Hayley at the Faenol Festival, Wales - A Review

[HWI]

Faenol Festival 2003, Opera Night Review.

When I first heard that Hayley would be appearing at the Faenol Festival in North Wales, I knew I just had to have a ticket. So, in those distant, cold and damp days of February, I made the necessary arrangements and managed to get a front row seat. The ticket was for the Opera Gala, Sunday 24th August 2003. The seat was row A no. 57.

SIX MONTHS to wait. Seemed like a lifetime. But, it soon went by and, before I knew it, it was only a week away and so much to do. Suddenly it was Saturday night and the anticipation made it difficult to sleep. The following morning, I rose early to give myself plenty of time. From where I would enter Wales, there is a new road, laughingly referred to as an expressway. However, just two miles into Wales, it is a regular feature to hit severe traffic problems. On one occasion, it took me two hours to cover just four miles. The only thing the road was in need of was parking meters.

The concert was due to start at 8pm. I left home for the 75-mile drive at 1:40pm because of the potential for congestion. It is a bad road for traffic on a holiday weekend anyway. And with much of our rail network closed for engineering works, they were expecting traffic up by 30 percent. I decided to take action to use an alternative route around the congested area. There is a new bridge, which takes you onto the bottom coastal road. Unfortunately, it goes through a great many small coastal towns. Anyway, I took the bridge and re-joined the expressway eight miles further on.

As it happens, traffic was quite light and I was able to average just over sixty miles an hour. I made the journey in just under an hour and a half and was there at 3:15. The gates didn't open until 5pm. With so much time to go before the gates opened, I decided to study the crowd. The queue was about forty to fifty people wide and some 100 metres from the front to my place in it. When there was still an hour to go, I looked toward the back of the queue and discovered that it was nearing five times longer behind than it was in front. This was going to be a big audience. I heard many people talking about this young girl from New Zealand. I wasted no time in telling them about her. Some had newspapers – well, one particular newspaper, which carried a full-page piece about Hayley. Trouble is, it was published last Friday AND I MISSED IT (but not for long).

So, once in the grounds, there were still 3 hours to wait. Three hours in which I did nothing but scan the crowd looking for Hayley or her father. I knew that I certainly did not want to try and introduce myself during the concert or it’s interval. That would be most discourteous and could break concentration. Oh. I tell a lie. I located my seat and was relieved to see that, had I been hard of hearing, I would have no difficulty enjoying the music. My seat was directly in front of, and only about ten feet away from, a bank of EIGHTEEN amplifiers. If I wasn’t hard of hearing before I thought, there’s a good chance I could be after. There were no other amplifier positions around the field, only those on either side of the stage. So, the volume was going to be fairly high so that those at the back could hear it. I was right. It was pretty loud.

There were three warm up acts who were all great. This showed a very high standard was built in right from the very start.

Then the concert started and Bryn Terfel entered to a fantastic round of applause. Nothing less would have been expected, after all he is a world class singer. Plus, he is a “local boy” and very popular. He sang the Toreador Song from Carmen. Then Jose Carreras entered – another huge name – and received just as much applause as Bryn. He sang two pieces, which were both very well received. Then it was Bryn and then Jose again.

Then came the moment I had waited so long for. Hayley came on and the crowd rose to their feet, cheering and applauding like mad. What a moment! I was in awe at the response from some 10500 people who were present. Bryn Terfel didn’t get a standing ovation when he walked on stage. Jose Carreras had a few people stand for his entry, but not that many. But for Hayley, the entire audience rose to their feet. To say I was delighted at this response for her would be an understatement. Clearly, many in the audience loved her on sight. She wore a close fitting pink dress covered with little sparkly, multi-coloured butterflies. Then she spoke and greeted the crowd in Welsh. This brought a cheer and more applause. Even more people now loved her. She switched to English, telling the audience that she loved Wales, it made her feel homesick.

Then, it was time for her to sing. She began with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Pie Jesu. That was virtually it. Anyone who didn't love her by now, certainly would after that, I thought. It was the most beautiful performance and, experiencing it live is far superior to even the best quality recording. I was thoroughly entranced and I wasn’t the only one – and I don’t mean the rest of the audience. The concert was being recorded for TV and one of the crew (the boom camera was also directly in front of me) was mesmerised. It took a call over his headset from the control room to break the trance and get him back to work. I know, because I heard his response. In a matter of what seemed like only a few moments she had finished singing her first song, for which she received a standing ovation. As she left the stage, she half raised her arm and gave a typical young girl wave to the crowd. This brought gasps of "Oh, God, isn't she lovely." What more can I say. She had ten thousand five hundred people eating out of the palm of her hand.

Additional microphones were put in place and Hayley came back on stage, along with Bryn and Jose to sing Schubert’s “Ave Maria”. Another standing ovation followed. I was clapping so hard it was hurting my hands but I didn’t care.

[HWI]

Bryn opened the second half with a magnificent rendition of En Aranjuez con tu amor.

Hayley then came back on stage, she had changed her dress for a cream coloured one with one of those angled hems that starts at the knee on one side and goes down to the ankle on the other (you can tell I’m no fashion expert). It was covered in a glittering design. This brought gasps of appreciation from the crowd and many hushed statements of “isn’t she beautiful”. Now, she sang “In Trutina”. Which is, of course, from her new album “PURE”. With such a beautiful rendition of this delightful piece, she was accompanied by the awed silence of the audience as they drank in every note. Once more, Hayley was greeted by the kind of applause that only comes from the best a great artist can give. And yet it all seemed so effortless.

So, Hayley had sung in Latin, now it was time to switch to Maori and “Hine e Hine”. Before she began, she told the audience what the song was about. People hung on her every word, listening to this beautiful speaking voice with that subtle New Zealand accent. People loved to listen even when she WASN’T singing. It was obviously the first time that most of the audience had heard it – and they loved it. If anything, the applause from the audience was getting longer and louder with each song that Hayley delivered. Hayley left the stage again and gave that little wave as she went. It had no less impact than the first time. This was one audience that I witnessed being won over in their entirety by Hayley’s uncomplicated and genuine adorable character.

A second microphone was positioned and Hayley returned to the stage with Bryn and they sang “Pokarekare Ana” as a duet. It was immediately obvious that Bryn’s bass-baritone and Hayley’s soprano were a perfect complement each of the other. The sheer beauty of this song was not lost on the audience. But, it was fighting a losing battle against the perfection of Hayley’s voice. Suddenly, it was over and Hayley’s part in the concert was complete. The remaining eight pieces sort of drifted over me without really registering very much. I was still wallowing in the beauty of Hayley’s performance.

Then the concert was over and they came back on stage to take their final bows. By far the greatest reception was for Hayley, who took another standing ovation. I lost count, was that the fourth? No, it could have been the fifth. Or was it six? Anyway, they left the stage again, to be followed by the roar of the crowd who were not prepared to let it go there. So, it was time for the encores. First Bryn, then Jose. Then it was Hayley’s turn again and the crowd cheered as she returned to the stage. For her encore, she sang “Amazing Grace”. The performance was impeccable and, at the end of the song, she showed quite clearly that those incredible high notes are still well within her ability. The audience were loving Hayley more and more with every moment. But, she had one more ace up her sleeve (the fact that there weren’t any sleeves in her gown is not the point).

Bryn and Jose returned to the stage for a duet which was received with no less enthusiasm than they had received earlier. When they left the stage, the audience started again chanting for more, cheering, whistling and banging their hands on their chairs. Doesn’t do much if you stamp you feet on grass.

Bryn, Jose and Hayley returned to the stage one more time. This time, Jose didn’t sing. It was left to Bryn to start the Welsh National Anthem, which is a very stirring tune. He then signalled for Hayley to join in. Which she did, in Welsh (obviously) and that was the coup de gras. With performances like that, Hayley’s popularity is a foregone conclusion. There wasn't a person left in the grounds who didn't love her.

After the concert, I managed to attract the attention of Gerald, her dad. I introduced myself and we had a chat for a minute. Then I said that, had I seen him earlier, I would have asked if Hayley would sign my CD inserts if she had the time. He asked me for them and told me he would get her to do it straight away, just wait there a minute. Next thing I saw was him looking at me through the security barrier. He beckoned me forward and cleared it with security for me to go through. Standing the other side was Hayley. I blurted out one word in both awe and surprise – “Hayley”. She had come out of a reception where there were over a hundred people waiting for her, just to meet me. She had signed my CD inserts and was just such a magical and lovely person to speak to. I was so honoured and said so. I got told that the honour was all hers. This I will never believe. The honour was definitely mine, and I’ll fight anyone who says different.

I had driven thirty miles back from the venue before the realisation actually hit me. I was just so excited and couldn't believe it. AND I EVEN GOT TO TOUCH HER HAND (he says like an over-excited child).

Last night's experience has made me even more of a dedicated fan. I am now totally loyal to this most beautiful person and her fantastic and friendly father. In fact, her whole family has my undying loyalty.

Thank you Hayley for the most wonderful night out I have ever had.

Keith.

[Dave]

Hello everyone,

As mentioned here in Ross's Concerts thread I have located the original recording of Hayley's Faenol Festival performance, from way back in August 2003, this I digitised a few years ago from the late Keith Sheel's VHS tape of the TV broadcast. For the benefit of newer members, Keith was the original forum owner and Admin and this thread was one of the first that he started. Well it's about time that it had a reply, his two-part report above is an important part of the early history of Hayley's concert career and it took place before the UK release of "Pure".

We must have posted the video on HWI at some point because someone managed to copy the Pokarekare Ana duet for their YouTube channel. This was before whatever we posted was taken down after our founding webmaster Simon became ill and unable to continue, in the middle of restructuring the main site. Incidentally, Roger has posted a complete History of HWI on the main site, on the Management Team page.

Now back to the music!

Faenol Festival 2003 - Part 1 of 4 at HWI (wmv format, links to Parts 2, 3 and 4 are below the video).

Faenol Festival 2003 - 4 part Playlist at hwivid on YouTube (may not work in Firefox)

Faenol Festival 2003 videos (and others) if Playlist doesn't work (Firefox users)

If you listen carefully, you can even make sense of most of what Bryn Terfel is saying in the Introduction, in Welsh, I hope you enjoy it!

Cheers, Dave

[postscript]

A superb tidying up Dave and Richard and gives a simple 'in' to the vast amount of Hayley history we have accumulated. I am sure an updated biography of Hayley will be needed at some later date or perhaps she might even be the subject of a student's doctoral thesis!

Much here worth the studying.

Peter S.

[Mark]

Hi Dave

Many thanks for your work on this. What a great report it was that Keith posted all those years ago. I had to say he wrote with great passion and I found myself getting quite emotional as I was reading.

I have to say that the format looks very familiar - details of the journey and timings - the whole day seemingly taken up preparing for the evenings concert. The concert itself and then of course afterwards. Fantastic stuff.

Regards
Mark

[Martin]

I found Keith's report and the recording of Pokarekare Ana to be one marvellous history lesson since I didn't know Hayley from Adam six years ago.

Having read Keith's detailed and intense concert report, including perhaps the first account of someone being "Hayleywowed", it strikes me that the current reporting from our regulars is remarkably similar and certainly no less passionate. It only goes to show that Hayley's impact and influence on us mortals has not changed one little bit in six years (nor should it). I am sure that in another six years time we will be saying the same.

Then watching and hearing Hayley's performance at the age of 16, and I believe before the UK version of Pure had been released, was very nostalgic (even though as I say I did not know her at that time) and it was humbling to see Hayley glance at Bryn Terfel a couple of times almost in complete awe.

Great stuff, Dave.

Thanks
Martin

[martindn]

Yes, this is wonderful, and is some seven months before the wonderful night when I first heard Hayley's voice and saw her perform live. I was blown away of course like never before. And these videos remind me of what Hayley was like then. You tend to forget that she started out as a spectacular talent, and then got better and better.

However, Firefox crashed twice on me whilst playing those videos, usually after I had played one and tried to play the next one. No idea why. But restarting Firefox then allowed me to play the next one.

This must have been an absolutely awesome experience for Hayley. And it is good that it is recorded here, thanks Dave. It just goes to show that every performance by Hayley is making history, and that the efforts of those who are present to record the performance are literally priceless. Hayley is moving forward all the time, doing new things and progressing, and it is wonderful to be able to see that here on HWI. Even amateur recordings are a service to us all, and those venues that prohibit photography are destroying part of the story of a wonderful artist for ever. They should be ashamed of themselves in my opinion. The quality of some of the photographs taken by our members,often under difficult circumstances, is breathtaking, just have a look at the photography competition thread.

Until recently it wasn't possible to record an artist's career and make it available globally in the detailed way that HWI is doing. The technology that allows us to do so has come along at the same time as one of the greatest female singers of all time in my opinion, and she is still only 22 years old. We are recording her career in more detail perhaps than has ever happened for any artist before, and that is a very wonderful thing. In decades, centuries perhaps to come, people will see these recordings and know what a phenomenon Hayley was. Isn't that worth doing?

Martin

[Dave]

Jun 17, 2009 20:58:51 GMT martindn said:

Firefox crashed twice on me whilst playing those videos, usually after I had played one and tried to play the next one. No idea why. But restarting Firefox then allowed me to play the next one.

Hi Martin,

The same happens for me too on the YouTube playlist and from what I can gather, it looks like a long standing incompatibility between Firefox, YouTube or Flash (which YouTube uses). It is very annoying and if I continue to use YouTube Playlists I might decide to ditch Firefox and go back to IE. Their loss if they cannot get it sorted. Some have suggested rolling back to an earlier version of Flash but I'm not getting into that.

IE works fine for the playlists, and so does the HWI website link (in this case!) but you have to click on them one at a time of course. I've added a link above to the main HWI video page on YT.

Cheers, Dave

[comet]

Jun 17, 2009 20:58:51 GMT martindn said:

It just goes to show that every performance by Hayley is making history, and that the efforts of those who are present to record the performance are literally priceless. Hayley is moving forward all the time, doing new things and progressing, and it is wonderful to be able to see that here on HWI. Even amateur recordings are a service to us all, and those venues that prohibit photography are destroying part of the story of a wonderful artist for ever. They should be ashamed of themselves in my opinion. The quality of some of the photographs taken by our members,often under difficult circumstances, is breathtaking, just have a look at the photography competition thread.

Until recently it wasn't possible to record an artist's career and make it available globally in the detailed way that HWI is doing. The technology that allows us to do so has come along at the same time as one of the greatest female singers of all time in my opinion, and she is still only 22 years old. We are recording her career in more detail perhaps than has ever happened for any artist before, and that is a very wonderful thing. In decades, centuries perhaps to come, people will see these recordings and know what a phenomenon Hayley was. Isn't that worth doing?

Martin

Yep ! agree entirely, every performance is special. we are so lucky to have both the girl and the technology at the same time.
We should bury some discs in an earthenware jar at Nag Hammadi

[graemek]

Thank you very very much from me too Dave.

I have just listened to all 4 & also stored the files in my personal collection.....wonderful....

I'm sure a lot of us do that & it ensures also a 'priceless' worldwide archive for any losses that may occur for any reason.

Martin, I agree wholeheartedly with you !!!!

Graeme

[I-H-F]

Thanks for those, Dave.

There's a photograph of Hayley performing with Jose Carreras at this festival, in the booklet of the River Of Dreams CD.

[grant]

Hello everyone

I didn't get to read Keith's review until last night. I did see it when it was first posted, but it was long and I was about to go out. Having read it, I am so glad that I waited until I had time to savour every one of Keith's beautifully written words.

I don't mind admitting that I was close to tears by the end particularly as it hadn't dawned on me that it was Keith's first time until the bit where Hayley came out to meet him.

What I find so wonderful is that, despite everything that has happened for Hayley in the intervening period, she will always make time for those 'special moments' she shares with us whenever she can.

Now I've got to find time for Dave's videos! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

Best wishes
Grant

[maya]

Jun 17, 2009 23:05:42 GMT Dave said:

Jun 17, 2009 20:58:51 GMT martindn said:

Firefox crashed twice on me whilst playing those videos, usually after I had played one and tried to play the next one. No idea why. But restarting Firefox then allowed me to play the next one.

Hi Martin,

The same happens for me too on the YouTube playlist and from what I can gather, it looks like a long standing incompatibility between Firefox, YouTube or Flash (which YouTube uses). It is very annoying and if I continue to use YouTube Playlists I might decide to ditch Firefox and go back to IE. Their loss if they cannot get it sorted. Some have suggested rolling back to an earlier version of Flash but I'm not getting into that.

IE works fine for the playlists, and so does the HWI website link (in this case!) but you have to click on them one at a time of course. I've added a link above to the main HWI video page on YT.

Cheers, Dave

Hi, Dave.
I use Japanese version of Firefox 3.0.11 on Japanese Windows XP Pro SP3 and I do not have any problem.
I really enjoyed watching those 4 videos.
Hayley was young but she was already great at that age. That was amazing.
Anyway, thank you for your hard work, Dave.

Best wishes.
Maya

[martindn]

Hi Maya,

That is the identical Firefox version and Windows version that I used. Is the Japanese version different in some way?

Martin

[maya]

Jun 18, 2009 20:21:52 GMT martindn said:

Hi Maya,

That is the identical Firefox version and Windows version that I used. Is the Japanese version different in some way?

Martin

Hi Martin.

As far as I know, Both Windows XP and Fire fox of Japanese versions are basically the same with original English version except the character set handling and prepared messages. As you know, our language uses additional 3 different characters (Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana) other than Romans and this requires 2 bytes for each those characters. I don't think this directly effects the symptom. But I always use Firefox and I never had any problem for at least past one year or so. My son had a compatibility problem with his PC before but it became all right after house-keeping the hard disk reinstalling everything. It contained some viruses, Trojans and malwares inside. Young generations tend to have this type of problem surfing the Net too much and getting something not good.

What I think is that Windows XP still has many security halls and there are some bad guys who always try to invade your PC. I sometimes help my friends to fix their PCs and in most of the cases, they are not broken but just invaded by viruses, Trojans, spywares and/or adwares although they are basically protecting it by Anti-virus softwares. Problem was the updates were not very frequent.

Reading Dave's post, what was the cause of crush, I thought? As far as I know, he is very good at PC affairs and his PC must be fully OK protecting everything and things are fully up to date. I still wonder why the crush happens.

In our house, there is another PC which is installed American English Windows XP with American English Firefox for the guests from USA and I am in a mood to try to use it to check. The American version and the British version are slightly different but basically the same and I wonder what happens. I will report the result.

Incidentally, Hayley will not be here until October and we are thirsty. Ideas are to visit HWI and to watch Youtube and I found Dave's posts very nice.

Best wishes.
Maya