Saturday nights Bangkok Symphony Orchestra concert off without a hitch, even though there was a near miss because I had wrongly thought it was to be held at the Thai Cultural Centre (Thai link). Baba rightly pointed out the evening beforehand that it was actually at the National Theatre. That was too close!

We arrived about an hour early because we weren’t exactly sure where the National Theatre was, which is looking a little run-down, and stood around watching everyone else because there weren’t any seats available outside the theatre. Contrary to previous experiences in other countries though, the little guide-book they always have at these things was FREE! (a word I am in love with) AND we got some fragrance whats-it that smells like lavender!

The theatre itself is actually not very large, looks minutely less dilapidated than the exterior and the seat numbering system is particularly confusing causing me to have a moment of panic when I saw our seat numbers were 1 and 3. Thankfully, seat 1 was in between seats 2 and 3 (phew!).

Since I’ve never been to a concert in Thailand before I wasn’t sure if a member of the royal family would be present, meaning everyone would have to stand to pay respect a number of times. I’m assuming one of them came because we did have to stand, but our seats weren’t expensive enough to be able to see who it was.

Luckily for me I’d never heard either of the pieces played so the orchestra couldn’t ruin any expectations I might have had and while they weren’t excellent, they certainly were not bad at all (even though I sat critiquing everything down to the bowing method used by the double bassists).

Even though it wasn’t as great as we’d hoped, it was far from being bad and at the very least I’m convinced to purchase a recording of the second works they performed and it got me out of the house.