You sure couldn’t tell it was the longest day of the year here, what with the grey skies and cloud cover, but Happy Solstice anyway!
I went to see Elton John in concert last night, a last-minute invitation from a good friend who had disinvited her husband because he’s been such a butthead lately. I hate to luck out on someone else’s marital problems, but it was fun to go to a concert, which I haven’t done in ages. The last time I saw Elton John I was in college and we sat on the lawn and he totally rocked and he smashed his piano bench into small pieces and flung them out into the crowd to raucous cheering.
Now, 20 years later, he’s shifted the key down in most of his songs because he can’t hit the high notes any more and he can’t hold them either, but he still managed to put on a good show. It was at the Malmö stadium, so we sat under the wind and the shifting clouds and, later, the drippity annoying rain and sang along for nearly the entire concert. It’s amazing when you think about it: how many really great and singable songs that man has written, how many hits he has had. He sang and played for 2.5 hours without a break and along with some of the great old favorites he played some of his lesser-known, but still excellent, stuff. The opening band The Storys, 6 guys from Wales, was also really good, despite the terrible echo from the top side of the stadium and both my friend and I ended up buying their CD.
It just started pouring, after threatening all day. Good thing I watered the flowerpots when we got home, eh? Rain rain rain on the forecast for the next 5 days. Rainy midsummer in Sweden…sigh…I think in the 11 years of midsummer celebrations here in Sweden, it’s only NOT rained on about 3 of them. O! It just thundered loudly and lightninged! That makes up for it, then. I love a good thunderstorm!
FREE STUFF! LJ just started a permanent account sale and I went and bought me one. The thing is, I had 285.5 (I like that they make sure to keep that half in there) days of remaining paid time AND 379.33 days of extra userpics. Want them? Throw your LJ name in the hat and I will have a small half-Swedish, half-American child pick one randomly for each (in other words, one person will win the paid time and another one will win the extra userpics). Deadline is Monday, so comment here if you’re interested in participating in the drawing!
And since I won’t get around to this in the morning and will be gone all afternoon and evening dancing round the soggy maypole with the rest of the bedraggled frogs, and eating meatballs and herring and strawberries with cream…
Hippity Happity Hoppity Gigantic Birthday Wishes in Advance to thehula!