Stoke-on-Trent - 18 October 2008

[thomas]

Hi all!

I know I'm late but I didn't have much time to go online. Thank you everybody for reports and pictures. A very good coverage of a fantastic evening.

My flight to Manchester started later than the first flight in the morning that I usually take to London. That means I could sleep a little bit longer and I didn't have to leave home before 5am. I headed to the airport and fortuneately my flight was in time. In Düsseldorf there was no other plane in front of the one I sat in. So the pilot rushed down the taxiway, made a sporty turn onto the runway, accelerated and took off immediately. He might have become a good race driver as well. i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif In the end I was im Manchester even 15 minutes early.
I took the train to Stoke-on-Trent and a taxi to my hotel. I had a very chatty taxi driver who knew the region of Germany where I come from and places I like to visit. I had an hour to spend before I could check in so I took a little walk through Stoke. From my hotel I could reach everything in a 10-minute walk. I found the Portofino restaurant on the way to Victoria Hall that didn't open before 6pm, too late to have dinner before the concert started.
So I entered Victoria Hall to collect my ticket but they didn't have any. The actual box office was located in the Regent Theatre, half way back to my hotel. After I had collected my ticket there was still enough time to check the stock of G&B chocolate at Tesco and to plunder the shelves with the Cherry and the Mint G&B. Yum! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif
Coming back to Victoria Hall I was looking forward to having a coffee at the café but unfortuneately it closed at 2pm, exactly at the time when we wanted to meet there. I walked to the other entrance and met Peter who just had to leave the café. We went to a place where we could see the stage door and the car park not to miss anybody and were soon joined by Grant and Dazza. Since all our plans to meet were thrown over we decided to wait outside the Victoria Hall for everybody to arrive before going somewhere to eat. After a while we were joined by Martindn, Andy, Mark, TimJ, Graham and Morag.
Danny, who we met at the stage door, told us that Hayley was supposed to arrive late due to a lot of traffic on her way. But as long as not everybody had arrived we continued to wait. After a while a big Mercedes Sprinter arrived and I saw Hayley sitting inside. I started to wave and she waved back ... hopefully happy to see us, which she was. During the unloading of the car we had a little chat with her. I mentioned that I liked the video diary that was filmed in Ghana. Hayley looked at her feet and felt a little embarrassed and she told us that those videos were filmed spontanously without lots of preparation.

Happy that we already met her we went to the Wetherspoon to have dinner. We found a few tables big enough for all of us and I had a Lamb&Mint Burger with lots of mint sauce ... and a Guinness. We spent the time there until the doors were opened at Victoria Hall before we went back.

In the hall I bought the concert programme with information about the musicians and Hayley's trip to Ghana. The programme included also four pictures that were taken by Grant last year. Very well done! I bought a second programme because with a little luck Hayley might sign one for my sisiter and one for me.

The doors opened and we could take our seats. I was a bit concerned because I was told that the front row where I sat was very close to the very high stage. The stage was close to my seat bit the height wasn't a problem. The problem was that I sat almost on the very left hand side and had to look to the right hand side the whole evening which caused an annoying headache the next day.
But when Hayley came on stage all troubles were forgotten and I was thankful being able to attend another concert. She started with three songs, Prayer, Ave Maria (Caccini) and Scarborough Fair before she left the stage so that Raven could play some solo pieces. I don't remember the names of their music pieces but the girls of Raven are very talented and I'm happy to see them again when I come back to the UK for Hayley's ROD tour. Raven had some problems with attaching the microphone to the cello. That was quite funny for the audience but for sure not for Raven. Anyway, we had a good time.
We were surprised with two songs of Hayley's "River Of Dreams" Best Of Album, "Songbird" and "Now Is The Hour" which were absolutely fantastic. But that wasn't the only surprise. She sang "Never Saw Blue" as well.
After the interval Hayley surprised with my favorite "Mummers' Dance" and "River Of Dreams" of course. Needless to say that I was already dreaming... She played "Sonny" and accompanied herself at the piano. She appologized because she had to turn her back towards us but I couldn't complain. Hayley was sitting dircetly in front of me during "Sonny" so that I didn't have to rick my neck. i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif The biggest surprise was "Wuthering Heights" which was sung with so much joy. I would be great if we could hear that song more often.

After the concert Hayley did a signing session and we were told that it wouldn't last longer than 20 minutes. That wasn't plenty of time because the queue was already very long when I arrived. I joined the queue at the place where Mark, Graham and Andy stood. That wasn't the end of the queue but nobody saw that I was cheating. It didn't take very long until Danny came up with Hayley. I waved and Hayley gave us a big smile and waved back. Those long minutes of waiting seemed like hours until it was my turn. I asked Hayley for three autographes and she gave me four because I had four items to sign with me. Two programmes, one for my sister and one for me and two CD booklets of her Japanese album. I took both booklets of that album with me because the outer one is very dark and I wasn't sure if Hayley had a white pen. So she signed the dark outer booklet with a white pen and the brighter inner booklet with a black pen. I felt a bit uncomfortable because the queue was still very long and so it wasn't polite to spend too much time with Hayley, although I would have liked. But Hayley was very relaxed and enjoyed very much meeting her fans. In the end Hayley signed for 40 minutes instead of the planned 20 until everyone had one's autograph or/and photo. Well ... that's Hayley and that's why we love her.

We said good-bye in the end and made our way home or to the hotel. The next morning I took the train to Manchester and had quite a lot of time to spend there because my flight was the last one in the evening to Düsseldorf. Earlier flights would have been too expensive. I walked around Manchester and after I didn't like to walk anymore I spend the time with eating. i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif Carrot Cake, Cream Tea, etc. All the nice things one hardly find in Germany. Unfortuneately I couldn't find a lamb dish with some more mint sauce.
I made my way to the airport in time. There wasn't a train to the airport last Sunday due to maintanance of the railroad so there was a rail-replacement-bus-service. OMG! What a chaos! It seemed to me as if they had done it for the first time. I had to ask three persons to find the correct queue for the correct bus and had to wait then until it was my turn. There wasn't much space for busses in front of Piccadilly Station but there were many busses just waiting and blocking the way for other busses which replaced the trains. So I made it to the airport in the end and arrived at home shortly before midnight.

Thank you everybody for the great time. Less than 5 weeks to go for Leamington and Swansea ... i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

Best wishes,
Thomas

[martindn]

Thanks for the review Thomas.

I'm working on the video if anyone is wondering.

Martin

[grant]

Hi Thomas

Many thanks for your excellent review. Sorry you had to experience one of our rail replacement bus services. On our railway network, most engineering work is done at weekends!

Best wishes
Grant

[timj]

Hi Martin, I was wondering!.... but I can wait......TimJ

Thanks for the review Thomas!

[martindn]

Right,

I think I have cracked it! I send Dave a DVD with this on it (among other things), but I know he's been busy. So I have had a go myself. A lot to learn I know, and I hope this will work. Let me know if it doesn't.

Reducing video files to a tenth of their size does noticeably reduce quality, but I hope this is acceptable. Hayley's encore, Hine e Hine.

Link removed pending Admin discussions - Dave

Martin

Actually, having played it, it ends a bit sooner than my version too. Don't know what happened at the end, but I might have another go tomorrow. I told you this was experimental. At least what is there plays!

[Dave]

Martin please read your private messages.

Dave

[Joe]

Hello Thomas,

Thank you very much for writing that review!

Joe

[postscript]

Super hearing from you Thomas. Interesting to hear of your journey as it is so different from any we undertake in the UK. I must confess, sitting opposite you at Wetherspoons I concluded you had ordered mint sauce with lamb burger on the side!
Peter S.

[Andy]

Hi Thomas


Thanks for the review, shame about the troubles with the trains and buses.

Andy

[Karsten]

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for your report. Hope that my next visit will be not as adventurous as yours.

See you in Leamington.

Cheers, Karsten

[stuartj]

Oct 27, 2008 3:58:08 GMT milewalker said:

Hi Martin,

This is off topic I fear, so I will be brief

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Also, every generation on record since there have been written records has claimed that the mores, and tastes of the younger generation are lacking. (It tends to be the older generation doing the writing )

I do agree however, that the evidence is such that Hayley's concept of beauty lies closer to the tastes of the previous generation than it does to her own.

Jon

Jon, when challenged in a very stupid interview about why so many of her fans were older people, Hayley was reported to have said "it's easy listening". She operates essentially in what used to be called the "Easy Listening" genre. Only recently has this genre been lumped in with "classical" (something the purists are in a lather about).

There is nothing new about it. It is sometimes called "adult contempory" and it can be defined differently. The British purist critics label Hayley, Brightman, and others as the "Easy Listening Brigade". It is music for people who don't like, or have grown out of flavour-of-the-month pop. It is very closely aligned to folk, but usually without the ideological or politcal overtones that folk has become associated with.

It is music for older people who want "pleasant". Along with the balladeers, the Harry Secombes, Nana Mouskouris (a very treacly example) it has been suggested that the crooners -- the Bing Crosbys and Frank Sinatras, are related. Tom Jones could sneak in -- my mom and dad thought he was the cat's pjamas, but the pop fans thought him naff. (Sorry to ramble on so OT. Hope you can bear with me.)

[martindn]

I'm not sure I would have labeled Hayley or Sarah as "Easy Listening". That has overtones of being music without emotional "bite", sort of half way to supermarket Muzak. Music for those who don't like music, bland, so nobody dislikes it. I usually dislike that sort of thing. What was described in an Incredible String Band song as "The Devil's collection of sugar filled nothing". Hayley is not, in my opinion, bland (and neither is Sarah).

But I suppose if Hayley says that is what her music is, it must be true. I wonder if I would have loved her music so much if I had been 40 years younger!

Martin

[stuartj]

Nov 1, 2008 20:50:18 GMT martindn said:

I'm not sure I would have labeled Hayley or Sarah as "Easy Listening". That has overtones of being music without emotional "bite", sort of half way to supermarket Muzak. Music for those who don't like music, bland, so nobody dislikes it. I usually dislike that sort of thing. What was described in an Incredible String Band song as "The Devil's collection of sugar filled nothing". Hayley is not, in my opinion, bland (and neither is Sarah).

But I suppose if Hayley says that is what her music is, it must be true. I wonder if I would have loved her music so much if I had been 40 years younger!

Martin

I meant to say that Hayley (and Sarah for that matter) do range wider and have more bite than the typical offerings in the genre, but then it can be defined quite widely. Just about anything that isn't core classical and isn't "core" pop, rock, etc, can be lumped into the category. It is true that the term is sometimes used pejoratively too, but that is not how I meant it.

[dkeeno]

Hi All,
I jsut thought i would inform you that overall we raised £1,600 from this concert, meaning each charity recieved £800.
This year we didnt recieve any sponsorship for the concert, like we did last year, so we are really pleased with the amount raised. Obviously we would love it to have been more but hopefully more concerts in the future will help to booster the balance.
Thanks to everyone who attended.

Danny

[postscript]

Jan 14, 2009 17:39:12 GMT dkeeno said:

Hi All,
I jsut thought i would inform you that overall we raised £1,600 from this concert, meaning each charity recieved £800.
This year we didnt recieve any sponsorship for the concert, like we did last year, so we are really pleased with the amount raised. Obviously we would love it to have been more but hopefully more concerts in the future will help to booster the balance.
Thanks to everyone who attended.

Danny

Well done for your efforts, Danny, it was a good show and I hope Hayley finds it reassuring for any future occasion. Congratulations.

Peter S.