Stafford, UK - August 19th, 2001
by Lee Redfern

Despite the fact that it had been raining, on and off, all day, the crowd were packed to see their favourite star Sharleen... and Texas of course.

Even from the start, the guys played with the audience. With great big text messages on the video screens, they controlled the audience with messages like: "sharleen can't here you", "scream as loud as you can" etc. Then, with the farting-buffalo sound that starts I Don't Want a Lover 2001, Sharleen appeared to a rousing applause and from underneath a puff of smoke.

For an hour and a quarter, the band had the crowd singing along to mainly singles from the Greatest Hits album, with the occasional f-word thrown in for good measure (she told the audience she was in a bad mood!). But the unmissable moment was the audience participation bit.

Getting three guys up on stage, she got them doing some dirty dancing with the back-up singers [sorry don't know their names] to a rendition of Grace Jone's Pull Up To The Bumper. Except, halfway through introducing her new friends, Sharleen had a stage invasion by a drunken fan. I say fan in the loosest sense, cos he basically swore at her and gave her a lot of jib. So she hit back...and she gave him a mouthful, and took the piss out of him for the rest of the night, after he decided to leave the stage. The dancing was the funniest thing i have seen in ages and what i would give to be that bloke who was doing the humping next to Sharleen (double :))

The encore was a little downbeat for me, ending on Suspicious minds. I expected fireworks and big epic ending, as it was the headlining act and the end of the festival (although Kylie was on at the same time an no one could get into see her) but no. Just a message that that was the last date they would be doing for a while. Hopefully not for long.

Cheers Lee


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