This unofficial site features his current and recent events and tours
Review of a week in September 2010
I've decided that the easiest way to cover that mad week in September is to do a joint review of Tony in Elvis Forever, the Peterborough golf and the concert and football in Sandhurst.
Living in the south west of England usually means quite a bit of travel, once we had decided that we were going to the Elvis Forever concert, it was a choice of going back home afterwards and going to work for a couple of days or staying up with Wendy until we went to the golf in Peterborough. I didn't want to take too much leave from work, but it seemed a waste of petrol and effort going back home, only to return a day or so later. So I stayed with Wendy, she still had to go to work but I had things to do like finishing off the design of the football programme and shopping for the alcohol and soft drinks that were required for the show in Sandhurst.
I arrived in Sandhurst on the Saturday and thought I had walked into some sort of mad place. People were eager to get their hands on tickets for the match on the following Sunday week. The landline phone kept ringing, plus two mobiles and people arriving at the door all the time.
Elvis Forever
On the Sunday, Wendy had to work, it was going to be tight getting to the Elvis Forever concert, but as I have driven into London quite a few times, I was sure it would be ok. I'd pre-booked car parking through the Royal Albert Hall at Imperial College as it was cheaper and I wasn't sure that I'd get into the public car park in Park Lane. This was a bad mistake as this was on the other side of Hyde Park and I didn't know about the roadworks in the area around it along with the no turn right signs. We spent ages trying to find the car park and the sat nav didn't really help. Eventually we found the car park and decided that a taxi would be best to get us nearer. The taxi driver was nice but not as helpful as he could have been as we still had a 15 minute walk once he had dropped us off.
Eventually we got into the venue, the concert had already started. We enquired to people arround us and found that Tony hadn't been on yet. What a relief .... Chris Evans was the host and along with Tony there were Tom Jones, Scouting For Girls, Imelda May, Fyfe Dangerfield, Jon Allen, KT Tunstall, Michael Ball, Mica Paris, Tony Christie, The Magnets, Fran Healy (from Travis), Craig David, Marti Pellow, Nell Bryden, Elio Pace and Suzi Quatro along with the TCB Band who provided the orchestra that backed most of the artists. Priscilla Presley also appeared and talked quite emotionally about her life with Elvis. Tom Jones was top of the bill and he talked about meeting Elvis many times, For the 70 year old, it was his second show of the night, having been on the bill at the Help for Heroes concert at Twickenham earlier in the evening.
Tony's part of the show was to sing two songs made famous by Elvis - You've Lost That Loving Feeling and Bridge Over Troubled Waters. He had two separate slots. Tony loves singing Elvis songs, but his two favourites are Suspicious Minds and Always on my mind. He did sing You've Lost That Loving Feeling as a duet with Martin Fry on their 2005 album, dvd and tour. Bridge Over Troubled Waters isn't a song that I'd necessarily associate with Elvis, but apparently it was recorded by Elvis in 1970 and he sang it in most of his shows from then on including his last show in 1977. Tony was excellent singing both songs and was well recieved by the audience which included many people dressed as Elvis.
It was great tribute to Elvis in what would have been his 75th year. Because it was being broadcast live on Radio 2, it finished fairly early at just after 9 pm with a huge firework display and shower of silver streamers and paper canons. We found the car again and drove back to Wendy's house. It had been well worth the trip to London even though Tony only sang two songs, the rest of the evening was great too.
Peterborough Golf
This was the third time I had gone to the golf - The Tony Hadley Golf Classic in aid of Action Medical Research. It consists of a day of golf with teams made up of local golfers usually with a celebrity and a dinner in the evening. As it is a couple of hours drive up to Peterborough from Wendy's house and Tony usually tees off around 10.30 am, we go up the day before and stay in the hotel where the dinner is being held. It is nice to meet the organisers from the charity and some of the celebrities who are playing.
There was a problem this year, Tony had hurt his back and would be unable to play golf, but he followed his team around the course. They do not allow spectators to follow the golfers around the course, so you can watch the teams teeing off and at the 9th,10th and 18th hole, so the rest of the time is spent catching up with friends who have come along as well. The day was bright and sunny but there was a very chilly wind.
After the golf we made our way back to the hotel for a rest and to start getting ready for the evening ahead, The next thing we know if that the fire alarm had gone off and the residents of the hotel were out in the car park, some dressed just in towels and a woman who was in the middle of having her hair dyed. There wasn't a fire, just an old person along the coridor from where we were staying who had left the shower on and had gone to sleep.
Panic over and back to getting ready for the evening ahead. All dressed up and it is time for the champagne reception and then the call for dinner. Tony presents the prizes for the golf between the courses, there is a raffle and an auction, but Tony doesn't sing (he doesn't usually, so we weren't expecting him to). I bid on one lot in the auction but it goes for several hundred pounds more than I can afford. The auctioneer is very funny though. The evening ends with a casino session. where the money you pay for the chips goes to the charity. I was given a few chips and played roulette badly and lost. Later than we intended we went to bed, as it was going to be an early start the next morning back to Wendy's house.
Sandhurst Concert
It was Wendy's husband who though that it would be a good idea to bring Tony to Sandhurst to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Sandhurst Town Boys and Girls Football Club and in the process raise money for the club along with having the Arsenal Ex-Pro and Celebrity team (which Tony plays for) come as well.
They looked at various venues in the area and decided that it would be best to have the show at Sandhurst Community Hall, this had a limit of 200 standing people and the tickets were initially only sold to local people and after a month anyone could buy them. A small number of Tony's fans bought them.
I was a bit tired when I got back to Wendy's house. so after an initial drop off of stuff at the venue, I left Wendy to sort things out (along with a few other volunteers) and went back for a sleep. After an hour and a half sleep, I got up and started to get ready, half ready I got a phone call from Wendy saying we needed a set list typed and some lyrics photocopied and others found on the web and printed. In my still half asleep and half ready state, I went down to the venue to pick up Tony's hand witten set list (stupid me I didn't keep it!), and the lyrics to photocopy. Back to Wendy's house to get this done, work out how to use her printer/scanner/copier. I hadn't been expecting to do this and it put me in a bit of a spin, so much so that I forgot a song from the set list. Tony was really nice about it and said it didn't matter as he could write it on, but I was mortified that I got it wrong.
Back to finish getting ready and to go back to the venue for the evening.
Doors opened at 7.00 pm and shortly after that I arrived and had my ipod playing 80's tunes out of Tony's PA system. Tony's fans had taken up their places at the front by the stage and took it in turns to get some buffet food. The stage was quite small and the only lighting was a few plain spotlights.
A raffle was held before the show and included some Hadley's Gold beer and Spandau CDs, I didn't win anything but after the raffle was presented with a bunch of flowers for my work designing the tickets, posters, flyers and website.
Time for the show to start and John, Phil, Phil and Richie took the stage followed by Tony. This is the set list as typed by me, but is a also where Tony has written on Suspicious as I forgot it. Thanks to Karen for taking a copy of it.
The songs sung were very much the ones done at the summer sessions. It was a great rocking set and pretty much the sort of set list I may have chosen myself.
It was very hot on stage and Tony did his melting act. Because the spotlights, there were no lighting effects, but at one point Chris the roadie decided to turn them off to make it a bit more interesting. This frightened Wendy as she thought the electrics had been overloaded.
It was an excellent show although some ot the locals got a bit lively being so close to Tony. I don't think some of them had been so close to an 80s icon before.
After the show Tony stopped to sign autographs and have photos taken and then it was back to London for him.
Football Match
The Sunday was a football match of mainly parents of the children in the Sandhurst Town Boys and Girls Football Club versus the Arsenal Ex-Pro and Celebrity team. Some of the fans had stayed over and there was great interest in the match from the local community. We already knew that Tony wouldn't be able to play due to his back injury and he wasn't too keen to come on the day, but after Wendy asked him to come along, he said he would and shortly before kick-off he arrived with Zara in tow.
The weather on the day was dry, but with a bit of a chilly wind. The Arsenal team included Ralf Little, Sam Attwater (who played Leon in Eastenders) Mark Ramprakash, and several ex-footballers. The Sandhurst team were well and truly beaten by this team and only managed to score one goal. See photos from the game here.
Tony sat in the dugout and watched the first half ot the match and at half time he signed autographs and posed for photos. I did feel sorry for Zara, she was a bit bewildered by all the people surrounding her daddy as she barely is as tall as Tony's leg, but myself and a few fans who she knows tried to allay her fears. Tony then went and had a bite to eat and as Zara was getting tired, it was time for them to head back to London. It was so lovely that he took the time to come to the football even though he wasn't playing and this was appreciated by all. The day went off really well and was a great end to the 30th Anniversary celebration weekend of the Sandhurst Town Boys and Girls Football Club.
A local magazine covered the event, but it went into liquidation before the magazine was published, so there is only an online version available. Pages 24 - 27 are where to see the coverage of the event.