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Review of Tony Hadley at Esbjerg Rock Festival - 6th June 2009

With only a few solo shows for Tony this year, I decided fairly soon after this was announced that I would go to Denmark. The flight was a good price. but it would take us into an airport 40 miles away and the only way to get to Esbjerg would be either to get a taxi at £100 each way or to hire a car. The second option was the one I chose, although it was a bit of a scary prospect as although I passed my driving test nearly 29 years ago, I had never driven on the continent.

The show was on Saturday, but we didn't want to risk flying the same day so we went on Friday. The flight went from Stansted and after an easy hour and a half flight it was time to get that hire car and drive to Esbjerg. Apart from trying to change gear with the door handle a couple of times and initially only finding 2nd and 5th gear, it was fine and I didn't go on the wrong side of the road. We arrived at the hotel, checked in and then met up with Mandy for a few drinks and catch up.

Next morning we met up for breakfast and decided to go to the festival for 12 noon when Go West were due on first. The schedule for the day was:
12.00 Go West
13.40 ABC
15.25 Howard Jones
17.10 Bananarama
18.50 Tony
20.30 Rick Astley
22.35 Foreigner

The festival organisers had scheduled about a 40 minute break between the acts, this gave the Danish people time to get another beer (although at the prices they were charging, I'm not sure how they afforded them) and the roadies plenty of time change the stage set up and consequently the acts ran to time.

GO WEST Go West were up first with Richie Barrett playing guitar for them instead of DeeRal as he is playing for Girls Aloud at the moment. I haven't seen Go West since Lille in April 2008, so there were a few songs I didn't know, but they did include - Faithful, King of Wishful Thinking, Let Love Come and Tears of a Clown and were on stage for an hour. Being first up at midday was difficult but they did a great job.

ABC Next up were ABC, Martin was on good form and went down well with the audience, he had Matt Backer with him as usual and the rest of the band were the same as I had seen with him when I saw Tony in Skegness although he did have a woman backing singer and percussionist and this worked well. Martin's hour long set included When Smokie Sings, The Look of Love and Millionaire. Martin's singing is more confident than he was when he toured with Tony and I thought they was good.

HOWARD JONES Next up was Howard Jones. This was the third time I have seen Howard, I'm never quite sure with him what is live and what is coming out of the computer, although I was told that his partner on stage does all sorts of fancy things with the computer with the live feed and adding computer generated items. He had an hour long set too.

BANANARAMA Next up was Bananarama, this again was the third time I have seen them, they had been allotted 50 minutes and they sang all their hits including Venus and Really saying something. They have two dancers with them, although one of them was different from the last time I saw them, but it was good that the fit one was still with them.

TONY
Next up was Tony, I'd seen the band milling around so knew that John Keeble, Phil Taylor, Phil Williams, Richie Barrett, Dan Carpenter, Simon Wilescroft and Dave Williamson would be on stage with Tony. This was going to be a rock night and I was right Tony rocked!!! I had a good idea what sort of songs we would be treated to and I wasn't wrong. Due to it being an outdoor stage and the 'gap', I didn't get a set list, but as far as I remember the set was (it may not have been in this order though!):

• Somebody Told Me
• Only When You Leave
• Lifeline
• Walking in Memphis
• With or Without You
• True
• Through the Barricades
• Somebody to Love
• Rio
• Suspicious Minds
• Gold
• I Predict a Riot

I just loved this set, it was almost what I would have chosen myself, I think Tony surprised the Danish audience with his choice of songs and I think they didn't know who Somebody Told Me and I Predict a Riot were by but had heard them on the radio. With or Without you was excellent, I shall miss Tony singing this along with his excellent Somebody to Love. The audience was surprised to hear Duran Duran's Rio, but it went down really well and they enjoyed it. The only downside was the rain that lasted about 10 minutes of the set. It was the only rain of the day and my question to him upstairs! is why it had to rain when Tony was on, but we just put our concert rain poncho's on (to the laughter of Tony's manager and tour manager) and still enjoyed the show. Thankfully the rain was short lived and the set ended in the dry. I couldn't have asked for a better set and the vibe from the stage was amazing. I shall miss this band, but hopefully they will be back on the road with Tony in late 2010.

RICK ASTLEY Rick was up next, his band had backed Bananarama. I'd never seen him live before. We weren't watching from the front this time and it was interesting to see how the audience were taking to him. He went down very well, unfortunately most of his songs from the Stock, Aitkin and Waterman time had the same beat and it was hard to distinguish which song was which until he was part way through. He is a good singer and I enjoyed his set.

FOREIGNER
Foreigner were on last, but we'd been at the festival since before noon and because of the rain we were feeling rather cold and if we waited, we wouldn't get a taxi back to the hotel until 4 am. We decided to go back to the hotel and not see them. Tony did stay around and see them. The taxi driver actually put some Foreigner on his car stereo! I did hear afterwards that the lead singer isn't the original one and has only been with the band since 2005.

We had an excellent time in Denmark although we didn't have time to see much of Esbjerg or go to nearby Legoland. I managed to drive on what is the wrong side of the road for me and got back home safely.