The day I met Regina Spektor.

I literally can’t express my emotions into words right now, but I’ll have a go at it anyway.

            For the second time, I was going to see Regina Spektor. You know, that amazing singer who I utterly adore and have her name tattooed on my back…? Yeah, that one. This time, we had to travel all the way to Cambridge. Despite booking in advance, it definitely wasn’t without its difficulties…

            Georgie and I had arranged to meet at 10:30 in Southampton, so I got up at 9, got ready, put my Regina Spektor hoodie on, found out mother had stained it with hair dye, almost killed her, then left to get the train. Being the douchebag I am, I forgot the bloody tickets, so managed to miss the train, forcing me to get another one! This was like, super bad, because we could only get one train up to London or we’d have to buy tickets and would miss our coach. Luckily, I was actually on the train we were getting, so I just stayed on it instead of meeting Georgie early.

            Anyway, we arrive at London, and have to meet Georgie’s cousins flatmate so she can give us the key to their apartment, so we’d actually have a roof over our heads that night. We had 25 minutes to get from the train station to the coach station. I thought that was ample time, ‘cause Google told me it took 10 minutes! Apparently, that didn’t include getting the key, and walking from the underground to the coach station, so we may or may not have missed it… Luckily, I’m super rich, so we stood in a queue for about an hour and I bought us new coach tickets for a coach that’d get us in at about 6 o’clock. This was annoying. Why? I wanted to get to the front, like, the very front of the concert and the doors opened at 7, meaning, there’d probably be loads of people already there and we wouldn’t even get close!

            However, we got to Cambridge Corn Exchange and there were only a handful of people in front of us. Probably about 20-30 people. As soon as we got in line, a guy, by himself, stood behind us. We felt it appropriate to talk to him, and he was an Australian called Tom. He was utterly lovely, and we spent the rest of the evening with him. He was also going back to London that evening and informed us of a coach back at 12:45. Our tickets were for the 11:30 coach back, and we thought that it wouldn’t finish before then so we’d miss it, so, I phoned up Daddy and he booked two tickets for the later coach. He did.

            At 7, the doors opened and we rushed to get in. Bags had to be put in the cloakroom, so we ran up to it and tried to be as quick as possible! We ran back down, and hurried to the stage. We managed to get to the second row from the front. I, unfortunately, was behind two really, super, gigantically tall people, and I could just about see over their shoulders. I did ask them to move slightly at one point, and there were as helpful as they could be, but there was literally no space, but, whatever.

            So, the support act, Nicole Atkins, came on and sang. She was really good and really sweet, but she kept ending every single song with a slow chord. Literally, every single song. Regardless of that, you should most definitely YouTube her. Like, right now. Well, after you’ve read this. After Nicole Atkins (or Catherine, as Tom called her) finished her set, it was Regina’s turn…

            Now, Regina came on stage and looked really depressed. Why? Her cellist, Dan Cho, who she’d be touring with for at least 8 months, had drowned two weeks previous. Understandably, she was upset. In fact, I wouldn’t have blamed her if she cancelled the rest of the tour. However, she still sang, incredibly, but there was little audience interaction and no encore. It was still amazing, bar the two tall people.

            The set finished at around 10:30, and I didn’t cry, but I was slightly depressed once it was over. We got our stuff, and then started talking to Nicole Atkins for about 10 minutes, who was lovely! Oh, and we totally hugged her. Then we were asked to move, ‘cause they had to close and stuff. Georgie and I realised that we could have got the coach we intended to get, but decided to stay with Tom and get the coach with him. We went to a pub and got a drink. Then they were hungry, so we walked back in the direction of the Corn Exchange towards a really cheap, ganky takeaway trailer we passed on the way. After getting our ‘nutritious’ meals, we thought it’d be fun to wait by Regina’s tour bus, on the odd chance we could meet her.

            Nicole Atkins came out and we talked to her some more. She asked for a ‘smoke’, but I’d literally just ran out, so after delving in her bag and finding one, she used my lighter. Yeah, that’s right; I’m in with famous people. Anyway, there were only about 7 other people there. Regina’s violinist was there, and we told him how good he was, and then talked to Nicole Atkins some more. Then, we heard ‘See you later, Regina’ and I literally froze. She walked round the corner, and it was like I was paralyzed. All I could do was slightly lift my arm to point at her and say ‘Th-th-that’s… That’s Re…’ Luckily, Georgie asked for a picture and we got one, I had to quickly calm down, so I could actually talk to her. I said ‘Um, can I have a hug, please, cause that’d probably make my life complete…’ and she gave me a hug. Then, feeling slightly more brave, I said ‘At the risk of sounding super creepy…’ then turned around and pulled my top down exposing my tattoo. She held my top down, stroke my tattoo and apparently, as soon as she saw it, she had a massive grin on her face like she was stupidly happy to see it. She said it was ‘amazing’, and then I told her that I saw her MySpace blog on Prop 8 and gave her one of my ‘Homosexuality is NOT a choice, but homophobia is’ wristbands. She said (regarding Prop 8) ‘I fucking hate that shit.’ She then had to go, and we walked off. About 10 seconds after, I started hyperventilating, tears in my eyes, and we were all completely shocked about what happened. We were walking through the streets of Cambridge with Tom shouting ‘WE JUST MET REGINA SPEKTOR!’. It truly was one of the best moments of my life.

            We got on the coach, looked at the picture, talked about how surreal it all was, then slept. We arrived at London, left Tom, which kinda sucked and went back to Georgie’s cousins ridiculously huge apartment. I’m talking, water features with mosaic tiles inside and a lounge bigger than a normal students apartment.

            In the morning, we met up with Becky, our friend from college who stupidly decided to move to London so we’d like, never see her again. We had a really great catch up, and had a great time with her. Then, it was time to go home. We got the train, then Daddy picked me up from the station, and I told him all about it.

            It’s never going to feel real to me, that I met Regina Spektor. I’ve literally imagined it so many times; it just feels like another fantasy. I’ve told so many people exactly what I’ve written down, and no matter how many times I’ve said it, or how many times I look at the picture, it still hasn’t sunk in. Hopefully, I’ll see her again soon. Oh, Regina Spektor, how I love you so.