Oh where to start with this one. Ok, so I am a fairly recent fan of Dr. Jordan Peterson. I found his 12 rules for life book and bought it after seeing a lecture on YouTube. I started to read it and did find it fairly heavy going. Switched to the audiobook after a couple of chapters and found it a lot easier when being read to me. That probably says more about my inability to sit and read a good book more than anything else, so we will leave that one there. I am still listening to it periodically on journeys.

Let’s start at the beginning. This event took place on the 16th September 2022, during Queen Elizabeth’s Laying-in-State, so I was expecting the journey down to London to be extremely busy and perhaps delayed.. Not at all. There were empty seats on the train all around, which makes me wonder why after specifically choosing a forward-facing seat, I get stuffed with a backwards airline isle seat. But you know, those seats are wider so I stayed put. The journey down was quick. No delays anywhere, perhaps it was just a good time to travel. I got to Euston then down into the bowls of London on the Tube. Northern Line to Bank then DLR the full length of the network to Beckton. A place I’ve been before and know fairly well, but I’ve never stayed here before. Premier Inn, well placed next to DLR, Supermarket close-by and a nice (massive) room in which the bed feels dwarfed.

I arrive shortly after 3pm and get checked in. Chill out for a while before heading back off through Central London all the way across to Wembley Arena via Wembley Park Station. Exiting the station there is pretty special, as any football fan will tell you, seeing Wembley Stadium greet you from the high-up exit of the tube station is picture worthy.

I started my walk down Olympic Way towards Wembley Stadium, but that was not my destination tonight. It was the Arena I was headed for and when I arrived just after 6pm I was greeted by a sizeable queue. Asked if it was the right one to join then joined it. Moved quite quickly towards airport-style security to get into the Arena. I made it in about 6:30pm which was an hour before the show was scheduled to start. Plenty of time. Queued again for an overpriced glass of Coke and headed in to the arena to find my seat. (Oh that was after seeing the queue for the men’s toilet… Nope). Guided to my seat inside by friendly staff and I had booked a mid-row seat it seems, which was fine, it was the first row of the block I was in. It was at the back of the Arena, just were the floor starts to raise, but I could see the stage (and the ants on it) and what was going on via the two (not so big) big screens flanking the stage.

It was fairly empty when I got there. Most of the guests seemed to either be in the bar or in the queue to get into the venue, (or the queue for the men’s toilets). It fills up over time, but there are still empty seats around me and behind and to the sides of the stage. Plenty of empty seats. – So of course I get sitting right next to me on the left a young-ish couple who cant stop looking at his phone and she can’t stop talking – all the way through, whispering, but loudly enough to be heard. On the right I have a.. passionate… stand-up-for-every-round-of-applause-guy.

I’m a big guy.. There was a lot of skin touching going on. Unintentional of course, but I have a lot to share around.

Anyway.. About 7:40pm (ten minutes after the main event was supposed to start), the stage is host to a classical guitarist and a violinist who played a few pieces of classical music and a special composition in dedication to the memory of The Queen. They were very good. Completely unappreciated for the audience they had, but very good. They played for about 20 minutes before leaving the stage. There was another sizable gap of time before Dr. Peterson’s Wife entered the stage with the sole job of introducing her Husband, but not before she told the audience that her Son has just released an app that is designed to help people write, and that it would be cool if we could all check it out. 10 minutes later, she introducing Dr. Jordan Peterson to the stage.

He gets a huge round of applause from the far less than capacity (12,500) crowd. Most people stand.. I don’t. I thought his relationship with time was frankly shocking to start so late.

So at this point I feel I need to say that as with every event I go to see, I don’t do a great deal of research beforehand. If it’s a dance event, sometimes there will be a trailer which I might watch, but other than reading the description of the event, I like to go in without being prepared, with an open mind to be able to make up my own mind about what I have seen and how I feel about it. Dr. Jordan Peterson has a reputation for touring America and the world by choosing a topic and talking on it for 90 minutes or so, then taking some questions in a q&a. He literally lectures for a living… I am sorry but I went in there expecting a lecture…

What we actually got however was a 45 minute introduction from the man himself, talking about his accomplishments and the things he hopes to achieve in the future.. His Son’s app got another mention. His daughter’s project of some sort, a series of lectures he is compiling to release as a video of some sort in November and his new forthcoming book… He gave a title.. I’d potentially tuned out at that point. He then went on to give a fantastic introduction to the question & answer session. He told the audience that after touring the world for a while and having to do a couple of hours of making notes before a show on a topic he’d later ignore during the show, he found that adding a question & answer session as an experiment on his US tour, he could basically skip the hour of research prior to a show and just answer audience questions instead.

[This got a huge round of applause from some of the crowd. I met it with a raised eyebrow].

So he starts the question & answer session. His Wife asks him the questions (which you can submit to be asked via another app if you scan a QR code etc), she starts… “Question One”… [I did not commit the question to memory]. But I can tell you he spoke for an extremely long time without actually answering the question. His Wife let him ramble. He got to his point, to the end of things, possibly a little emotional, which was.. different to see and not a side of Dr. Jordan that I think is expressed that often… He is for sure a deep thinker, and his subject material covers some fairly dense topics, but when it came down to answering the question, he did it at the end of his ramble, with one or two words.

After applause again, his wife looks over and him and says “OK, question two”… to which the audience responded with laughter. The second question was about marriage, and how to deal with arguments. Another huge ramble started, but after a certain point where he got around to answering the question he stops almost mid-stream and says “and I think perhaps that is a good time to stop”. The show ends. He thanks people for coming and plugs his merchandise once more. There is applause from the die-hards, but I think a lot of people there ended up feeling what I did… Disappointment.

I read another review earlier tonight. Ironically posted on Quora (the question and answer website that basically launched Dr. Peterson’s career and was the spark for both of his 12 rules for life books), which said roughly…

 it was incredibly underwhelming.

First his wife promoting their sons App and then the first half hour was Jordan’s self promotion trying to sell his books, telling us about future projects and shamelessly promoting the projects of his children. He told us it would be a Q and A rather than a lecture. Only two question were asked by his wife who then just let him ramble.

After doing a little more post-event research, apparently I am not alone in my thoughts and feelings of tonight’s event. Dr. Jordan Peterson, I am afraid to say, you sir have disappointed me tonight. It felt like an incredible waste of time, effort, energy and money to come and see one of your shows and I will know now that if I want a more cohesive answer and to learn anything, to simply watch your videos on YouTube for free.

Considering the Tour was called the ‘Beyond Order: 12 more rules on life’, this book wasn’t mentioned once. Well no tell a lie, it was mentioned in the context of a new release from Random House for the UK only, available at the venue, some of which are even signed. It was both books, together, in a box. A boxset. That was the only mention of it.

Shameless self-promotion. Which is fine in the context of an aside at the start or the end of a show, but I feel short-changed because he after touring for a while realised he could make his life easier by not researching or writing notes for a lecture, by not giving the lecture and holding a question & answer session, in which he answered just two questions. Absolutely ridiculous.

However, something good will come out of this trip, and there are at least another two events during this trip too, so one bad experience won’t taint the whole trip.

Dr. Jordan Peterson… an interesting man with some fascinating thoughts on life. Give his stuff a watch via YouTube or buy and read his books… Just don’t waste your time or money going to see him live. It’s really not worth it.