Taylor Swift at Abbey Road

I know I have huge amounts of stuff to catch up on blogging about but I just want to share the amazing day I had earlier in the week. If you want to see any of the photos bigger then just click on them and then you should also be given the option to zoom in on them futher

It all started a few weeks ago when I got an email from the BBC audience listings saying that Taylor Swift would be performing an exclusive show for Radio 2 at Abbey Road Studios in London on 23rd March. And they had 200 pairs of tickets to give away. So I decided to enter the draw but didn't think I stood a chance, especially when they started advertising the draw on Radio 2. Three days later I quickly checked my emails before dashing out to a hospital appt and was amazed to see that I'd won a pair of tickets! My mum immediately bagged herself the other ticket and we spent the next couple of weeks getting very excited :D

On Wednesday the day finally arrived. I got up earlier than usual and we arrived at Abbey Road Studios at 12.30pm, 7 hours before the concert would begin. We'd heard that they gave away more tickets than they had seats as not everyone would turn up and they wanted to ensure a full audience, so we were keen to start queuing as early as possible to ensure we got in and got good seats. Me and mum were 7th and 8th in the queue so sat on the pavement leaning against the wall outside Abbey Road Studios and made ourselves comfortable. This is a view of the front of the studios that I took through the railings while we were waiting outside.

I took loads of stuff to amuse me but I didn't use most of it. The 2 girls who joined the queue after us were really nice so I spent a while chatting to them. I also enjoyed watching tourists posing on the level crossing which often caused huge queues of traffic to build up! And we saw a tour group across the other side of the street who were taking photos of Abbey Road and us, so because I was bored I got my camera out and started photographing them.

Lots of people without tickets and paparazzi came to try to get a glimpse of Taylor when she arrived at the studios. We all climbed up onto the wall and hung onto the railings for a while (I'm in the blue jeans and light blue fleece) on a couple of occassions to see over the cars parked inside the wall but she must have sneaked in round the back. I don't blame her with the amount of paparazzi that were there!

We saw her band arrive though.


At one point the 6 people in the queue in front of us decided to shift to queue from the other gate so we ended up much further back in the queue. I was a bit worried that we wouldn't get as good seats as we should, but the 6 people at the front said they'd save space for us in the queue so that all worked out well and when we finally went through the gates and got our tickets numbered we were 9 and 10.


Once we were inside the gates I needed the toilet as I'd not been since we started queuing, so I approached a few scary looking security guards and asked. They didn't seem very happy to let me inside but I didn't want to walk all the way back to the tube station, so eventually they said they'd let me in. I had to be closely escorted right to the toilet door though! Quite a while later they started letting more people in to use the toilet.

After a little while queuing inside the gates we were allowed in and led into quite a big studio in the basement. Because we were so close to the front of the queue we ended up just off centre in the front row! This was the set on stage.


And this was a photo of the microphone stand taken with no zoom, so this is how close we really were!

I was a bit shocked when we walked in to see that there were no seats, but I decided I didn't want to ask for a seat and risk being stuck at the back, so I'd just try my best and stand for as long as I could manage. I sat down when we got in there and then got up when Jo Whiley came on stage to introduce Taylor and remained standing til the end.

When Taylor came on she was less than 2 metres away from me! She just wore one costume for the whole set, played lots of different guitars (and a ukelele) and performed 11 songs - a mix of old hits (Fearless, Fifteen, You Belong With Me and Love Story) and new songs from her Speak Now album (Sparks Fly, Mine, Speak Now, Dear John, The Story of Us, Enchanted and Long Live) . She was very chatty with the audience, telling us the stories behind the songs she performed, and the audience was very enthusiastic (especially the fans either side of us!). She added Enchanted as the audience requested it. Love Story was great as the finale.

I took lots of photos but this was my favourite.

And here are a few more photos I liked.







You can also see a few professional photos on the Radio 2 website here.

At the end one of the guitarists threw a few guitar plectrums into the crowd and although I didn't manage to catch any I then spotted one on the floor between someone's feet, so I grabbed it. As soon as the concert finished the security men were quite rude trying to get people out of the studio.

We slowly walked back to the tube station which took a little while as I was struggling to walk a bit after all that standing. We got the tube and then the train home and arrived back at a reasonable time as the concert hadn't been late.

I was tired and sore following the concert but it was definitely worth it for such an amazing experience that I'll never forget. And my mum loved it too.

The following day we were very excited to hear the concert on BBC Radio 2. You can listen online here til next Wed (30th). Jo Whiley asked for texts from people who had been at the concert, so I text her. She read my text out on air and said she knew who I was from the concert! My text was read out at 45mins 16secs in.

If you're interested in listening to any more of the radio coverage then Jo Whiley talked about Taylor Swift from 1min 25secs in, interviewed her at 7mins 50secs, Taylor's live performances were reviewed briefly at 52mins 50secs and the (edited) concert was on from 57mins 48secs.

You can also watch highlights of the performance online here, which will be up for about a month. I think you can also watch them on TV using the red button if you've got Sky but I'm not sure about that. A friend is going to put the footage onto a DVD for me as I've got it recorded from when it was on the Freeview red button on Wed, but can't put that onto a disc myself and I'd like a more permanent copy and my nan wants to see it too. You should be able to spot me (wearing a light blue fleece) and my mum (with a purple fringe!) in the front row of the audience. We got very excited about seeing ourselves on TV! There's a good bit of film about 5mins 12secs in where me and my mum are the nearest audience members to the camera and you can also see Taylor on stage in the same shot! Here's a screen shot of it. My mum's head is on the far left of the picture and then I'm next to her in blue.


Now I'm getting all excited about seeing Taylor Swift again at the O2 Arena next week! I know I'll be much further away from her but I'm sure there'll be a great atmosphere and I'm going with a friend so it should be good fun. We're already making plans about what we're going to wear, I'll post photos up afterwards.