This unofficial site features his current and recent events and tours
Review of Tony Hadley at Chester Festival,
Ellesmere Port Civic Hall - 13th July 2007
This should have been my third summer gig, but with Humberfest being postponed due to the flooding, it was only my second. With the weather we have had this summer, I was glad it was indoors in a theatre. The other good point about a theatre is that there is a stage door. I'd had problems finding out actually where this gig was being held. I knew it was part of the Chester Festival, but I didn't expect it to be in a town 9 miles up the road. I also didn't know if it would be Big Band or a TH Band gig, but I'd spotted that Andrea had mentioned it on her My Space page so was pretty certain it would be TH Band with John, Phil, Phil, Richie and Andrea. Karen and I decided to go together and she took a train from the south coast, I took mine from the south west and we met at Birmingham New Street to continue our journey to Ellesmere Port via Liverpool.
We arrived late afternoon and walked to the hotel in the rain, unpacked and made our way back into the town for something to eat and to check out the venue (and the stage door). It seemed strange that there were no posters advertising the show at the venue. We got a taxi back to the hotel as it was still raining and we were running out of time to get ready. Its a good job that I don't take forever to get ready as we had less than half an hour to do so and we got another taxi back to the venue.
We went into the bar area and said hi to Lynne, we then made our way to our seats (front row but on the side), said hi to more people I know and sat down expectantly. Next thing we know is that a woman comes up to us and says she has the same seats as us, we see her tickets and they are identical to ours. She gets the usherette to sort this out and she gets some extra seats put in at the end of the row.
Tickets say a 7.30 pm start but it is gone 7.45 pm when Tony comes on stage. but it is worth the wait and the gig starts almost like a 'By Request' show with Life on Mars. When I saw the set list I didn't really think that Michael Bublé's 'Home' suited the tone of the evening and Heroes was a good replacement. We'd managed to stand through Memphis and Heroes, but sat down in between. First half flew by and time for an interval chat.
Time for the second half, it was rock second half, I loved all of them and we were able to stand right up next to the stage, which was much better than the seats which were a good 8ft from the stage, Tony acknowledged me from the stage with his usual 'what are you doing here!', I know I was nearly 250 miles from home but this was a gig well worth going to and I'm glad I took the trouble to go.
Gig over and time to go round to the stage door, thankfully it had stopped raining and chatting to people, I don't really take much notice of what time it is that Tony comes out, but it is lovely to see him and chat a bit. Eventually it is time for everyone to go and Lynne and her hubby give us a lift back to our hotel (thanks Lynne) and as we are saying goodbye to Lynne a certain people carrier and silver jag turn up at our hotel. The band are staying in our hotel! We see them check in and Tony makes his way to his room and we ask if it is ok to join him in the lift. As he makes his way to the lift a stag party recognise who he is and start singing Gold. The lift doors seem to take forever to close and the look on Tony's face is 'oh no, not again'. He gets out on the second floor and we carry on to the third. It has been such a great evening and we are not ready for bed, so decide to go down to the bar. We don't see Tony again (we hear from hotel staff that he decided to eat in his room so not to run into the stag party again) but see John and Phil in the hotel. The barmaid thinks we are something to do with the band.
Next morning we go down to breakfast and meet Tony, Phil T and Richie just coming out of the restaurant. Tony wishes us a good morning and gives us a kiss. This confuses the waitress and she wonders why he has just given us a kiss. We see them load up the car for the long journey to Norfolk and leave.
Denise 20/7/07