This unofficial site features his current and recent events and tours
Review of Tony Hadley 'By Request' - Worthing - 16th May 2006
I'd made a promise to myself at the beginning of the tour
that I wouldn't add more shows to the ones that I had booked to go to, but
here I was in Worthing on an overcast evening in May. I've been saving
my holiday allocation for the Big Band tour and didn't really want to use
any more of it up, but my boss decided that I should go to a meeting 40
miles nearer to Worthing than I already would be, that started at 11am the
next day. This was the perfect excuse, I could take half a day off and
get to Worthing in time. I led Karen astray and persuaded her that she
would like to come too and two weeks before the gig got row E seats, the
other side of the aisle, not too bad I thought. Arrived in Worthing with about half an hour to spare and
found a parking space near the venue, met up with other friends and made our
way to the theatre which was at the land end of the pier on the seafront.
The first half starts more or less on time with Life on Mars, but Tony's chat doesn't start until the end of Sweet Painted Lady. After he has sung Maid in Heaven he asks who has heard of Be Bop Deluxe, as usual he gets a poor response, I have heard of them but not the song that Tony sings, they were a good band, but not as successful as they should have been. I can't believe how fast the first half goes and it is time for a break.
The second half starts with Tony's choice Who Are You and continues on with Tony reading out the requests for the songs. He gets a bit mixed up and starts talking about Barricades when he is going to sing True. After this he launches into his brilliant version of the Queen song Somebody to Love. Although Gold is listed on the main part of the list, he sang it as part of the encore along with Instinction.
Too soon the gig is over for another evening, it had been worth going to Worthing, there had been no camera and sit down police at this gig and we had managed to get to the front 2/3rds of the way through the second half, Tony was pleased that people came to the front and stood because the front row was 8 - 10 ft away from the stage and he hates having a large gap between himself and the audience as he likes to interact with the audience and if they are too far away he is blinded by the lights and cannot see anyone. We go to the stage door only to find that there is a car waiting for Tony and John to take them to the ferry as they were going to Paris to see Arsenal play Barcelona in the Champions League final (unfortunately Arsenal lost). Tony soon appears with a bottle of wine in hand and gets into the car (just stopping enough time to ask John if he had a bottle opener). He says sorry he can't stop and the car drives off. Shortly afterwards Richie B comes out and chats with everyone still waiting around. We have a good long chat with Tony's brilliant guitarist, this was the longest I have ever spoken to him and he was really nice.