Concert Review: Jersey - October 2, 2004
Chris Williams:
Hi all, well here is 'our' review from the Jersey concert on Friday evening. First of all late Thursday evening, 'Williams Travel UK' took its maiden trip, when we drove upto the airport to pick up Andrea. Then Friday morning we set off, without Stewart, (as he could not get the time off of work) for the drive to Gatwick airport where we would take a flight from there to Jersey. We knew it was going to be a fun trip as soon as we saw a very large sized dinosaur travelling along the M25 !! well it was of course on the back of a lorry !!!! The rest of the journey to Jersey was actually very eventful. This started at the airport as we went through passport control where our pictures were taken !!!! Neither of us have ever had seen this happen before, in Germany or the UK. Once through passport control, the security people decided to do a spot check on Andreas hand luggage and he laughed his way through as she unloaded all her bag...he was a very nice friendly man, and at this point a security lady came up to me and asked if I minded if she did a security check on my shoes !!!!!!!! She took me over to an area where I had to sit down and put my feet up on a stall, gosh I thought I was going to have my shoes cleaned for me ;-) Of course neither Andrea or myself had anything to hide so we did not mind at all, although it was a bit embarrassing I guess...which was to carry on later in the evening....but more about that later !! As we went through departure gates at Gatwick a little screen was showing our photo. Once we were boarded on the 'plane' we were handed out pink cards about the size of a postcard, which we had to fill in. The title was 'Terrorist (Jersey) Law 2002. It asked so many questions and every passenger had to fill in all answers. It asked for name, DOB, maiden name, reason for visiting Jersey, where we were staying in Jersey, occupation, employer, where you were born....I think that was all !!! Once we got off the plane in Jersey and walked through passport control there, we had to hand the pink card in as we showed our passport and there on a little TV screen was a picture of us, again !! and there were about 4 police watching over us all. I think they must be very security conscious in Jersey !! some of the people infront of us were complaining to the security in Jersey, as the questions were so personal. Yes they were, but Andrea and I had no complaints as if it makes the world a safer place, its worth it all. After waiting for a bus, we finally arrived at our 'hotel' at around 14:00 hrs. After a quick break and freshen up, we walked into the town to get something to eat and have a look around. It was dry but very windy and once the wind actually dropped, the temperature was quite pleasant. We walked along the 'beach' for a short while and then went back to our hotel for a swim and shower etc before getting ready for the 15 minute walk to the venue. As we walked out from the hotel it started raining slightly and within minutes it was pouring down 'cats and dogs' !!!! we got absolutely soaked :-( Why oh why had we decided to try to look nice for the show, with freshly washed and dried hair etc !!!!!!!!! We arrived at the venue completely soaked and with very very wet hair !!! Then the next bit of fun, my tickets had been lost in the post, and despite being told on the phone a few days before the show, that it would be fine, the box office would just print us out 2 new tickets when we arrived, of course it proved to be no where near as easy as that !!!!! it must have taken them about 15 minutes of 'phaffing around' before at last one person decided that the easiest thing would be to just write our seat numbers on a piece of paper and it worked......although we would both have loved the 'proper' ticket for out collections !! Once in the venue, as we made our way to our seats, we were spotted by Chris Andrews, who immediately called out 'hello' to us and we had a quick chat with him about the awful weather. I told him I could remember the last time we were in Jersey 2 1/2 years ago and we had had very similar weather then !!! The venue was very slow to fill up but by the time it was 20:00 hrs I think that every seat was full. The lady in the flower shop, told us earlier in the day, that the evening before they had been putting out extra seats for the show.. I reckon the venue held about 1000 -----1500 people. The stage was not the lowest we have seen but it was OK and we had a good view. At about 20:10 we heard the strains of 'When Winter Comes' in the background, we knew the best part of our trip to Jersey was about to start :-), but obviously the majority of the audience didn't realise as they kept talking loudly until the music was so loud and the lights dimmed. As usual Chris was dressed in black trousers, black shoes, and one of the same blue/white 'dress' shirt that he wore alot in the German section of the tour. The audience clapped very loudly after the songs, so were obviously enjoying it, but for sure we were the only 2 fans singing along to all the songs !! which did not go un-noticed by the people around us, who were chatting to us at the end of the show. The song list was slightly different in a couple of places from the recent shows. He dropped out 'Its A Long Way Home' and 'Its Me And I'm Ready To Go' and replaced them both with 'Lonely Sky' which went down very well indeed. He again played 'Songbird' (thank you Chris:-) and 'Rose Of England'. At one point Chris read out a little message from a little girl who was 9 years old and wanted a special request to sing, 'A Spaceman Came Travelling' which he did, and also he played 'Spanish Train' . I was fascinated to see what Chris would say at the start of 'A Rainy Night In Paris' about the French language of love etc.....as of course he would not use the German 'schatzi ich liebe dich' !! he used some very strange tone, which I guess was meant to be funny, and people laughed, but he said it soo quick that it was hard to understand, even though I am English. !! Andrea had no chance of understanding it at all!!! But it was something along the lines of 'come on love, you love it don't you, and then something else, followed by your gagging for it you know you are' !!!!! At the Britney Spears bit, as Chris walked into the audience, Andrea and I stood up as normal, but hardly anyone else did !! As I followed Chris around the hall' (with my eyes of course) I spotted his wife Diane sitting in the audience and when he got to her, he stopped and said something to her and gave her a kiss of course !!! The rest of the show went as usual and of course far to quickly !! Andrea and I had worried a bit about whether to go down to the front of the stage at the 'usual place' in the faster section of the show, but in the end we decided to go anyway , but it proved to be rather embarrassing as no one else joined us. We prayed that at the end of the song, Chris would invite everybody up to dance and thankfully he did, and he asked them if they would like to come down to the front of the stage to join the 2 ladies already there !!!!!!!!!!!!! well at least he appreciated us being there and he did call us 'LADIES' !!! Unfortunately NO ONE joined us and as we did all the 'Living In The World' and the 'Read My Name' routines, we must have looked sooo funny to the rest of the audience. but we didn't really care by that point !!! Finally at the 'start' of the 'encore' we were at last joined down the front..........but only by 3 rather 'drunk' young females, whose behaviour was lets say, 'not the best'. Finally one other 'not drunk' fan joined us and we ended up swapping names and addresses after the show. At the very end, as Chris comes down the steps into the audience he walked along some of the front row shaking peoples hands and giving the odd kiss out........then 2 of the drunk girls, literally threw themselves around poor Chris and in the end, CA had to intervene.he came across to me, gave me a quick kiss and said thanks !! After the show, we chatted a while to a couple of other fans and finally left via a different door to which we had entered and we found ourselves completely lost !!!! It was very dark, most people had already gone or were using the main entrance and there was the 2 of us, and we could not find the way around to the front of the venue, where we knew where to get back to the hotel from !! Finally a few other fans came out and I asked them the way to the front of the venue, and when we followed their directions it was really easy !! and that where all the other people were !! After a laugh on the way home, we finally dropped into a bar for a quick drink and then went off to bed. The next day we got up and had a small walk around the local area, and a walk along the top of the promenade, as we could not actually get onto the sand as the tide was well in , and it was great fun watching the waves bashing against the rocks, as it was a pretty windy day !! later we went into the 'gym' before finally waiting for the bus to take us back to the airport. The journey home was uneventful apart from a couple of things. One of them being, that as we sat in our seats in the aircraft, neither of us looked to check that there was nothing on them, then suddenly there was a loud exclamation from Andrea as she sat on a little pot of water that someone had left on her chair.... and the air hostess had not noticed on her check. Lets just say Andrea jeans were rather wet in a certain area !! Add to that..... we had a group of rather drunk men in front of us who insisted using their 'handy/mobile' phones to take photos, despite the usual talk from the air hostess about turning off all phones etc. Well that's about all....so if you have remained until the end of this epic review........we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did !!!! take care all, from Chris and Andrea, who both learnt a lesson yesterday......................... hi Dany ;-) .............Chris learnt that you should always know where your handy/moblie phone is, as it stops you going into a 'panic attack' when you can't find it and think you have lost it while out shopping !!!!!!!!!!!!! Andrea learnt, you must always check the seat that you are about to sit on...just in case it is not empty !!!!!!!!!!!