hils | Take That report and photos

We got to the arena quite early so I bought a programme for

otw1980 and a fabby black and red striped t-shirt for me. We took our seats and ate and drank until the support act came on

Beverly Knight really isb't my sort of music at all but she was very energetic and worked hard to get the crowd going. She sang for just over half an hour and then we had to wait a little for Take That to come on

When the lights dimmed the crowd went wild. My ears hurt the screaming was so loud. LOL. Once the inital squeeing died down though it was great. Everyone sang along, did the dances etc and generally had a good time. It's quite funny to think that when Mark Owen asked everyone to use the lights from their mobile phones while he sang Babe, the last time he performed it no one even had one. LOL. Everyone there had digital cameras which I don't think even existed back in 1995 when I last saw them live. It made me feel old. LOL.

Best part of the show was It Only Takes A Minute performed in the style of a tango. It was amazing! So different to how the song is usually performed and it worked really well.

Halfway through the show they lowered a circular stage over the middle of the arena and we went from being right at the back to right near the front. WHEE! I took some photos but they didn't really come out. Ah well.

They ended the night with Never Forget which I love. The lyrics are just amazing and everyone sang along and waived their arms around.

The only thing that spoiled the evening were the two people sat in front of me and Jacqui. It was a mother and daughter who arrived late and were obviously drunk. The daughter was also clearly high on something and spent the whole concert jumping up and down and screaming (not in a fannish way, in a scary and annoying way). She kept knocking into the woman stood next to her because she was jumping around and generally pissed everyone around her off. At one point she stood on her seat so she could see better but of course that blocked the view of everyone behind her. I tapped her and told her to get down so she started complaining to her mum. Five minutes later they BOTH climbed on their seat. The mum was so drunk she fell off and the girl was determined to ignore people tapping her. Finally Jacqui and I pretty much pushed her off and the woman stood behind us started shouting at the girl so she told us all to fuck off. Charming. I thought the woman behind us was going to jump over the seats and punch her. Would have serverd her right if she had.

But, other than that mildly unpleasant incident, it was a brilliant night.