Take That @ Wembley Stadium, 4th & 5th July 2009

Back For Good? Most definitely!

So, continuing my 90’s nostalgia trip, I went to see the last 2 dates of the Take That Circus tour. Both nights were very different experiences but both amazing – on Saturday I went as a grown up and sat in the seats at the back, and on Sunday I became the teenager I never was and joined the queue outside Wembley in the morning to get to the front barrier and see the show up close, but more of that later.

Supporting Take That was my favourite singer/songwriter Gary Go, and as Wembley is essentially his home turf, I was expecting a great show. On Saturday I had a great view of the whole stadium and I have to say I was incredibly excited to see him playing to such a big audience (especially as the last time I saw him play there were probably about 30 people there (Cambridge, 30/05/09), so the step up to about 20,000 was a big one). It was obvious that a lot of the people up in the stands didn’t know his music but hopefully I didn’t put them off by singing along to all the songs. I was really impressed with how he and the band filled the stage – Gary sounded really confident and the music was great. The set list was the same on both nights:

Open Arms
So So
Engines
Black And White Days
Life Gets In The Way
Heart and Soul
Wonderful

I have to admit that my attendance on Sunday and the associated queuing was all in support of MrG…myself and the other self-styled Go Go Girls with banners in tow wanted to see him on the stadium stage and let him know that he had some of his own fans in the house. Queuing from 6am (I have to admit that I joined in a little later but I did bring biscuits) secured us a place at the front barrier but it was every man (or should I say woman) for themselves when the doors opened – TT fans can be vicious!! So saying we met some really nice people in the queue, some of whom were converted GG fans after seeing him play at other dates on the tour. And seeing him play from the front was even better, although we didn’t have a great view of the rest of the band because of the set up of the stage. All I can say is that Gary deserves to be very successful and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that one day he will be playing Wembley again on his own tour (Gary – if you’re reading this please have a thought for the Go Go Girls when this happens and make sure that we can get tickets before it sells out LOL!). On both nights after the show I overheard other people comparing him to Bono and U2, which is a pretty high accolade. Looking around in cyberspace I know that Gary has gained a lot of new fans through this tour so fingers crossed for his new single, which is out later this month.

The second support act on both nights was Lady GaGa and I have to say that the slot has just confirmed to me that she is really not my cup of tea. I understand from my new friends I made in the queue that she was booed from the front on Saturday (although to be fair I couldn’t hear it at the back) for her no show in Manchester, and I think it may have put her off her stride as she certainly spent a lot of time saying how happy she was to be on tour with Take That. While I like Poker Face and Just Dance I just think that she is too much of a show off for me and there is something about her that I find to be intensely annoying. There’s no doubt that she can sing, but 3 costume changes for a support act is just over the top and she milks the crowd something rotten. I took the opportunity on Saturday to go and get a drink while she was on but unfortunately that’s not an option when you are packed in at the front so I just stood looking a bit bored – I didn’t even take any pictures of her! For any ardent GaGa fans reading this – I can see why she’s so popular but she’s just not for me.

Now, on to the main event. Although I liked Take That back in the 90’s I was never a huge fan – certainly not one of the many who needed the emergency phone like when the band broke up – and I didn’t get to see them live until their come back tour in 2006, and I have to say that it was one of the best concerts I have ever been to. It was in Wembley Arena, the atmosphere was fantastic and the show itself was completely breathtaking – and I thought it would be a challenge to beat that. But I’m pleased to say that the band managed to surpass themselves and what was lost in having a larger, more open space to fill was more than made up by the huge spectacle that we were treated to. The people who staged the show need some kind of medal as it was incredible – just absolutely massive and very very beautiful. Sitting up at the back for the first night gave me a real sense of the scale of the thing and the overall impression that they created, while being at the front on Sunday meant that I was just a lot closer to the action and I embraced my inner screaming fan when the band were right in front of us. For a complete picture I really needed to have done a third night near the B stage but 2 nights is probably good enough ;-)

But anyway, the highlights of the show are almost too many to list (but I’ll try…):

1. The Elephant, which was worked by people hanging off it and just looked brilliant. I wouldn’t like to be the person being the tail though, they had to stay upside down for about 20 minutes!


2. The Clown sequence when they made themselves up as clowns and then unicycled down the middle – the colours were amazing and it was just so much fun


3. All the circus performers and dancers were fantastic – there was a guy who went round in a wheel who was astonishing, along with a tight rope walker, trampoliners (is that a word??), trapeze artists, stilt walkers, hula hoopers – you name it, they had it


4. The show included both rain (all the people near the B stage get wet I think) and fire – you could feel the heat from the flames right at the back on Saturday and I thought I was going to burn my eyebrows off at the front on Sunday – it was HOT!


5. The songs they sang (and those they didn’t) showed what an extensive back catalogue they have. Gary gave a taster of some of their old stuff that they didn’t play including Babe sitting at the piano, which was a really nice touch


6. The boy band has truly become a man band – less dancing and no break dancing (which they were still doing in 2006) but instead a whole section where they played their own instruments as a ‘proper’ band


7. Never Forget. 80,000+ people (including the crew) doing the arms in the air thing feels incredible

All in all a brilliant weekend – they were filming for the tour DVD while I was there so I can’t wait to get a copy of that. Having seen Britney Spear’s version of the Circus (you can read my review of that here) all I can say is that you can give me Take That version any day – there really isn’t any comparison.


Engines, Gary Go’s third single from his debut album, is out on July 20th

Circus – The DVD is hopefully out soon...

Gary Go @ The Soul Tree, Cambridge, 30th May 2009

The last small gig before the big time?

OK, I know, this is threatening to turn into a music blog about Gary Go rather than gigs generally but bear with me…. I went to see Gary Go at a very low profile gig at the Soul Tree in Cambridge which was acting as a warm up for the Take That support slots that kick off this month; excitingly his debut album had also just come out and was flying high in the iTunes chart. Actually, the gig was so low profile that it wasn’t in the local paper and he hadn’t even admitted to it on any of his online presences, of which there are far too many (at last count he had 3 of his own websites, a blog, a fan forum, and profiles on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Bebo, YouTube, audioboo….all being updated at different times with different things – sometimes less is more). Sorry, rant over. As I was saying, the gig was somewhat under the radar it was unsurprising that the turn out was small and although perfectly formed – possibly not the best preparation for a stadium tour…?

Support was forthcoming from local boy Tom Copson, who is a one man singer/songwriter. General feeling from the crowd was that he had a Jeff Buckley sound about him, and he coped very well with the intimacy of the gig and the slightly boisterous nature of the people who were there. I was inspired to check him out on MySpace (you can do too if you click here) and it’s also worth mentioning that he has some music available for download on iTunes. We saw him after the gig and he seemed like a nice chap.

After only a short wait, Gary Go and his band came on to the small stage and opened up (appropriately) with Open Arms. Their set was plagued with technical difficulties – one of Gary’s keyboards didn’t work until three quarters of the way through the set and he also had problems with one of his microphones (unfortunately the one that was attached to the working keyboard…), while lead guitarist Andreas couldn’t get any sound out of his acoustic guitar at all and had to swap instruments half way through a song. This isn’t the best omen for their support slots for Take That and bass player Tim quipped that they wouldn’t be supporting for very long unless things improved.



Despite this, the band are a really great set of musicians and they coped with the technical problems really well. Gary was on good form and it was great to hear the different arrangements of the songs that will be blasting out from the various stadia over the next few weeks. Rockier versions of Black and White Days and Life Gets In The Way were forthcoming, although they shied away from playing the rockiest number in the GG cannon – Refuse to Lose – even though it was on set list for the encore. Actually, this was the first time I had seen Gary with a prepared encore, which excitingly included The Diary of Rodney Harvey, which I haven’t heard before and was apparently the first time it’s been performed live. With a bit of persuading from the audience, the band also pulled off an impromptu performance of Brooklyn, which Gary says he hates playing but I for one really like.



The next time I see Gary Go will be in the big top of the Take That Circus tour. Given the quality of his songs and general brilliantness of the band as a whole I suspect there won’t be any more gigs like The Soul Tree…and while I will be thrilled for MrG as it’s nothing less than he deserves, I’m sure myself and the rest of the Go Go Girls will miss them.

Gary Go kicks off Take That’s Circus tour on June 5th in Sunderland

Gary Go @ The Soul Cellar, Southampton 13th May 2009

Last week I was the grateful recipient of 2 tickets to an "exclusive" Gary Go gig for Wave 105 the local radio station in Southampton. It's not often that I can say I'm a winner but in this case I was - just please don't tell the lovely people at Wave 105 that I live nowhere near Southampton and have never listened to their radio station - I'm sure it's great though, and if you want to listen to it you can click here to visit their website.

So I went down to Southampton from London after work and I can say that they train was very quick but also stupidly expensive - good job the gig tickets were free really!!! The Soul Cellar is only about 10 minutes walk from the station (no one had thought to mention that it was 10 minutes walk up a very steep slope but you live and learn - work shoes and hill climbing is not the best combination) and while it does have a cellar, the gig was actually taking place in a room above ground. The venue was small, which made for a great atmosphere.

After a brief introduction from one of the Wave 105 DJs, Gary and his trusty guitarist Andreas took to the stage and played a stripped down set that lasted over an hour. I'd heard a rumour that they were only going to play for 30 minutes, so I think we (and they!) did pretty well. Gary served up some interesting versions of his songs, including a different take on his current single, Open Arms, which was apparently how the track started life. He played a mixture of tracks from his forthcoming album, include the fantastic 'Black and White Days', which I hadn't heard before and am very excited about, and some older material from his previous EPs. Overall Gary seemed very relaxed (the glass of wine he brought on stage with him probably had something to do with it...)and bantered to great effect with the audience - it was probably one of the funniest gigs I've been to - and I think he bought himself a room full of new fans from the South Coast.



There were a couple of wrong notes here and there, and the odd forgotten line (or as in the case of Twitter-inspired track 'Heart Balloon', a whole forgotten ending) but it really worked on the night. The Take That support slots will require a higher degree of polish to make an impact on a larger stage, but in a smaller gig with excellent support from guitarist Andreas it was a really fun night. Plus it's the first time I've seen him playing an encore, reprising Wonderful in response to popular demand. WONDERFUL indeed.

Gary Go's debut album is out on May 25th