After party review :
Flanders Expo, Gent, Belgium - 21 April 2001
by Kathy & Bea
24 hours of Gent-Paris-Gent
07.00 am
Need to get up really early to get some breakfast for our British guests Julia and Nicky from Manchester. We had such a wonderful time before, during and after the gig in Gent yesterday. But hey....time flies when you’re having fun! It seems as if it has only been yesterday...but tonight it’s already our last concert of the greatest hits tour!
09.30 am
We drop our friends at the train station. Unfortunately they can’t join us tonight because they fly back to the UK in the late afternoon. They intend to spend the afternoon in Brussels. No time to lose for us, a long drive to Paris ahead...and we need to get there early if we want the best seats in the house!
12.30 pm
We can’t believe our eyes when we arrive at “Palais Omnisports de Bercy” in Paris. There are already about 20 people waiting at the concert hall. This can’t be true!! We make ourselves comfortable and sit down on the ground...after all we still have a long way to go until we are allowed to enter the concerthall. Only few minutes after we got there, a couple of other fans arrive! Shameless they get all the way in front of the queue! We soon realised this was going to be totally different than the day before in Gent...no friendly relaxed chats with other fans! It was going to be a very long afternoon struggling to keep our position in the queue!!
03.30 pm
This is no fun!! You can feel the tension in the air!!! We can nearly move our feet...people are so very close to each other! There’s sunshine after all, but no chance for us to enjoy it though, some fans refuse to sit down...as if they were about to open the doors!! No way...still about 3 hours and a half to go!!!
05.30 pm
Feelings are running high as a couple of men try to jump the queue. This is unbelievable, some people had been waiting there for hours and about 5 men who had just arrived, join a friend right in front of the queue without shame. We are so surprised by this rude behaviour, that we were just standing there in unbelief! Luckily there’s one french guy who has the guts to respond. What a relief!! At first the 5 men pretend not to hear...not to care! But more and more people started to call them names...that’s when “the toughest” one of the gang left the queue! In no time...the others left too! Justice took place!!
06.55 pm
Same old ritual...the security men nearly finished their “macho show”...very soon they were about to open te doors! It was about time!!!!
07.00 pm
This is so frustrating, it takes us ages to get into the concerthall. One of the “macho man” who has to tear off our tickets enjoys nagging us ...it takes him ages to check our tickets. By the time we can start our sprint to the stage, many fans have passed us already. So...many hours of waiting down the drain...just because some of those macho men necessarily need to prove a point...that they have to power to let us in whenever they like us to. Isn’t it normal then that people want to get in as soon as possible...that they want the best places in the house? Isn’t that why we wait there hours and hours before the concerthall!? So thank you Mister Macho Man...because of you lots of people who made the effort to queue very early, didn’t even get a place right in front of the stage!! So cut the crap next time!!
07.10 pm
It had been a very emotional afternoon. About time we started to enjoy ourselves, isn’t that what we came for in the first place?!! Luckily we managed to get a place right in front of Ally and Eddie after all...now we will fully appreciate their foot and fingerwork! The crowd already started to entertain themselves by doing the Mexican wave (still wondering if it was Fabien Barthez who started it).
08.00 pm
Time for the support act. We didn’t know at all what we could expect, as there had been a competition going on at NRJ radio, the winner has the honour to do the warm up. They were 7...and very happy. It was OK...for half an hour anyway. Shame though the female leadsinger forgot to zip up her trousers before she came on stage (we did try to make her aware of it, but no use!).
08.55 pm
More and more we start to realise that this is nearly the end. The 18th of march, our first greatest hits concert in Brussels, almost seems as if it was only yesterday!! No doubt about it, we had been having the time of our lives!!!
09.02 pm
We are “in demand” more than ever!!! It is obvious that Sharleens soar throat is much better today. Much to our surprise the setlist has slightly changed tonight. The moment Sharleen has chosen her man Fabrice from the crowd, she sings a short extract from The Fugees hit “ohlalala..it’s the way that we rock when we’re doing out thing”...God every song sang by Sharleen sounds so perfect!! When Sharleen asks Ally to treat the girls from the crowd, she asks him which words he already knows in french. He says: “Quand elle me prend dans ses bras, je vois la vie en rose...Sharleen can’t believe her eyes, she knows something is wrong ! Did Ally have a crash course in french overnight? What a laugh when she notices that Ally had stuck a crib upon his guitar! Then he has to admit that in fact the only sentence he knows in french is: “Trois bičres svp!”. Poor Ally!!
Even Nicole set him up...as he turns his backside to the crowd to show his “Texas bum”, she throws a condom on the ground as if it had fallen out of his pocket!!! Extra pleasure! Oooooh what a perfect moment for Sharleen to have a go at him!! Hahahaha...
10.30 pm
“Say what you want”...this is it...mixed feelings...back to reality!! A long withdrawl period lies ahead of us!! Another night engraved in our memory for life!
12.30 pm
We get into our rental car...both very quiet...we don’t feel like talking!!! All we have left now is memories...wonderful memories of an incredible tour!!
Thanks to Sharleen, Johnny, Ally, Eddie, Tony, Charlotte, Nicole, Mark, Steve for giving us the time of our lives!! We hope to see you all back in the near future with more wonderful music!! Thanks to all the other fans, we appreciate your friendship!!
04.30 am
We’re back in Gent, we are knackered!! It has been such a tiring drive back home, so hard to stay awake. It must have been the bad tea and the big bag of salted crisps that kept us going.
07.00 am
Alarm clock!!! Oh noooo!!! Time to get up ALREADY!!! Have to be at the office in no time!! Back to life ...back to reality!!
Kathy and Bea
back to the articles page