Steve H
Global Moderator
HWI Management Team / Official Site Photographer & Videographer
Posts: 1,756
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Post by Steve H on Apr 17, 2006 19:06:39 GMT
Hi Dave,
Thanks for the low down on the camera, I think I will invest in one before Wisley! let me know if there are any good deals around!
Back to reality now, from the IL Divo site:-
MCINTYREN Wrote:-
Lil Diva Wrote:-[/size]
jasmine wrote:-
So Richard now we know the names of your IL Divo group from Wednesday!
Cheers for now
Steve H
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Steve H
Global Moderator
HWI Management Team / Official Site Photographer & Videographer
Posts: 1,756
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Post by Steve H on Apr 17, 2006 19:28:32 GMT
Hi again, Its a little of 'Hayley' topic, but I thought you might like this rather good photo from the end of the Wembley concert courtesy of vintagechic  Steve H Edit: I reduced the size of the picture slightly. Richard |
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Steve H
Global Moderator
HWI Management Team / Official Site Photographer & Videographer
Posts: 1,756
|
Post by Steve H on Apr 17, 2006 19:34:34 GMT
These photos are courtesy of Charlie from the IL Divo Forum.   Steve H |
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Steve H
Global Moderator
HWI Management Team / Official Site Photographer & Videographer
Posts: 1,756
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Post by Steve H on Apr 17, 2006 19:39:34 GMT
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Dave
Administrator
HWI Admin
Posts: 7,699
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Post by Dave on Apr 17, 2006 21:15:47 GMT
This one is for DAVE, RICHARD and ROGER!TIA Wrote:-   Steve H Oh dear, my cover is blown!!!! That was the nice teutonic sounding lady I sat next to and to whom I apologised more than once for keeping disturbing her as we nipped in and out past her, from our seats. I also apologised in advance for the future interruption when we were called out to see Hayley during ID's performance... but that one never happened!  Glad she called us "older" not "Old"  Cheers, No-longer-incognito Dave  |
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Post by Richard on Apr 18, 2006 7:51:06 GMT
Thanks for the fascinating posts Steve!  I could tell those women were quite star-struck when they met Hayley, and they might not have spoken to her if I hadn't been there. Sometimes I feel really useful! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gifSee you at Wisley, Richard |
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Post by postscript on Apr 21, 2006 10:18:06 GMT
[/img] [/quote] That's nice Steve. Yes, I can guess how they felt. Can't believe they are so close and not wishing to presume while not wishing to seem banal. i know just how they felt, I've been there, which reminds me.... Peter |
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Post by postscript on Apr 21, 2006 10:20:34 GMT
More from Wembley Arena... Il Divo's Reserves? Richard Steve Roger Stuart
More like... [/color][/size][/i][/center][/pre] [glow=red,6,900]Il Divo's Revenge![/glow] Thank goodness one of we "HWI Five" had to stay behind the camera! Dave [/quote] Now that's a really great photo! Peter |
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Post by postscript on Apr 21, 2006 10:22:27 GMT
If that last picture got you worried, i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif here is the real thing: It's dedicated to any "https://i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gifivas" that may be looking in here! Dave  I would like to have simply said, 'I prefer the first one' BUT Hayley is happy touring with them, so for her, great photo too! Peter |
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Post by postscript on Apr 21, 2006 10:26:56 GMT
Hello Steve, and thanks for your comments. I must agree that Il Divo were certainly good singers and entertainers, but I think any one of them could have given a much better performance on his own than the four of them together. The show wouldn't have looked so 'manufactured', and there would have been the perfect opportunity for a duet or two with Hayley.  I also felt that the contrast in styles between Hayley and Il Divo was too extreme. I much preferred the concert at Hampton Court last June with José Carreras. Hayley had a much more prominent position in that show by opening the second half, and they performed a beautiful duet together, "All I Ask Of You" from Phantom of the Opera. Perfection! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gifBest Wishes, Richard  Of course, if they really wanted to integrate with Hayley, there is no reason why they could not make it a combined show during the course of which they could each duet with Hayley. Now that could be an interesting contrast of styles? Hayley, Il Divo, Hayley and each in turn interspersed through the evening. Peter |
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Post by postscript on Apr 21, 2006 10:42:01 GMT
Hi Guys, Whilst on the subject of IL Divo I promised a few words on their performance, so here goes... I am probably going to surprise you all now, but I actually found their performance quite professional, yes it was staged, but it was staged very well, Steve H Hi Steve, Regarding Il Divo's performance, although I wouldn't necessarily pay to see them in concert on their own, what I did see was enjoyable and I can understand why the ladies get so excited about them (didn't do anything for me though!). They can certainly sing and very well too - and I suppose the main issue I have is with the way they wound up every song to a crescendo with all four belting it out at full power.. I like a bit of subtlety in my music and there wasn't enough of it after Hayley left the stage But they are certainly very talented and if asked to perform gentler ballads or arias, I am sure they could do it well. Taking the show *as a whole*, my verdict is: most enjoyable and well worth the ticket money. Cheers, Dave Those two views of HWI members are interesting, so, perhaps i may be won over yet before the tour ends BUT guys what are your views on a more integrated Hayley/Il Divo show? Hayley/Il Divo and Hayley duetting with each in turn? Peter |
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Post by roger on Apr 21, 2006 11:26:42 GMT
Hi Peter,
There may be several reasons why the tour isn't more integrated, one of which is that Hayley had never met Il Divo until the evening prior to the first concert (in Wallingford, CT). Even with her skills, I doubt if a duet could have been rehearsed to concert standard in so short a time.
Roger
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Post by Richard on Apr 23, 2006 16:06:28 GMT
Hello everybody! There is an article about the Il Divo concerts at Wembley in today's Sunday Herald, with a nice mention of Hayley. It doesn't say which of the two concerts it refers to, but I'll post it in this thread so I can say "I was there!" i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif Thank you, Simon Cowell for the divine rapture of stadium PoperaSylvia PattersonThe new Wembley Stadium, up close, is fantastic. With its circular bowl set at a jaunty angle, the colossal white arch bowing overhead into infinity, it’s like an upturned satellite dish fallen from outer space. It’ll be even better, of course, when it’s finished. What you may not know is what surrounds it (which is finished). The area between the stadium and the new, improved Wembley Arena, all of which cost £35 million and features what once we knew as a square, is these days known as ‘a piazza’, this one performing a stirring impersonation of every major city in Europe that isn’t London. We have … a musical fountain! A triangular fiesta of shooting geysers lit up underneath in ever-changing red, blue and green! In the middle of a water shortage! With some classical music blaring out. We have … a selection of pillars! And furled red flags! And a low-sloping stairway at the foot of the stadium as if ascending to a Roman amphitheatre lit up in electric blue! It’s all terribly grand and modernly impressive and designed, as is much these days, to move your soul into thinking something truly important is going on. Maybe even something you might call spiritual. Much like the music inside the arena, in fact, which so far this year has showcased the brand new, nation-sweeping Popera phenomenon – opera singers who are thin singing pop and classical standards – from which there is no escape. Once, there was Russell Watson and now there is A Generation. Last month, we had three of them in the UK top 10: Watson, Andrea Bocelli and Vittorio Grigolo (known to connoisseurs as Victor Pinot Grigio, whose repertoire fuses Verdi with Elvis and Mozart with Stevie Wonder). Elsewhere, there’s the lesser-known Rupert Christie, Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins, The Choirboys (bairns, obviously) and the self-explanatory (and inevitable) Opera Babes. (And G4.) With a demographic from seven to literally 70, the UK market alone now has an annual market value of £300m. No wonder Simon Cowell sports a grin even bigger than Wembley’s white arch. His own Il Divo caper made Popera mainstream massive, their comprehensive global takeover beginning 18 months ago via a debut album selling five million copies, which knocked a peeved Robbie Williams from the UK’s No1 album slot (“Oi!” he squawked to the Armani-suited yodellers at a Bridget Jones premier, “You’re the bastards that knocked me off!”), an album which became number one in 13 countries and top five in 25. Much scorn has been flung at The Divs (as blokes, inevitably, call them): those toothsome Gillette Chin grins, those ‘Shirley Valentine’ fans, the stilt-high corn of their fantasy rose-petal performance. But no one has a top five album in 25 countries without colossal appeal to the core of the human spirit, as Simon Cowell knew the day he signed Westlife, which is why Il Divo are the middle-aged Westlife in even more expensive suits with considerably bigger lungs, with their bow-ties askew in a Barcelona piazza, sitting in your lap, cooing in fancy Italian. No wonder, therefore, where the original Westlife had ‘three David Beckhams’, Il Divo have ‘three José Mourinhos’ (and one Jim Carrey). Their fans are equally exquisitely dressed, as witnessed last week, milling around the arena’s many bars, gins aloft, in patchwork suede and cashmere scarves as styled by Trinny and Susannah. Here you can buy £26-worth of Il Divo yoga pants. Inside the venue, everything becomes clear: this isn’t a pop venue at all, it’s a vestibule, the Popera fans here for exactly the same reason the fountain outside was invented, for the human soul to lose itself, momentarily, in that thing the preachers called Rapture, with no coincidence whatsoever that Il Divo’s name translates as ‘divine male performer’. Which is why Coldplay, also in the last 18 months, have became the biggest rock’n’roll band in the world and if they could play, forevermore, in our empty churches, they would. (Moses, eh? We rest our biblical case …) Popera, to have crossed over to this extent, has done so for a reason. Firstly, it’s been quite some time since we heard people truly sing. And sing proper, the way normal people definitely can’t. Here’s one of them now, Hayley Westenra, tonight’s support act, a 19-year-old New Zealander singing on stage a colossal rendition of Amazing Grace. The only place most of us hear Amazing Grace is when we’re singing it ourselves, in a mumble into our chins, in a church at someone’s funeral.No wonder Wembley applauds like the proudest parent at assembly. Here come The Divs, silhouetted in an arched Roman window each, all the better to create the awestruck illusion significance has come among us. As the side-stage screens surely prove, running red-carpet pre-show footage of The Stars as they all ‘arrived’. There’s … Brad Pitt! Tom Cruise! Scarlett Johansson! Clive Owen! Kate Winslet! Mick Jagger! Jude Law! A Hobbit! Brad Pitt in a different outfit!? It’s a comically audacious ruse and one which, if masterminded by Simon Cowell, makes him the greatest and most cynical illusionist at work in showbiz today. Dancing through the musical fountain on the way home, underneath the fallen satellite dish, no wonder we buy these illusions, even as we know we’re being sold; the more hellishly shallow we become, the more heavenward everyone looks, the whole planet – not just the Westlife kids any more – standing up for the rapturous key-change. 23 April 2006 Article: www.sundayherald.com/55253Richard |
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