Concert Review: Belvoir Castle, UK - July 20, 2001

Chris Williams:

So Stewart and I set off fairly early Friday morning for the drive upto Belvoir Castle..we arrived in less time than we thought it would take and although the Castle was in the middle of nowhere, we found it easily..so that was a good start !! We followed the concert car park signs around alot of winding roads and finally found the entrance. It was obviously a back entrance to the private estate of the owners of Belvoir castle. There was no sign of any life there and the gate was firmly padlocked shut. Stewart phoned the actual castle to make sure we really were in the right place and they said yes, and when he asked what time the gates opened we got a shock...not until 16:30 hrs. We have never experienced this kind of thing before at the open air concerts, well only one in Guilford a few years ago and that was for very good reasons.

So anyway, I diverge here, so lets get back on track, we both got out of the car and spread our groundsheet and blanket on the ground and sat there, right near a corner in the road and boy did we get some strange looks from passing motorists !!, but we did not care at all :-) About 1 hour later another car drew up with three young girls in, asked what time the gates opened up and when we told them they drove off and said they would return later. A while after this another couple arrived and we sat talking to them for a long time and the four of us where so surprised that there were no more cars arriving as it was getting onto 15:00 hours by this time.

Suddenly the car with the other young girls in drove back up and parked in the queue, got straight out and turned their car radio on full blast disturbing the lovely peace of the country side....but I guess it was not too bad as at least they were playing CdeB music. Time went by and a while later I was sitting in my car with the door wide open and I heard a phone conversation which went like this "hi Chris, it's Shelly here"...I didn't really take much notice until the 'penny dropped' and I thought Shelly,....could it possibly be Shelly Nelson, as we never imagined that she would be singing with Chris on stage. Anyway I turned to look to see who this person was and just saw a lady dressed all in black getting into a car, then suddenly she got out again looked at the entrance near us as if she were looking how to get in, then she drove off and left us all wondering..was it her or not. She looked quite different from the TV shows earlier this year as she had glasses on.

Anyway back on track again, we still waited and slowly, very slowly more cars joined the queue. Finally 16:30 came and the gate was opened and I was so shocked that there was still only about 13 cars in the queue. As I was first I led the queue up "The Long and Winding Road" to the actual car park.

For a while, I felt as if I was Michael Schumacher leading the grand prix !!! Finally we got to the field and got our selves into the queue by the entrance where we met and chatted with Sandra, Diane, Anke and oops sorry I can't remember the last persons name, from Germany. The first shock for me was to see that there were metal barriers infront of the stage...a thing not often present at Chris's concerts in England and I really do not like them that much as you have probably guessed by now. Anyway soon after this it was the time for the sound check and Stewart and I were extremely lucky to be let through to hear the sound check, along with Ian Moore and his family.

So we crept down the field and stayed well back from the stage until the sound check was over, at which time we took up our favourite place right in front of the stage :-)

Finally as 19:55 the concert started...yes it was 5 minutes early...what a shock !! It usually starts 20 minutes late. And he started with "Where We Will Be Going" which was a lovely surprise. He was dressed in yep.....drum roll here.....all black !! Black shirt, black trousers and black shoes but he still looked lovely, but then again I am biased :-) Ah yes...nearly forgot, the security men made us sit down behind the barriers and everytime anyone tried to stand up and dance they were told to sit down again or they would be thrown out !!! And they were deadly serious. Finally around 30-45 minutes into the concert and another aborted attempt to get up and dance, Chris said "I can see there are alot of you who want to get up and dance...and well I have never done a concert where people do not get up to dance, so go on get up and enjoy yourselves" or words to that effect, and with that a lot of people including Stewart and myself, Sandra, Diane etc: got to their feet and the show then started to really come alive. At this point we noticed these 3 girls again from earlier on, getting very loud and very drunk and obviously trying their hardest to impress Chris himself and generally getting on everyone else's nerves. Chris made alot of jokes about sheep as there was a field of them in the distance..and naturally Tony was the butt of the jokes as he comes from Wales !! (lots of sheep there) Sorry I can't remember all the songs that he sang, but I do remember that there was the special highlight of Shelly Nelson appearing and singing "Two Sides To Every Story" with Chris. It was brilliant and the interaction between them was also very good. The only thing was that Shelly's voice did not seem very loud compared with Chris's. But she had a great standing ovation from us all. After this song she sang backing vocals for "A Womans Heart", a Dooby Brothers cover, Hotel....um what....Hotel....Hotel...ah yes I remember now, Hotel California !!! What else, Patricia the Stripper and you should have seen her face when underwear was thrown up onto the stage for this song !!

He sang, Hotel California fairly early on as well as Patricia the Stripper, which was a surprise,but a nice one anyway. As so often in the British open air concerts Chris's wife and his " boys were on the side of the stage.

Suddenly I heard those famous notes that start "Missing You" and I bent down to grab my bottle of wine for Chris, knowing that I would not be able to actually hand it up to him personally :-(( He of course saw me holding it towards him and gave me a great big smile, and I waited for what seemed ages for a security man to pass it up to Chris. But at last he had it in his hand and I was pleased :-))

The quiet bit in the middle..ish part of the show was very different. As usual the band sat in a little semi circle in the middle of the stage and Chris started singing a medley of songs, first being "And I love Her and "Too Good to Be True". He sang the first 2 lines or so, then stopped and claimed he was off key, which I believe he was....then he walked over to Al and whispered something in his ear and then Al went bright red and sad, "no I can't, I'm shy"...anyway Chris said yes you can and everything went dead silent and then Al started singing in the most beautiful voice and right on key. He sang the whole first verse and it was brilliant...and there was rapturous applause before Chris could take back over and sing the rest, mixed along with Your To Good To Be True. Also in this section he sang one of his favourites from the QR album, "Love of The Heart Divine". Then I think it was Snows of New York. Then a solo section was soon followed by the favourite part of the night for many...the fast and furious final half hour with all the usual songs included. Unfortunately I was knackered by this time and could not manage to dance to all the fast ones, but I still loved it, and did manage to sing along the whole time.

Finally exactly three hours later the final had really come and it was time to leave the stage so to speak ( During the final part of the show it had started to rain quite heavily but we were very lucky to be under the front of the stage covering so remained dry. But what a different story when we stepped back to see the fireworks....the heavens just opened and within minutes we were soaked to the skin.

After the fireworks we made our way to the back stage area as we had been promised that we could meet Chris himself after the show. Earlier in the day we had talked to a couple of people who had never ever met CdeB himself so we asked if they could come back with us, as we feel so sorry for people who have not had the privilege to actually meet him face to face. You should have seen there faces when we told them that they were coming back with us...they could not believe it!!

Anyway, while waiting for Chris himself we talked to Ian Moor and a few other people. Then Chris, Diane, and the 2 boys arrived in the backstage tent and Chris started circulating and signing stuff for people. As we had met him before, we stood back and let our two friends talk to Chris and have their photos taken with him. They were just sooo chuffed. Then just before Chris left the tent I caught up with him for a quick hello and the usual photo. !! Poor old Stewart missed out on the photo again !! Still never mind !!! While backstage I also had a great chat with Diane and the boys which was lovely, I actually chatted to them for far longer than I chatted to 'the man himself'!! Well I only really said 2 words to Chris himself !!

Finally it really was time to "Say Goodbye To It All" and leave the area and find our way back to our car. It was so late by now that the main gates which we had come in through had already been closed so along with about 6 other cars we had to drive around the estate looking for another exit !! Finally we found one, said a goodbye to our ecstatic friends and drove the 20 miles back to the travel lodge where we were staying overnight. Finally rolled into bed at around 01:30 hours and had "Beautiful Dreams" of a wonderful evening.

And I think that is all folks !! (thank goodness I can hear some of you saying !!)