Chaos and a four poster bedI arrived at Newcastle Central station for my cross country trip to Rhyl only to discover that my train is running 19 minutes late – then 22 minutes late – then cancelled and eventually on time!! Bodes well for the day doesn’t it? It transpires that there has been another fatality and the line is closed completely north of Newcastle. My intended train is stranded somewhere in Northumberland but a northbound service is being terminated here and will be turned quickly to provide an extra train south.
All credit to the rail staff at Newcastle, but the late departure meant that Paddy and I missed our intended connections at York and Manchester and eventually arrived in Rhyl an hour late at just on 3.30pm. Fortunately, Rhyl is a fairly compact place and it is only a few minutes walk to our hotel and what a strange place this turned out to be! Having signed in – in pencil and on a blank piece of paper in a crumbling folder we are given our keys and directed to our rooms. Mine is number 12 at the top of the hotel and has a modern four poster bed complete with drapes. Now that is a first!!
The weather so far has been pretty good and today is no exception with a bright and sunny late afternoon so I decided to take a five minute stroll up to the Pavilion Theatre to see if there is any activity. The minibus is already parked and the only sign of life is Gianluca leaning against the sea wall and tapping away on his ipad. The theatre itself is just as quiet with only box office staff present. There are several posters advertising the concert too – there were none at The Sage – no CD’s either – they hadn’t arrived in time apparently.
Wandered back to the hotel, showered and changed and met up with Paddy for a meal at the local Wetherspoon’s. Fed and watered, I headed back to the venue to look for familiar faces – although there’s still an hour to go to the concert, the foyer and café bar are both quite busy and CD’s are already on sale. The auditorium doors opened at 7pm and folks started to make their way inside. I followed. This is my first concert here and I have to say I’m impressed. It does look much smaller than The Sage although size can be deceptive as the Pavilion has a capacity of 1031. Again, most seats appear to be taken as concert start time approaches.
Although I have a front row seat, I’m a little farther away from Hayley that I was last night due to the curvature of the auditorium seating and the straight stage. I can still see every expression on Hayley's face as she walks onto stage and sees her audience for the first time. There’s not much I can say that I haven’t already said about the concert itself. Despite knowing exactly what form it is going to take, I’m just as excited – perhaps more so, knowing that I am going to be reliving last nights wonderful performance all over again.
There were a couple of things that I didn’t talk about in my report from the previous night, most notably and perhaps very remiss of me, was about Hayley herself – what she was wearing and how she looked. Well, she looked stunning – doesn’t she always? I like her hair straight and I loved the new red dress, in fact I loved both dresses and both are new to the UK. Thanks to Graham’s photos and videos you should now have appropriate images in your head – Jillian has also provided details of the red dress, the official picture showing its colour pretty accurately in my opinion as stage lighting often distorts colour quite badly.
I also said very little about Gianluca who proved popular with both audiences and sang well. Both his duets with Hayley were spot on, his powerful voice complimenting Hayley's rather than drowning her out. He seemed quite nervous the first night, less so tonight but that may partly be because his English is not that good. That didn’t seem to matter though and his pronunciation of Hayley's name as “Hally Westerna” I found quite endearing rather than annoying.
Hayley too, chatted more freely than on the previous night, several times taking the opportunity to practice her Welsh and making reference to being happy to have a concert here in Wales on St David’s Day. Hayley also announced that she had eaten her first Welsh Cake which she had enjoyed. I gather Ash went out to get some after they had arrived here. There was more talk of rugby – Hayley obviously having taken the time to find out how Wales was doing, commenting that they had recently beaten England! That obviously went down well with the chap sat next to me who gave her a thumbs up. Hayley also spoke again about her 10 years in the industry and that she was grateful for the support she had received from her fans and thanked everyone for being there.
The concert drew to a close with loud and sustained applause, bringing Hayley back onto stage for the first of three encores. Initially though, it looked as though that was going to be it because once Hayley had returned to stage to take another bow, the applause died, prompting Hayley to say “We can do another one if you like?”. I think that got the message across because at the end of that one a good percentage of the audience were on their feet. For my money though, it seemed Hayley was the one wanting to carry on singing, not the audience expecting her to. And so, another fantastic evening of beautiful music came to an end and we made our way slowly out into the foyer.
I’m surprised to find the queue of people waiting to meet Hayley stretching the length of the foyer and disappearing into the café bar beyond – I had though they may have been fewer tonight, but it’s good for Hayley to know that she has such enthusiastic support. It’s important to mention too, that many of the front of house staff are volunteers and will be giving their own time in support of Hayley too. Hayley came out round about 10.10 armed with two bottles of water, took her place at the little round table set up for her and things got underway.
I set about getting some pictures which proved a little easier than the previous evening as there was no barrier and a smaller circulating area. This also meant I could get closer to Hayley although I was conscious of not wanting to be intrusive, so was a bit more reserved with my snapping. Didn’t seem to bother Hayley though as I caught several sweet smiles and found myself helping out on occasion taking pictures for other people using their cameras.
Taking a break during the proceedings, I enquired of the theatre manager if there were any unwanted posters – those that had been pinned to notice boards had mysteriously disappeared but he found one in a glass case on the balcony stairs for me which was still in mint condition. I must have set the wheels in motion because several others appeared along with some smaller ones.
With the last of the audience drifting away with their mementos of the evening, I asked Hayley to sign one of the smaller posters for me which she did, adding a rather special comment that I didn’t notice until I got back to the hotel. Thank you Hayley.
i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif I also asked about her new UNICEF Project but I’ll post more about that in the appropriate thread.
I didn’t notice what time we said our goodbyes to Hayley but it must have been at least 11pm if not later. Thanking the remaining staff for their time, Paddy and I left with the doors being locked behind us. Yep! Last out again!!
Pictures to follow.
Best wishes
Grant
