Going to see Evanescence at The O2 in London sounded like a pretty straightforward Sunday night.
On 13 September, Evanescence brought their 2026 world tour to The O2, joined by K.Flay and POPPY. It was exactly the sort of big London show worth making a proper trip out of.
What I did not expect was for the night to finish several hours later sitting in a recovery truck with my car loaded behind me.
But London nights have a habit of not going quite to plan.
A Sunday night at The O2
The O2 is one of those venues where the atmosphere starts long before you actually get inside.
As you get closer to Greenwich, you begin spotting more and more people obviously heading to the same place. By the time you reach the arena, restaurants and bars are busy and thousands of people are making their way towards the entrance.
The show itself was everything you would expect from an Evanescence gig at one of London’s biggest venues.
Then it finished and thousands of us poured back out into the London night.
At this point, my main thoughts were getting back to the car, getting out of London and eventually getting into bed.
The first two parts of that plan did not go particularly well.
The car had other ideas
I got back to the car, got in and tried to start it.
Nothing.
I tried again.
Still nothing.
There is a particular kind of disbelief that comes with a car refusing to start. You know perfectly well that trying the ignition another five times is unlikely to change anything, but you do it anyway.
A few minutes earlier I had been leaving one of London’s biggest music venues surrounded by thousands of people.
Now I was sitting in a car that was going nowhere.
That is when the practical questions start.
Can I get it started somehow?
Do I leave it here overnight?
How am I getting home?
And who exactly do you call when it is late on a Sunday night and your car has decided that London is its final destination?
Finding someone who actually answers at night
After trying the obvious things and accepting that the car was not going to suddenly cooperate, I started looking for 24 hour vehicle recovery.
That search eventually led me to 24/7 BookRecovery.
At that time of night, I was not interested in anything complicated. I needed somebody who could recover the vehicle and help me get out of the situation.
I contacted BookRecovery and arranged for a recovery truck to come out.
Then came the waiting.
Anyone who has broken down late at night will know that time seems to move differently when you are stuck with a car that does not work. Every few minutes feels considerably longer when all you want to do is get home.
Eventually, the sight I had been waiting for appeared.
A recovery truck.
From The O2 to the recovery truck
The car was loaded onto the truck and suddenly the situation felt considerably less stressful.
There is something reassuring about seeing your car secured on the back of a recovery vehicle. The car is still broken, of course, but at least you are moving again.
So that was how my trip to see Evanescence at The O2 ended.
Not in a bar.
Not on the Tube.
Not grabbing some late night food in London.
In the passenger seat of a 24 hour recovery truck.
It was certainly not the ending I had pictured when heading into London earlier that day.
The part of a gig trip nobody plans for
It did make me realise how much planning goes into attending a major concert while almost nobody plans for the journey going wrong.
You remember your tickets.
You check where you are parking.
You charge your phone.
You work out when you need to leave.
You might even plan where you are eating beforehand.
But you rarely think about what you will do if you return to the car at the end of the night and it simply will not start.
That becomes a much more important question when it actually happens.
Having access to a 24 hour recovery service such as BookRecovery meant the car could be collected rather than being left in London while I tried to work out another way home.
It is not something you expect to need.
That is probably the point.
A London night I will remember for two very different reasons
Would I go back to The O2 for another gig?
Definitely.
Would I like the next journey home to be slightly less eventful?
Also definitely.
Still, there is something quite funny about looking back at it now.
I went to London expecting a night of Evanescence, huge crowds and live music at The O2.
I got all of that.
I just also got the unexpected bonus experience of watching my car being loaded onto a recovery truck late at night.
It turns out the final act of the evening was not on stage at all.
It was parked outside with flashing lights.
