This unofficial site features his current and recent events and tours
Review of Tony Hadley at Virgin Radio 15th Birthday Party doing his Party Classics radio show - 26th April 2008
In the week before this was going to happen I got a telephone call from Tina saying she had won 4 tickets in the Virgin Radio competition and asking me if I would like to go. I immediately accepted (Thank you, Thank you Tina). We would be invited to the special exclusive lounge and be able to watch Tony doing his radio show live.
I decided to travel up to Southampton the day before and stay overnight in the Holiday Inn. As I took the bus from the station I could see the ship - The Independence of the Seas between the buildings. I arrived at the Holiday Inn and had an even better view of this huge ship - currently the largest cruise liner. It is so big, I wondered how it floats.
At lunch time on Saturday I met up with Tina, Tina's hubby and Sarah and we made our way to the docks, cleared security and waited in the departure lounge, where we spotted Tony's manager John Glover. We were in the third section to be allowed on board and made our way to our 7th floor staterooms. We unpacked and made our way to the 4th floor for lunch. All food and drink on board was complimentary for this trip (I say trip but the ship didn't move away from the docks).
Soon it was time to go up on deck to watch 'Scouting for Girls', we were lucky that it was a lovely sunny afternoon. Sarah and I missed Tony introducing them, but Tina saw him. We watched them and the helicopter that had brought them circle over the ship. The lead singer lead a conga around the deck and at the end of their set, they jumped in fully clothed into a pool. In their thankyuous at the end of the show they mentioned that Tony had introduced them, they seemed quite impressed that they had been introduced by him.
By this time it was 5.40 pm and Tony's radio show was due on air at 6.00 pm, we made our way to the 5th floor to the Pyramid Lounge (an egyptian themed room) where the show was being broadcast from. We were one of the first groups of people to make it there and seated ourselves on the left, nearest the stage. The producer came round and asked us who we were and what our names was. We said that Tina had won the tickets and that we had come to see Tony. Once the show had started we were the first people to get a mention.
Tony seemed nervous about doing the show live in front of an audience, he had a clip board with all the names of the songs that had been played and the mentions of the ship and Virgin Radio's 15th Birthday. He later said that it was difficult because he didn't know who to aim the show at - the people in the room or the audience at home, but I think he struck a good balance. We also did a request for our friends but he messed it up and missed off some of the people (think that was the nervousness).
Tony had brought Alison and Zara and Zara spent part of the early evening running up and down the small dance floor towards her daddy. Tony would pick her up and send her back to her mum.
Later in the evening the producer asked for volunteers to play 'Bits and Pieces' - a quiz where short clips of songs are played very quickly one after another and you have to write down the name of the artist to win a DAB radio. Three people volunteered immediately and as I used to do this quiz when it was on the Radio 1 roadshow years ago, I thought about doing it, but was unsure. I decided to do it and as I stood up, Tony asked me if I would like to come up. As we were on the ship and it being Virgin Radio's birthday all the clips had either a birthday or nautical theme. It was then time to go live on the radio and the microphone was passed down the line and we each introduced ourselves. The ten songs were played and I wrote down seven that I recognised. It seemed an age until they announced the results, I'd seen the producer marking the sheets but had no idea who had won. The results were announced in reverse order. The man next to me was last with 4 marks, the other man had 6 marks like myself, but Tony announced me third (he seemed to be rearranging the papers to put me there). The woman had won and got the DAB radio. The rest of us got a goodie bag and I'm now the proud owner of Virgin Radio - mug, shot glasses, mouse mat, coaster and a photo :)
Several other Virgin Radio DJs were at the party including Christian O'Connell and JK and Joel. More games were played to win goodie bags. One of the questions was what was the song that Duran Duran had in a Bond film (they had wanted to ask what was their first number 1 and asked us, but I said how would I know, I wasn't a fan of theirs!). As the evening went on more people got up on the dance floor to dance.
This week was the 25th anniversary of 'True' getting to number 1, they had a slight problem because nobody had brought it with them, but they must have solved it and found a copy on board as they played it about 9.30 pm.
The four hours of the show went really quickly. It was nice to be able to see Tony doing his other job, although a bit strange that he wasn't singing for us, although he seemed to be enjoying himself singing along to a lot of the songs. He also came over to speak to us several times. After the show another DJ came on and did a disco for the audience.
After the show I thanked Tony for doing my birthday request on the radio the week before and he said he had thought it was for my birthday.
By midnight I was tired out and went to bed, unfortunately my mind was still alive and I could hear a show from elsewhere on the ship, so didn't sleep and I didn't have much sleep the rest of the night.
Next morning it was an early start as everyone had to be off the ship by 9.30 am, so we made our way to breakfast around 8 am and sat down on the right as this was the only side of the restaurant open, a little later they opened the left hand side of it and when Tony, Alison and Zara arrived for breakfast they went that way. Before we went back to our rooms to collect our bags we went to say goodbye to Tony.
Thank you again Tina for inviting me to this event. More information about this lovely ship here and here. My only regret was that we didn't have enough time to explore the ship fully.