Going to a gig in a foreign country
Tuesday, 4 February 2020
I've already spent a whole load of time in Thailand but once I found out that Bring Me The Horizon were playing in Bangkok during the dates I wanted to travel, there was no question about the destination of my very last minute holiday! Flying across the world to see my favourite band play live is now something I will always be proud of myself for doing, by myself.
Being in a country where English isn't their Mother Tongue, (that was a bring me the horizon pun guys sorry haha) it wasn't quite so simple; but I wouldn't exactly say it was hard either so I wanted to share my experience for anyone nervous to do the same!
No one in Bangkok center had heard of the venue and a lot of the local taxi drivers refused to even acknowledge me when I asked. Google was also not much help so in the end, I just put the address into Grab and hoped for the best.
We went about half hour out of town but I knew I was in the right place when I spotted a humongous line of people queuing along a road, totally dressed in black. I didn't realise they had such a big Thai following.
The venue itself was awesome. An open air arena; just off of the motorway by the side of a big mall I think. I was just glad that it even existed by the time I got there.
I guess I took it for granted that most of places in Thailand are well catered for English speakers but what I hadn't planned for was the fact that everything was in Thai - I mean I was one of about 5 white people there so it made sense - there was no need for English. I soon realised that if I wanted to know what was going on I was just going to have to ask people - which I did. New found confidence that came with solo travel definitely helped.
This lead me to meet Aida, another girl wandering around alone, also as confused as me - but she was Thai, which was a real help, at least she could understand what was going on. We stuck together for the rest of the night.
I had no idea what was happening when one of the staff ushered us from the back of the very long queue to the ticket pick up point but obviously I wasn't going to stop her. I did have a mini panic when I got to the front of the queue and they asked for ID, which I didn't have but they were happy with a photo of my passport so it was short lived.
We got our tickets and since somehow skipping about a 3000 people in that queue, ran straight up to the front gates of our zone. I was worried about getting stuck in a mosh pit so being right at the front of the zone definitely helped me feel safer - turns out that the Thai crowd are nowhere near as rowdy as Londoners so it wasn't a problem anyway.
For BMTH fans, it wasn't part of the Amo tour so they played a whole load of songs from different albums which was amazing because their new stuff sounds SO different from the older songs. They opened with their new song, Ludens which means I was there for its first live performance. Pretty cool.
Afterwards, Aida and I swapped Instagram's and followed the crowd outside. She took me to the taxi rank and made sure I found a cab before she got a train home which was really sweet.
Getting back to the city center was much easier. After haggling with the driver to less than half of what he wanted, he dropped me off back to Khao San Road and then locked me in the car since I didn't have the right change. Not quite as terrifying as it sounds - he took my 1000 baht note and ran into 711 to get change, smiling and waving at me from the counter.
After giving him some cash, I took the rest of my money for noodles and bubble tea as I walked back to my hostel.
Being in a country where English isn't their Mother Tongue, (that was a bring me the horizon pun guys sorry haha) it wasn't quite so simple; but I wouldn't exactly say it was hard either so I wanted to share my experience for anyone nervous to do the same!
No one in Bangkok center had heard of the venue and a lot of the local taxi drivers refused to even acknowledge me when I asked. Google was also not much help so in the end, I just put the address into Grab and hoped for the best.
We went about half hour out of town but I knew I was in the right place when I spotted a humongous line of people queuing along a road, totally dressed in black. I didn't realise they had such a big Thai following.
The venue itself was awesome. An open air arena; just off of the motorway by the side of a big mall I think. I was just glad that it even existed by the time I got there.
I guess I took it for granted that most of places in Thailand are well catered for English speakers but what I hadn't planned for was the fact that everything was in Thai - I mean I was one of about 5 white people there so it made sense - there was no need for English. I soon realised that if I wanted to know what was going on I was just going to have to ask people - which I did. New found confidence that came with solo travel definitely helped.
This lead me to meet Aida, another girl wandering around alone, also as confused as me - but she was Thai, which was a real help, at least she could understand what was going on. We stuck together for the rest of the night.
I had no idea what was happening when one of the staff ushered us from the back of the very long queue to the ticket pick up point but obviously I wasn't going to stop her. I did have a mini panic when I got to the front of the queue and they asked for ID, which I didn't have but they were happy with a photo of my passport so it was short lived.
We got our tickets and since somehow skipping about a 3000 people in that queue, ran straight up to the front gates of our zone. I was worried about getting stuck in a mosh pit so being right at the front of the zone definitely helped me feel safer - turns out that the Thai crowd are nowhere near as rowdy as Londoners so it wasn't a problem anyway.
For BMTH fans, it wasn't part of the Amo tour so they played a whole load of songs from different albums which was amazing because their new stuff sounds SO different from the older songs. They opened with their new song, Ludens which means I was there for its first live performance. Pretty cool.
Afterwards, Aida and I swapped Instagram's and followed the crowd outside. She took me to the taxi rank and made sure I found a cab before she got a train home which was really sweet.
Getting back to the city center was much easier. After haggling with the driver to less than half of what he wanted, he dropped me off back to Khao San Road and then locked me in the car since I didn't have the right change. Not quite as terrifying as it sounds - he took my 1000 baht note and ran into 711 to get change, smiling and waving at me from the counter.
After giving him some cash, I took the rest of my money for noodles and bubble tea as I walked back to my hostel.
