This unofficial site features his current and recent events and tours
Review of Tony Hadley vs Martin Fry ABC: -
Grimsby -
19th April 2005
The good news was that Tony was doing a concert on my birthday,
the bad news from my point of view was that it was in Grimsby. Living in
the far south west of England wasn't going to make it easy for me to get to this
one and I didn't have anyone to go with. I asked around the people I knew in that part of the world and
Jane and Sue came up trumps and said they would come with me. I decided
not to go home after the Birmingham show, but to head north and stop over in
Sheffield for a day and then go onto the gig on the day.
Being my birthday, I was in a party mood, not sure about most of the other people at the show, but at least it was pretty full. Our seats were on the end of row C (but the second row in that block), a good view of the speakers from there, but there was a big space in front of row B and I decided that it would be a good place to move into and dance, luckily so did some of the people in the row in front of us. So for most of the first half we were up and standing, even when Tony came to sing some ballads he said to sit down, but we were having none of that and he said ok, you can sway to these if you like. The set list was similar to Birmingham, so no surprises there and as usual both Tony and Martin gave a great show.
During the interval Jane wrote a note asking Tony to wish me a happy birthday and got the nice roadie Chris to put it on the stage. A few songs into the second half the people in front of us made their way to the front of the stage and we followed them, the people on the front row were a bit sedentary andshowed no interest in standing up. As the second half went along we edged nearer to the middle and by the time Tony came on to sing 'Instinction' we were at the middle and during 'Gold' Tony looked down and asked me if it was my birthday and I said yes, so he said 'Happy Birthday to Denise' over the microphone and then carried on singing 'Gold'. It made my day that I was so close to Tony for most of the second half, when Martin Fry came on he acknowledged me. I had a great time.
All too soon it was all over, I managed to get one of the large posters and it was time to head for the stage door. By this time it was raining quite heavily so Jane decided to drive her car round to the stage door, so we waited in the car until Martin and Tony came out. Martin came out first, shortly followed by Tony. I spoke to Martin first and got him to sign my poster with a happy birthday message and talked about how far I had come to the show and how Torquay was my local gig, he remembered the heckler at that one. I then talked to Tony and he wished me a happy birthday again and signed the poster, we chatted and he gave me a few hugs and kisses on the cheek. I had a superb evening and thanks Tony for making it special for me and thanks to Jane and Sue for joining me on my first trip to Grimsby.