perhaps its Soviet hinterland is what inspired Franz Ferdinand, with their love of USSR constructivist art, to pick it as a gig venue this week. An original two-day booking expanded to five consecutive nights as each became a sell-out and we were lucky enough to be amongst the 8000-strong throng last night. It was one of the most incredible concerts I’ve ever been to, made all the better by the marvellous Editors in support. Such original sound, such energy, such tempo, such intelligence, such talent. The crowd went wild and I felt privileged to be amongst them. You felt as though you were at an experience that people will still be talking about in 30 years' time. Never again will Franz Ferdinand be able to play in such an intimate space - from now on they will have to fill gigantic stadiums.
And how great to finally have a massive concert venue just down (or technically up) the road. The only snag is that while they have enough bar staff to enable you to purchase a beer in under 30 seconds, they have so few toilets that it’s a 30-minute queue to emit it at the other end. I’ll be a bit more restrained with the Carlsberg when we return for Embrace in a couple of weeks’ time. Meanwhile, this afternoon, we’re heading off to Spain for the weekend to see another palace on a hill, more Moorish than Soviet, the Alhambra in Granada.
REBECCA
Ally Pally has many purposes these days, the main one for us being a pleasant (and slightly invigorating given its gradient) Sunday afternoon stroll up through its park with visitors so we can show them the magnificent view of London you get from the top. Unlike the London Eye, this one comes for free. Alexandra Palace has a wonderful weekly farmers’ market and one of the best firework displays in London on the nearest Saturday to Bonfire Night. It has an ice rink, a garden centre and regular trade fairs for knitting, dinghy and model railway enthusiasts. It’s part-derelict from being bombed in the war and round the back of the palace you’ll find a Soviet style pleasure park, with concrete skateboarding ramps, a harsh-edged lake and miserable-looking pedalos.
Perhaps its Soviet hinterland is what inspired Franz Ferdinand, with their love of USSR constructivist art, to pick it as a gig venue this week. An original two-day booking expanded to five consecutive nights as each became a sell-out and we were lucky enough to be amongst the 8000-strong throng last night. It was one of the most incredible concerts I’ve ever been to, made all the better by the marvellous Editors in support. Such original sound, such energy, such tempo, such intelligence, such talent. The crowd went wild and I felt privileged to be amongst them. You felt as though you were at an experience that people will still be talking about in 30 years' time. Never again will Franz Ferdinand be able to play in such an intimate space - from now on they will have to fill gigantic stadiums.
And how great to finally have a massive concert venue just down (or technically up) the road. The only snag is that while they have enough bar staff to enable you to purchase a beer in under 30 seconds, they have so few toilets that it’s a 30-minute queue to emit it at the other end. I’ll be a bit more restrained with the Carlsberg when we return for Embrace in a couple of weeks’ time. Meanwhile, this afternoon, we’re heading off to Spain for the weekend to see another palace on a hill, more Moorish than Soviet, the Alhambra in Granada.
REBECCA
posted by Rebecca Dodgson | 12:35 pm
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