As I am typing this, I am still buzzing from my most recent adventure which led me to the grand Royal Albert Hall last week. An unforgettable night for sure, and EPIC doesn’t even begin to cover it.
At some point last year, I had seen on Twitter that there’d be a special screening of “Top Gun: Maverick” in said venue. Okay, you might think, nothing too overly special. But. It was going to be MORE than “just” the film on a big ass screen.
Lorne Balfe himself was to conduct the orchestra which would perform the whole soundtrack of the movie. And not just any orchestra, nope – the freakin’ Royal Philharmonic Orchestra!
Thing was, while this sounded more than tempting, I wasn’t sure if I could really pull off a trip to London to attend the event, given that I had never been to London before and well, we all know that I can turn into a bundle of absolute nerves, so I was looking for someone to come with me. Which eventually happened, and so it was off to London last Thursday.
I do not want to elaborate too overly much on the chaotic first leg of the journey, because fucking YIKES, y’all. Just as much: we arrived WAY later than anticipated in our hotel. On top of it, I also had to take care of getting a reprint of my ticket, as somehow the barcode was a bit damaged (there was some stain on it, making it partially unreadable, and I was worried I might be turned away due to the ticket scan not working), and better to be safe than sorry, I had contacted RAH about it. They got back to me and said I should just go to the Box Office that day and ask for a reprint. Said and done, it worked super smoothly, and like five minutes later, I was in the possession of two shiny new tickets. HA! That’s what you call great customer service!
We waltzed around the area for a bit, had lunch, then back to the hotel, and off to the venue again much earlier than originally planned, since we saw some folks with posters etc waiting at the “Production Entrance”. Y’all …
We had already been guessing that a plethora of folks involved with the creation of “Top Gun: Maverick” would be in attendance, and just from looking at his insta stories, it was pretty clear that Eddie Hamilton (editor) would be there for sure. Which was confirmed by aforementioned autograph hunters as they said he’d come out and gone somewhere but would be back at some point.
Well … “His exploits are legendary. (…) I give you Eddie Hamilton, call sign TRIGGER.” (Yep, shamelessly quoting and re-phrasing TGM here.) The guy is one of the coolest and nicest people I have ever gotten to meet. Really. He totally remembered my friend I went to the M:I7 premiere in Rome with, and he also posed on some photos and signed some autographs (I mean, we were like a fistful of loyal TGM fans there at that time outside RAH).
I knew it was kinda, sorta “Now or Never” … So I took out one of my most priced possessions, namely my shiny copy of the Japanese TGM soundtrack which came with some lovely goodies. Among them a freakin poster. Which is now signed by the man himself.
We had also heard through the grapevine that Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie and some others would be in attendance, something I had been secretly hoping for, but didn’t dare to really believe in …
So can you imagine the feeling when Lorne Balfe had introduced the orchestra, and then there’s some additional Top Gun music …when TOM FUCKIN’ CRUISE walks on stage and holds a little, approximately five minutes long speech about film making, the impact of music on films, and how he’d been dreaming of exactly that: watching a film – and not just ANY film, but his biggest success so far – with an orchestra performing the soundtrack in front of a packed audience.
OMG, y’all. How fucking AMAZING is this to watch TGM in the same space, at the same time, as the Man Himself?? It has only JUST started to sink in that Tom Cruise was sitting mere meters away from me and my friend that night. No, I didn’t get to meet him, but just KNOWING he was there is already so freakin’ mindblowing, I don’t even know where to begin.
And let me tell you – so was the whole evening. Watching “Top Gun: Maverick” on that HUGE screen and hearing the soundtrack performed by an actual orchestra was something I will remember for the rest of my life. Even though I had to miss out on a couple of minutes as my neurodivergent ass at some point couldn’t handle it any more. Too many people, too many emotions, everything. So when I noticed my right hand shaking at some point before the intermission, I prepared myself (after all these years, I know how to read the signs my body is giving me) …got out during intermission, refilled my bottle with some ice-cold water, and hoped for the best. Which unfortunately didn’t really happen … So I asked a stewart if I could talk to a medical professional, which was arranged. I mentioned what was going on, and my friend had joined me in the meantime to help me calm down again (like, this could have turned into a panic attack, mind). A couple of minutes later, we were re-seated and now had very posh seats in a box somewhere with enough room and an option for me to run out, should I not feel any better.
Thank you, RAH Staff, for taking care of me so well here!
Afterwards, we went outside, and the fresh air also helped a bit. And just as we decided to go back to our hotel, some security guy told us that some of the people involved in the TGM concert were having some kind of “aftershow party” at a bar, and mentioned “Door 5”. Hmmmm … okay, why not? We had just arrived there, when the door opened and out came Lorne Balfe himself. WHAT!?
Yep, I got his autograph on the cover of the OST. I just … The best part is, a couple of days before the trip, I posted this in my insta story, shamelessly tagging him by saying an autograph of his would make this look even better. He left me a “like” …and then, on a random late September night in London, my wish came true. Sometimes, my life is impossibly cool, y’all.
And you know what? It was WORTH every single cent. It was beyond awesome, and I would like to thank everyone involved in making this a reality.
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pics: mine
Ocean Soul 