Trip review
Manchester 11, Sheffield 13 and London 14 October

by Dirk

Friends, Emotions, Music, ... Texas

Now I've had the time of my life
No I never felt like this before
Yes, I swear it's the truth
And I owe it all to you


Ok, so far my review.....
No, not really, but it does sum it up very well.
So I'll give it another try.


Tuesday October 11th
When the day is dawning, on a Texas sunny morning, how I long to be there, with the band who's waiting for me there

You can't believe how much I looked forward to this trip. After a year of renovating the house, psychological problems of people who are very dear to me, having to loose someone else who was very dear, working hard, serious problems at work, ... (I hope that's about it), no one else then some close friends, Shar and the guys could have lift me up better at this time.

Ok, spent the night at my sisters house, so I wouldn't have to get up even earlier but 6AM was also early enough. So we left to meet Mieke around 6.45 and her parents took us to the Eindhoven airport then where we met up with Roy.
It's a shame we had to leave other friends behind but it's always like that I guess. We did leave some spare room in our bags so we smuggled our friends and family with us like that. Actually, I meant in our hearts but I didn't want to sound too corny... yet.
And to prevent all the gossip, yes I did have my passport with me this time, no I didn't have a knife with me now either and no I didn't set off any fire alarms.
We checked in on time, had something to drink, boarded and off we were. With our time travel flight to London Stansted we arrived five minutes before we left in a pretty nice weather. We took the train to Tottenham, tube to London Euston and the train to Manchester where we arrived at 2PM.
For me personal it was soo fantastic to see Julia and Nicky again, the two nicest girls in Manchester and surroundings who I know now for four years from the Greatest Hits tour and who came to pick us up at the train station. We headed straight to the Manchester Apollo where the concert would take place. A few people already arrived, three I guess so we joined them at the entrance. A bit later Hellen and Andy arrived followed by some other fans which made it a "bunch" pretty soon.



The band arrived around 4PM, followed by Shar about an hour later because she was giving an interview and gave away tickets for later that evening on the local radio station.
Time flew by while talking to other fans, having a drink in the pub around the corner, spending five minutes to even find a toilet there while the pub was only 10 by 5 meters width, eating kinder chocolates, taking care of people with a limp, ... The last fifteen minutes before the doors opened though, seemed like ages. It felt like someone stopped the clock or something. I always get excited when I go to a Texas concert and I don't get relaxed until the moment that everything is ok with the tickets and I got into the venue.

7PM: the doors finally opened. We couldn't run so we walked fast with about 20mph towards the stage. Yeeaahh, made it to the first row, just about the middle of the stage, couldn't have been better and even better all of us managed to stick together except for Alison which was a shame but she had a good position to keep an eye on Ally :^)
7.45PM: Time for the supporting act, Robert Post. Our friends told us he was pretty good so we were ready for him. The Manchester crowd gave him a nice welcome and he sure deserved it. Already after a few songs I was sold. Great music and lyrics, nice combination of rock, softer songs, ... I loved it.
Time for the last song, "Newborn". No offence meant, but when after a solo this came through the speakers;

Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes


Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Aaaaaah


I thought it was soooo fantastic that they "mixed" this Beatles sample into a song. And it rocked. It really rocked.

9.00PM: The Paris Texas sample started to blast through the speakers, followed by Ally's breathtaking guitar solo. Really magnificent by an underrated guitar player. The perfect intro to take you to the "Texas planet". It went over into I Don't Want A Lover which definitely set off the concert. So the jumping and clapping could start and we were good if I say so myself. It was Roy and Mieke's first full Texas concert and they were speechless but they both looked oh so happy which made me feel good also.
I'm not gonna give a full set list here, you can read that elsewhere, but the new songs are magnificent and especially "Nevermind" is a favorite of mine. For me personally it's one of the best ever Texas songs, a shut-up-and-just-listen song.

No nevermind
Cause you're home now
Yeah you're home


I don't think a song ever was more true for me at that moment, I felt like I arrived home again, with my friends and with Texas.
Oh, I really really loved the cover from the Scissor Sisters' "Take Your Mama", it rocked the place.

Like I said the audience was great, fantastic actually, the security guys were so kind to provide us with water every now and then, which was very welcome and dropped down my throath like into an empty barrow.
There was a funny conversation between Shar, Michael and a guy who decided to throw his (old) Calvin Klein underwear on stage, at least, I still hope for Shar that he wasn't wearing it when he entered the venue. It's great to see, hear, the conversations between Michael and Sharleen and I do feel sorry for him because she will never let him win :^) EVEN if he is right. But I'll shut up now because I'm walking on glass I guess :^)

The concert was over far too soon, but it always is and when the lights went on, several people who spotted me in the audience came up to me to say hi which was really nice, it always is great to meet other fans. I'm not gonna name anyone because first I'm terrible with names and second I could forget someone.

Bought a new T-shirt after the show, they all look great, but the red one was my favorite so I bought that one to replace the T-shirt I was wearing at that time and which had the most disgusting sweat smell you can imagine. I must have lost a few liters of sweat there in the Apollo, I think we all did.

After dropping Mieke and Roy off at the hotel, Julia, Nicky and myself headed towards Julia's house where a nice pizza and an even nicer shower were waiting. It was great to lay down on a couch in Julia's cosy house, talking about Texas, watching some music clips on tv before we decided to go to bed. It wasn't easy to catch sleep immediatly because of all the excitement of that day.

Wednesday October 12th



We tried not to get up to early, the ladies decided to make me a nice english breakfast which made me feel like a prince so again a nice start of the day. The bad weather couldn't ruin that. We drove into Manchester and did some shopping in a gothic shop, record store, etc. We had some drinks and visited a museum where Nicky, the artist that she is, made the artwork of her life. A drawing of me yes. Later we went to eat at the Hard Rock Café, a place I always like to visit when there is one then. We tried to catch a movie afterwards but our timing and their schedule wasn't perfect so we decided to head home.
There we caught up about things which happened in the past years, watched Texas photos and videos and drank some beers. So a nice relaxing evening.




Thursday October 13th
A day of opposites

We had to wake up in the middle of the night (at 6AM) to catch the bus to Sheffield. After breakfast we left on time to prevent any traffic jam problems. We arrived in Manchester plenty on time to get the bus there which left at 9.15AM. But for me the saddest moment of the trip was the fact that I had to say goodbye again to Julia and Nicky, oh I hated that. Sadly enough they couldn't come with us to Sheffield, but I'll cherish the nice moments.

11AM: We arrived at the Sheffield coach station. Since things looked kinda complicated we decided to take a taxi to the hotel.
Since Roy and myself are such nice guys we booked a room for three without any problems, but once we wanted the check in the lady at the desk said that it wasn't allowed, because we were three adults. I tried to convince her that Mieke and Roy were my kids but she wouldn't buy that. I probably look far too young :^) The trick Mieke tried to tell her we wouldn't have an orgie convinced her I guess. Or maybe the fact that there wasn't any other room available did.

Ok, so after that we decided to walk back to the city, but stayed pretty close to the main road not to get lost.

Arrived there we went to eat something right in front of the Sheffield City Hall, a nice building which they renovated, or they actually still were at that time, fences were all around it, they were working on a stage next to the building etc
I talked to Martin for a while, the person who was responsible for the ticket service, and he told me that Sharleen would officially open the renewed City Hall later that day.
While wandering around the building the guys arrived, Ally, Eddie, Tony, Michael, ... and we had a little chat with them. At that time they didn't knew that the concert hall was all seated so they were a bit afraid of that.

6.30PM: The drums were rolling on the stage next to the City Hall, the BBC North cameras were on, about a thousand schoolchildren with drums arrived with the mayor and some other prominents, ...
The theme of the opening was actually "The beat returns to the heart of the city", so it did. A huge fake gong was brought upon the City Hall stairs on which Sharleen and HallamFM DJ Big John arrived seconds later. They opened the venue by "breaking" the gong.

All of this was recorded on video just so we could show you :^) Click here for the video clip.

7PM: Finally we could enter the venue. After picking up our tickets we went in the hall where one of the 100 stewardesses showed us our seats. Fifth row, not bad. The hall looked nice but to be honest I still had my doubts. A Texas concert seated??? Oh my God, I'm not gonna survive this. And what if we would try to stand up? Would they start to shout SIT DOWN? Guys in suits, accompanied by elderly ladies were sitting all around us. I really was kinda scared. Not that there weren't any young people, but guys in suit?

7.50PM: Robert Post played his first notes but didn't get a very warm welcome and then two ladies came and told us we were in their seats. I immediatly went like oh no, don't let this be true. We had to follow the stewardess to the box office where they told us there had been a mistake and that the only places which were still available were like row 25 or 30. What did I have to do? Get mad, cry, laugh, ... Believe me, I really didn't know at that moment. But then I said to Mieke and Roy. "Ok, or we can sit there and have a bad evening or we can make the best of it. Come on, let's do the latter."
So we started to cheer for Robert who almost immediatly noticed us. Why wouldn't he, we were the only ones standing up and clapping I guess. When Roberts set ended a lady came up to me and asked "so, are you related to that band then?". I went like, huh, what? , no but couldn't suppress a smile. The lady in front of me turned around and pointed towards our red Texas T-shirts. "So you are the roadies then?" I said; "Ah sure, actually just Roy and I am, Mieke is a groupie." And you know, she even bought it :^)

9PM: Texas comes on stage. From Ally's first chord we stood up (and never sat down again). Yes we did, during "Nevermind", a song which deserves intimacy. People on the side followed our example pretty fast after first looking more at us then at the stage we could persuade them. I guess they first needed to know if we were crazy or just harmless and innocent :^)
I noticed that the people in the front and center couldn't stand up without being called back by the security guys. But after a couple of songs Sharleen could persuade most of them to stand up anyway. Everyone did stay in front of their seats.
The concert itself was great again, to be honest, maybe it was even nice to see Texas in it's entire with one blink of an eye, that isn't possible if you are on the front row of course.
Jumping, chearing, ... even harder then ever before because I thought the crowd was too tame to be honest.


Then "Inner Smile" started. Now, if there's a favorite live song for me then it's "Inner Smile". It just has everything.
1...2...3...4 Yeah Yeah
I looked at Mieke and said, "ok, do or dare, come and visit me in the hospital or jail" and took a run towards the stage. Passed two security guys with an elegance of a professional runner, and when I arrived at the end of the first block Shar noticed me, smiled and pointed towards me and went like "come here you", which gave me even more energy. When I arrived in front of the stage (or actually more in front of this big blocked security guy), I jumped twice as high as I did before. I got some more "who's this crazy guy" looks but I really couldn't care less.
After the concert we managed to get a talk with the band. If you didn't know yet, they are all lovely people. Not any star attitudes at all. I love it.
I actually had soo much fun there in Sheffield, just because of everything. Maybe that's what happens if you don't expect too much and get a lot. Hey I even wanted to go to a club there but Mieke and Roy wouldn't let me :-( Now that ain't nice is it.

We got to the hotel around 00.30AM where withing ten minutes we all felt a sleep. Probably for the best we

Round and round, the world goes round
Got my friends in every town
From border to border, every place I've been
I've gotta be back if you know what I mean


Friday October 14th
Last and best day of the week?

6AM: Oh my, that's early. Had Maltesers as breakfast and a taxi took us to the coach station where the bus left at 7.30AM.
After a bus trip with falling a sleep and waking up again every five minutes, we arrived in London at Victoria Station around 11.30AM I think.
We started to head towards the Tower Bridge where Roy would meet a friend, but after a while my legs and stomach had enough of it. So Mieke and myself decided to find something to eat, which we did at the Pizza Hut, bought some presents for the kids and then took the tube towards the north of London. Since the Northern line on the tube wasn't working we took a taxi to the venue for the last few miles.


Itzik, Alison, Terri and her friend were already there and a bit later Chubby arrived, a fan from Hungary and it was great to have him there as well. Always great actually to meet other fans. For me personally it was great to meet Itzik after all this years talking to each other by mail.
While watching the sound check Sharleen quoted out of a book about Jaffa Cakes, a subject started on the message board which began to live a life of it's own. It was pretty funny actually :^) Mieke handed Shar her box of Jaffa Cakes, I hope she liked them.
Back outside also Cara arrived who I also still knew from my little UK tour back in 2001.

After some struggling but especially because of the help of Lisa and Itzik I managed to make front row again. Yeah, I'm becoming a specialist at this.
Itzik told me that Lee, another fan would also be in the audience, more precise on the balcony with his parents. Since I knew what lee looks like; the search began and I spotted him next to his father and mother quite fast. So we went like "1..2..3.. LEEEEEEEEEE". The entire venue heard us except for Lee. But a while later his mother did notice us waving, jumping and yelling :^) So we gave them a big welcome.

7.50PM: Time for Robert Post again, who had these funny animals with them on stage. They probably passed by Hamley's during the day. They did great again and I guess he can call his little tour successful as well.

9.00PM: Yes, I still get excited when it's almost time. But it's a great feeling of intense happiness when they appear on stage. It's something I can't describe. Sharing it with friends like I could do the past days makes it the ultimate experience for me.
Do I need to say that the band was great again, that they did a fantastic show, that Shar looked great again, ok, the boys probably also did but that's not for me to tell :^)


A nice bonus was the fact they played "What About Us", another great song from the Red Book album. But the highlight for me was the fact that Paul Buchanan was there and they didn't only do "Sleep" together but also the Bob Dylan classic "Like A Rolling Stone". I secretly hoped for this because I knew they played this in Scotland.
One of the last days before I took my father to the hospital, where he never got out again, now ten years ago, we were listening to some of his records again, "Like A Rolling Stone" being one of his favorite tracks, was also played. So when Sharleen and Paul started the song tears came into my eyes. I didn't even expect it would do that much to me. It was like a gift from heaven. So I wasn't sad, just very touched deep inside. Thank you Sharleen, thank you Paul and thank you Texas for this.

I do still wonder who moved my knee caps during that concert because, ooohhh my knees hurted. Ok, three days out of four jumping isn't what I daily do so that's probably the reason. Now I know what "Texas knees" feel like :^)

After the show we were lucky enough to meet the band and talk to everyone. I talked to Paul for a little while who is such a great guy and I'm really happy that Texas choose him for a duet on the new album. We took our time because we didn't have to leave early, we didn't have a hotel anyway because the plane already left at 6.45AM on Saturday.
I guess we left around 01AM. We walked towards the bus with Lisa, Itzik, Cara and her friend which took us to London Euston, there we took another bus towards Victoria. It was a pretty long drive and in the mean time I already began to feel a bit sad that it was over again. But packed with lots of nice memories I felt stronger again, ready to get back to business. I wish it could be Texas related but that's what you get when a dream comes through. You never want something great to end.

Daylight
I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I mustn’t give in
When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin


Saturday October 15th
Back Home

Mieke, Roy and myself arrived at London Stansted airport around 4.30AM, plenty on time to have a drink, something to eat and buy a Sudoku game. Yes a Sudoku game which made the alarm go off when I passed the security check. I thought oh not again because I already had some bad experiences with those in the past (no laughing J & N). But after a couple of minutes they let me through, luckely.
6.45AM: The airplane took off and an hour later we arrived in Eindhoven again, which is 8.45AM. I really really had a problem to make it off the plane stairs, because of the knees :^) I almost had to take a parachute and jump.
Mieke's parents came to pick us up and we said goodbye to Roy who had to go to work, poor him. Then my godchild picked me up there, drove me to her house where my wife was to take me home. I got home around 11AM, crashed into my bed, but four hours later I was awake again already, with soar knees.

Now three days later, the knees are better :^) and I still think about the trip all the time. About the great time I had with my friends, with Texas, ... everything. I love you all, you are all very dear to me. Thanks a lot for this.


Ev’ry time we say goodbye
When you’re near there’s such an air of spring about it
I can hear a lark somewhere waiting to sing about it
There’s no love song finer
But how strange the change from major to minor
Ev’ry time we say goodbye



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