This unofficial site features his current and recent events and tours
Review of Tony Hadley – Pacific Road Arts Centre, Birkenhead - 6th October 2007
After a quick flight up to Leeds and picking up the hire car it was time to meet up with Mary and to head off down, or is it across to Liverpool for the hotel and onwards to Birkenhead for the gig. I'd not been to this venue before so after driving round a bit there were shouts from my passengers of 'there it is' so I parked up and we went to meet up with Mandy who was already in the venue.
The stage was a T Shape with JK's drum Kit at the back and Phil T, Phil W and Richie along the front with Tony. The venue had decided to put us about 6 or 7 feet away from Tony behind a barrier, I suppose this wasn't too bad as the stage was fairly low. Tony complained to us later in the show about the gap between us.
This venue had sensibly decided not to have a support act but to have two sets from Tony, this was a brilliant idea as he decided to do a semi-acoustic first half with the inclusion of the Take That song 'Reach Out', his brilliant rendition of 'Young Girl' and Michael Buble's 'Home'. These are three of my favourites. The second half rocked, he mentioned that he was missing Andrea for Suspicious Minds, I just love the inclusion of the Feeder song 'Buck Rogers'. You could tell that Tony has had a bad throat, but only when he was talking, not when he was singing.
He seems to have got it into his head that it is almost Christmas - his explanation for this is that everyone in his family keep asking him what he is doing for Christmas, his reply to them is that he doesn't know. I'm not sure how many other people will have decided what they are doing either.
At the end of the gig he wished us all a very Happy Christmas. I waited to get a set of set lists but due to there being different roadies, there were only one set of first half set lists available, so thanks to (northern) Wendy for letting me take a photo of her first half ones, so you can see what he sang, as unless I write it down, I can never remember the complete set.
An excellent gig with 23 songs, well worth the trip to Birkenhead. We waited for Tony but he decided to go and just wave to us from the car.