This unofficial site features his current and recent events and tours
Review of Tony Hadley at Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool
10th June 2011
It was quite short notice that this show was announced, I was on the free internet at our hotel in Gorizia. My first step is to look at the logistics of getting to a show, this one was fine - a train to Liverpool and then another to Aintree station, right outside the racecourse. The one thing that put me off was the price of the train ticket, so I took the advice of Martin Lewis at moneysavingexpert.co.uk to split my train tickets, by doing this, my train fare dropped by about £30 and wasn't too bad a price.
Wendy and I travelled up to Birmingham on our respective trains and met up for the final part of our journey to Liverpool. As usual, I'd been consulting the weather forecast a fair bit, but my favourite site metcheck.com was forecasting rain around 4pm and then a dry evening. They weren't far out although it was raining as we arrived around 2pm, but it was only a short walk to the hotel and it wasn't torrential rain. Once in our hotel the rain cleared up and it was bright and breezy.
I hadn't got any racing tips from my usual tipster, so it was a case of looking at the names and form of the horses and taking a stab in the dark. We'd missed the first two races by the time we arrived, but got a second place in the first race we bet on, from there it was downhill all the way and we didn't win anything else.
We'd seen the stage set up as we had entered the racecourse, it was near the statue of Red Rum, but strangely put on the top of a bank, so the stage was quite high up and further away from the audience than Tony likes, but least we didn't have to wait for the races to finish before we could get to the front. During the last race we made our way to the concert area and took our places.
We didn't have long to wait and soon Tony and the band were on stage. I took the precaution of writng down the set as the security seemed to be quite strict. The set was:
- Life on Mars
- Somebody told me
- Only when you leave
- Lifeline
- Learn to Fly
- True
- Through the Barricades
- Feeling Good
- Rio
- Somebody to Love
- Gold
- I Predict a Riot
In the set there were two songs that I hadn't heard Tony sing before Learn to Fly by the Foo Fighters, I was not familiar with this song, but I have a feeling that it may appear in shows for the rest of the summer, so I think it is time to learn the lyrics as I like to sing along with Tony. Feeling Good was a song I am more familiar with as it has been sung by Michael Buble, Muse, Pussycat Dolls and Nina Simone. Tony sings it really well and I think it is a good addition to the set.
Tony was on stage for an hour and after he had sung Gold, he said there was a curfew, but that he wasn't going to take any notice of it and continued with I Predict a Riot. It was a great set by Tony and the band, but our enjoyment was marred by some drunk men behind us who insisted on poking and nudging us. Thankfully the security dealt with them and they were moved away.
After the show we were ushered away from the stage, so I was unable to get a set list, the security didn't even want to let us go to the loo! We then made our way back into Liverpool on the train and back to our hotel.
Denise 11/6/11