see three concerts in 2006

I was lucky to get to go and see Billy Joel in concert at the M.E.N. in Manchester last night. I had been looking forward to it since I bought the tickets (for my dad) the day they went on sale in April.
I had planned to leave here at 5pm last night but my dad didn’t walk in from work till then so I was a little stressed as nothing was going to plan. We finally left at 5:30 and ended up in a load of traffic….
We called at McDonald’s at Whitebirk and were disappointed to find out they had run out of all their cold drinks so we decided to not get anything to eat or drink there and ended up stuck in the Drive Thru waiting for a women to get her order which seemed to take forever but that might have something to do with the fact she got 8 loads of bags full of food :os
When we finally got out of the drive thru we made our way down the first motorway stretch and when we got off we went in another Mcdonalds drive thru and luckily they had drinks :O)
We get back on the motorway and my dad drives straight past the motorway junction we are meant to get off to get on another part of the motorway. That really stressed me as we were running behind time and I tell him to get off the motorway and he thought he knew better and drove right past. We drove on for another 10 minutes before we managed to get off the motorway and turn round. Then we are coming up to the junction we were meant to get off at and he drives past it again :os I was getting so stressed out at this point!! Then we finally get back to the right junction and leave at then my dad gets off early and missing the one we were meant to get onto. I felt like giving up and going home at that point as everything so far had gone so wrong.

We eventually get to Manchester and once we get into Manchester it is easy to get to the M.E.N. – we finally park up and walk to the M.E.N. It was about 7:20 then and I planned on getting there when the doors opened and in a way I was glad we didn’t because it was so hot inside, I had sweat pouring off me which wasn’t a horrible sight but I was so hot and stupidly had worn jeans even though I knew it was boiling.
After getting a drink and paying £15 for a program we made our way to our seats and I was amazed by my seats and how much I could see. I am so happy we got to sit at the back because we got the best view in the place and the stage wasn’t that far away. We had seats 1 and 2 (again) which I like because we are sat at the end and don’t have to be annoying and get people to stand up if we want to go and get a drink or go to the loo.
The show was due to start at 8pm and there were still people getting shown to their seats which I thought was really ignorant because if the show starts at 8pm you shouldn’t be just getting to your seats.

About 8:10 Billy Joel’s entrance music came on and all the audience went mad. The lights went off and then all of a sudden they went back on and he popped up onto the stage with his piano and started to play the intro to ANGRY YOUNG MAN!! The sound of the band was just amazing and the lights were amazing and the stage set up was absolutely amazing. There was no big screen but it really wasn’t needed because you could see him no matter where you were sat in the arena.

- from the first song I knew this concert was going to be a million times better than the Elton John concert that I saw 6 weeks ago. I could just tell from how amazing the sound was and the light show was just something not to be missed!! – the Elton John show was really basic compared with this. Elton had a really rubbish stage that was badly set up and he only had a few lights and nothing special went on in his show. I think Peter Kaye may of been the highlight of the Elton concert as he didn’t even interact with the audience and even threw a bit of a tantrum!!

Billy got such an amazing welcome from the audience and they were off their feet for him (unlike the EJ) concert. His band got the audience clapping along throughout the concert and it was a proper audience participation concert all the way through and that made it a lot more enjoyable.
Everyone was singing along too and really enjoyed it all the more. The light show in itself was a great part of the show with so many different colour combinations and many different things going on with the lights and they lit up the audience many times and just went all the way through the concert with amazing effects and styles to it. I loved the lights and were amazed by how wonderful they were.
The band were amazing too, they rocked!! It sounded amazing and nothing could fault the sound of that band. It was a really full sounding band and nothing was missing from the songs (music parts like the EJ concert). He has a 8 piece band, not all of them were on stage at the same time, who all interacted with each other amazingly and really stood out and complimented Billy.

The stage was brilliant. It was a round stage with many different parts to it. The most amazing thing about the stage was the piano. It came out of the floor (in the middle of the stage) and basically it moved around during in the concert (during in each song) it turned round so one minute he had his left side to us and then his right and then he was facing us and then had his back to us. So the people at the sides got him facing them at points and the people at the back of the stage got an amazing view too.
On some songs he doesn’t play piano so it went back down under the stage and he would either stand and sing with a mic or run round the stage singing or up behind the back of the band there was a round walk way were he would walk along and sing and then on each side of the back bit there was a keyboard that rotated so some songs when he was at the back part of the stage (playing the keyboard) it would swing round so he would be facing the back of the audience or the side of the audience which I thought was pretty amazing.
He played the guitar on a few songs too which was amazing. Fully interacting with the audience all the time.

He did loads of amazing songs (all his songs, no one elses) and they were all amazing and all my fave Billy Joel songs, I can’t remember the set list but I was happy with every song he did and was a little sad that he didn’t do Goodnight Saigon but then again he can’t do all his songs otherwise we would of been there for weeks ;O)

Peter Kaye was in the audience (front row) and has been to all his UK concerts so far. Billy talked to him a couple of times through the concert and was asking him if he had a private jet as he is always at his gigs hehe.

I am amazed just at how funny Billy Joel is. He had all the audience laughing everything he said stuff. He was making me laugh to the point it was hurting. He is very charismatic and had all the audience under his spell during the show – defiantly my kind of guy :OD
He was describing himself at one point (for all those who were too far away to see him) and he described himself as 6 foot 5 with a muscular body and chisled chin and long blond flowing hair lol :op

It was amazing and I wish I could go and see him again but don’t have any more tickets. If I would of known he was going to be so good then I would of gotten tickets for another concert because who knows if he is going to come back again and if he does it might be years and years because the last time he played here (before last night) was 12 years ago :oO

He did Uptown Girl for those who know it from that cr*appy version Westlife did. Well Billy Joel is the original person to do that, he wrote it in the early 80s about a certain model he ended up marrying ;O)
He was saying it is really difficult to sing which I guess it is but all the audience loved it but the song that really stood out was Piano Man. Billy Joel is the Piano man so it was only fitting that he end the concert with it.

When he did Piano Man the audience went mad and sang it all the way through, he left the audience to sing the chorus alone and then the final chorus the band stopped playing and it was just our voices which was pretty cool. When that finished it was the end of the concert. I wish it wasn’t but he played 2 and a half hours so we got out money worth and it was really worth every penny I paid for those tickets. He did many songs and it was just brilliant.

I give it 10/10.

Lucky for me and my dad we were very close to the exit so I grabbed him and dragged him out before everyone could get out because last time it took ages to get out because there was too many people trying to get out at the same time. It worked out well getting out then as there was hardly anyone out and we were out the building in under a minute and back to the car another few minutes later and the thing that took the longest was getting back out of a carpark onto the main road :os

It was amazing and I am still hyper about the whole concert and it is something I want to do again.

Billy Joel is amazing :O)

I was lucky to get to go and see Billy Joel in concert at the M.E.N. in Manchester last night. I had been looking forward to it since I bought the tickets (for my dad) the day they went on sale in April.
I had planned to leave here at 5pm last night but my dad didn’t walk in from work till then so I was a little stressed as nothing was going to plan. We finally left at 5:30 and ended up in a load of traffic….
We called at McDonald’s at Whitebirk and were disappointed to find out they had run out of all their cold drinks so we decided to not get anything to eat or drink there and ended up stuck in the Drive Thru waiting for a women to get her order which seemed to take forever but that might have something to do with the fact she got 8 loads of bags full of food :os
When we finally got out of the drive thru we made our way down the first motorway stretch and when we got off we went in another Mcdonalds drive thru and luckily they had drinks :O)
We get back on the motorway and my dad drives straight past the motorway junction we are meant to get off to get on another part of the motorway. That really stressed me as we were running behind time and I tell him to get off the motorway and he thought he knew better and drove right past. We drove on for another 10 minutes before we managed to get off the motorway and turn round. Then we are coming up to the junction we were meant to get off at and he drives past it again :os I was getting so stressed out at this point!! Then we finally get back to the right junction and leave at then my dad gets off early and missing the one we were meant to get onto. I felt like giving up and going home at that point as everything so far had gone so wrong.

We eventually get to Manchester and once we get into Manchester it is easy to get to the M.E.N. – we finally park up and walk to the M.E.N. It was about 7:20 then and I planned on getting there when the doors opened and in a way I was glad we didn’t because it was so hot inside, I had sweat pouring off me which wasn’t a horrible sight but I was so hot and stupidly had worn jeans even though I knew it was boiling.
After getting a drink and paying £15 for a program we made our way to our seats and I was amazed by my seats and how much I could see. I am so happy we got to sit at the back because we got the best view in the place and the stage wasn’t that far away. We had seats 1 and 2 (again) which I like because we are sat at the end and don’t have to be annoying and get people to stand up if we want to go and get a drink or go to the loo.
The show was due to start at 8pm and there were still people getting shown to their seats which I thought was really ignorant because if the show starts at 8pm you shouldn’t be just getting to your seats.

About 8:10 Billy Joel’s entrance music came on and all the audience went mad. The lights went off and then all of a sudden they went back on and he popped up onto the stage with his piano and started to play the intro to ANGRY YOUNG MAN!! The sound of the band was just amazing and the lights were amazing and the stage set up was absolutely amazing. There was no big screen but it really wasn’t needed because you could see him no matter where you were sat in the arena.

- from the first song I knew this concert was going to be a million times better than the Elton John concert that I saw 6 weeks ago. I could just tell from how amazing the sound was and the light show was just something not to be missed!! – the Elton John show was really basic compared with this. Elton had a really rubbish stage that was badly set up and he only had a few lights and nothing special went on in his show. I think Peter Kaye may of been the highlight of the Elton concert as he didn’t even interact with the audience and even threw a bit of a tantrum!!

Billy got such an amazing welcome from the audience and they were off their feet for him (unlike the EJ) concert. His band got the audience clapping along throughout the concert and it was a proper audience participation concert all the way through and that made it a lot more enjoyable.
Everyone was singing along too and really enjoyed it all the more. The light show in itself was a great part of the show with so many different colour combinations and many different things going on with the lights and they lit up the audience many times and just went all the way through the concert with amazing effects and styles to it. I loved the lights and were amazed by how wonderful they were.
The band were amazing too, they rocked!! It sounded amazing and nothing could fault the sound of that band. It was a really full sounding band and nothing was missing from the songs (music parts like the EJ concert). He has a 8 piece band, not all of them were on stage at the same time, who all interacted with each other amazingly and really stood out and complimented Billy.

The stage was brilliant. It was a round stage with many different parts to it. The most amazing thing about the stage was the piano. It came out of the floor (in the middle of the stage) and basically it moved around during in the concert (during in each song) it turned round so one minute he had his left side to us and then his right and then he was facing us and then had his back to us. So the people at the sides got him facing them at points and the people at the back of the stage got an amazing view too.
On some songs he doesn’t play piano so it went back down under the stage and he would either stand and sing with a mic or run round the stage singing or up behind the back of the band there was a round walk way were he would walk along and sing and then on each side of the back bit there was a keyboard that rotated so some songs when he was at the back part of the stage (playing the keyboard) it would swing round so he would be facing the back of the audience or the side of the audience which I thought was pretty amazing.
He played the guitar on a few songs too which was amazing. Fully interacting with the audience all the time.

He did loads of amazing songs (all his songs, no one elses) and they were all amazing and all my fave Billy Joel songs, I can’t remember the set list but I was happy with every song he did and was a little sad that he didn’t do Goodnight Saigon but then again he can’t do all his songs otherwise we would of been there for weeks ;O)

Peter Kaye was in the audience (front row) and has been to all his UK concerts so far. Billy talked to him a couple of times through the concert and was asking him if he had a private jet as he is always at his gigs hehe.

I am amazed just at how funny Billy Joel is. He had all the audience laughing everything he said stuff. He was making me laugh to the point it was hurting. He is very charismatic and had all the audience under his spell during the show – defiantly my kind of guy :OD
He was describing himself at one point (for all those who were too far away to see him) and he described himself as 6 foot 5 with a muscular body and chisled chin and long blond flowing hair lol :op

It was amazing and I wish I could go and see him again but don’t have any more tickets. If I would of known he was going to be so good then I would of gotten tickets for another concert because who knows if he is going to come back again and if he does it might be years and years because the last time he played here (before last night) was 12 years ago :oO

He did Uptown Girl for those who know it from that cr*appy version Westlife did. Well Billy Joel is the original person to do that, he wrote it in the early 80s about a certain model he ended up marrying ;O)
He was saying it is really difficult to sing which I guess it is but all the audience loved it but the song that really stood out was Piano Man. Billy Joel is the Piano man so it was only fitting that he end the concert with it.

When he did Piano Man the audience went mad and sang it all the way through, he left the audience to sing the chorus alone and then the final chorus the band stopped playing and it was just our voices which was pretty cool. When that finished it was the end of the concert. I wish it wasn’t but he played 2 and a half hours so we got out money worth and it was really worth every penny I paid for those tickets. He did many songs and it was just brilliant.

I give it 10/10.

Lucky for me and my dad we were very close to the exit so I grabbed him and dragged him out before everyone could get out because last time it took ages to get out because there was too many people trying to get out at the same time. It worked out well getting out then as there was hardly anyone out and we were out the building in under a minute and back to the car another few minutes later and the thing that took the longest was getting back out of a carpark onto the main road :os

It was amazing and I am still hyper about the whole concert and it is something I want to do again.

Billy Joel is amazing :O)

I shall be at a Billy Joel concert in Manchester and I can’t wait!!
I wonder what it will be like and I wonder what songs he will do and I wonder if I will know them all and I wonder if it will be anything like the Elton John concert.
I think it won’t be a stand up and cheer concert like Bon Jovi or a sing-a-long affair and I like those concerts.
I don’t have a clue where my seats are but I am hoping they aint rubbish ones right at the back of the arena as the ones at the side near the stage are the best well other then the ones in the first five rows now those are seats I would love!!

Concert Two

As you all know I went to a Bon Jovi concert yesterday. I had VIP tickets that cost me a arm and a leg but I should be able to buy those back soon as I pawned them ;O)

I had the best day of my life yesterday, it was utterly amazing and I would defiantly go VIP again as it was more than worth the money.

We arrived just before 4pm to be escorted into the private entrance which is the big glass entrance at the front of the building. After going through a tight security section we were led inside where we were given VIP wrist bands. We were then directed upstairs. When we got upstairs we got led along these really nice corridors where security and staff were stood the length of the corridors. They were really nice plush corridors that were nicely decorated with nice plush carper on the floors.
Then we were led out into the stadium past our VIP seats, there was only three rows of seats :O), and into the the Legends lounge where our names were taken. Then we went to the bar and got a drink. After having a drink I decided I wanted to go and get some mechanise so we went back out the way we came in and went out into the crowds outside. Normally your not allowed out once your in but being VIPS you can do almost anything you want :O)
After getting 2 T-shirts, 1 necklace and a program we went back in and I have a Chicken Tikka curry with rice and a mini naan and another drink. Whilst I was eating that the first support act came on and made a racket!! I don’t know who they were and I didn’t care because they were totally rubbish!! The lounge we were in is a glass box so you could see the stage from it but they had the blinds down for privacy which I thought was cool.
After another drink I went and got changed into my concert top as I had a customised top made for the concert and didn’t want to wear it there so put it on before Nickleback came on. Then we went and found out seats and watched Nickleback. My dad didn’t really want to see them as he has heard one of their albums I have and didn’t like it but he really enjoyed them and so did I and I think everyone else did and there were some people there only to see Nickleback, in fact there biggest fan was sat next to me.
After Nickelback we went back into the lounge and had another drink and then went back out and waited for Bon Jovi.

From the moment they arrived on stage to the moment they left no one sat in their seat!! It was such an amazing show. They did all my fav songs except for These Days and they rocked! The stage was amazing though the pictures I took don’t catch how amazing it looked because my two sets of batteries ran out before it got dark and that’s when the stage looked wonderful!!
They sounded great and it was amazing, they rocked!! In some places the audience sang so loud that we couldn’t hear the music and at one or two points on songs like Livin’ on a Prayer and Bad Medicine the band stopped singing because we were so loud!! :O)

Richie Sambora (guitarist) was completely pssed out of his head and I didn’t really realise until he did the song he does on his own which is called I’ll be there for you. JBJ went off and he stood at his mic and all the cameras were on him and he just had that expression on his face that people get when they are so out of it with alcohol. He has his eyes closes and had a massive smirk on his face and couldn’t’[t stand straight!! It was so funny and I found it hilarious and even though he was completely pssed out of his head he still played the guitar amazingly as per usual :O)

JBJ changed outfits at least 6 times and they came on for 2 encores. They did my Fav song second to last “Wanted Dead or Alive”! I just love that song and what made it even more amazing was the fact that he got the audience to sing the first verse and chorus.

That was very funny and cool too because RS is hot but I was drooling, I was just laughing because of how p*ssed he was. I think he had a liquid lunch and tea ;O)

The stage was amazing. It had a big screen in the middle and this design which was like New York and even had pictures of New York building on at one point. The lights were amazing too, I haven’t seen anything like it and wish I had pictures from that point in the show as it looked amazing!! There was also bridges over the audience into a path that went round the edge of the Golden Circle but when JBJ was on there you couldn’t see him because he just blended in with the crowd.

Bon Jovi is now a 7 piece band and have been for over a year, When JBJ was introducing the band he forgot David Byran but remembered at the end and got him 2 standing ovations :op

Another funny part of the show is when they have fans on the stage with them a girl wanted to touch him so bad that she crawled under the legs of someone and jumped up and tried to get over the barrier and hurt herself and JBJ was so worried she was going to fall that he went up to her and gave her a hug and as he walked off she tried jumping over the barrier again and he was singing and he just said “be careful, I’m only human and not worth hurting yourself for”. Hmm not as funny as the two girls in the private loos fighting over JBJ before the concert :oO

I didn’t stop singing or clapping along all the way through and it looked like no one else did either. It was a million times better than Elton John and as I said it was the best day of my life because of the VIP (star) treatment and the great band and then the fantastic band. The show was the best show I have ever seen and I am sad I can’t go and see them again this time as I am dying to go and see them now. I have suffered from the concert though because the girl next to me smoked all the way through (your allowed to in the VIP stand) and my tongue swelled up on one side and my throat did too and that started an hour before the end of the concert. She smoked a full packet during the three hours Bon Jovi were on stage and I wasn’t happy about that because I kept coughing a lot when she was smoking and today all my clothes smelt of smoke.

After the concert we got another drink in the bar and also during the concert my dad got a few drinks, I ended up having 4 pints of pure orange and 3 pints of water during my time there.
The let down of the night was the group of people sat in front of us messed around all the way through the concert. They were taking pictures of each other all the way through and weren’t paying any attention of the concert, they were also getting 3/4 drinks each a time and lining them up in front of themselves and knocking them over when they were messing around. Beer and wine went everywhere and they were flashing each other and hanging off each other and it got really annoying at times. I can’t believe they paid all that money for VIP tickets and just messed around the whole time but they did and if they would of been doing that in the normal stands then they would of got kicked out!!

It took well over an hour to get off the car park too which I wasn’t pleased about because it was 12:30 by the time we left the car park and I was desperate for the loo too :o|

Anyway I will shut up now, it’s just I had the most amazing time and it will take me a while to come down from it :O)

I went to a Elton John concert last night and it was FANTASTIC. I saw him at the M.E.N. in Manchester and it was a fantastic night!!
His opening act was a band called The Storys who were pretty amazing and I will be buying their album after seeing them, their lead singer happens to look like a younger Richie Sambora ;O)
Before Sir Elt came on Peter Kaye came on, before we even saw Pater Kaye we knew it was him as he was stood at the side of the stage saying “one-two, one-two” for ages on the mic and everyone recognised his voice and started to cheer. He was on for about 10 minutes, he was only their for the concert but Sir Elt asked him to come on. He was very funny!
The elt came on and rocked, the funny thing is he started off with Bernie and the Jets and that is my dads least favourite song so he wasn’t best pleased lol.

It was great, he played loads of brilliant songs that I knew and enjoyed a lot. It was great and we had good seats and I could see the stage well and was really impressed by it all. My camera played up and I have never used it before so got annoyed with it and gave up taking pictures after about 5 songs. I have had a look and they are really blurred so I am going to try and sort it before I go and see Bon Jovi on Sunday because I won’t be impressed if I can’t take any pictures of Bon Jovi.

There was a funny bit in the concert when he sang a song about a sex change (can’t remember the name of the song) this massive guy came running along the aisles and tried to get on the stage but he was too big and the stage was only 4 foot high as well. There wasn’t much security around either so he could of got on there if he really tried. Eventually 3 security and 3 staff jumped on him and pinned him to the floor and had to carry him off because he refused to walk lol – what a way to get backstage ;O)
Elton didn’t even get phased by that and carried on with the concert without stopping.

There were a couple of times in the concert where he and his band went off on one and just jammed and a couple of those times it got a little boring because they went on too long with them but there were one or two that where really good.
Rocket Man last three hours ;O) Well it felt like it because he did it and then when it should of finished they started a instrumental and then went off on one and then the band faded out and he went off on one with his piano and a bit of singing for ages and then went back into the song and the band came back in again and then they went off on one for ages and they faded out and he carried on and then finished or so we thought, we cheered and clapped etc and he started the song again. OMG! It went on for at least 15 minutes and I was glad when that finished lol.

He did all his hits and there was only two songs I didn’t know from his new album. For some of his latest songs like I want love he had the videos of them playing in the background so you could see them which was really cool :O)

There was a point in it where the sound went to pot. He was saying goodnight like they do before they go and come back on and went to sing his last song (which wasn’t really) and it was Sacrifice. He started to song and the sound guy must of switched stuff off for some reason because the piano wasn’t on and the percussion was up too loud so that’s all we could hear at the front, I don’t know about the back of house sound, and Elton realised the piano wasn’t on and was trying to hint to the sound guy it wasn’t on but he didn’t get the hint until half way through the song when the piano finally came back on. Then his mic got turned up too high and the drums went off lol.

He came back on and did four songs which happened to be the best of the night. He did I’m still standing which got everyone on their feet clapping and singing along and then he did The bitch is back which is brilliant and then he did Saturdays alright for fighting and finished with Your Song which everyone sang along to.

All in all he did 2 1/2 hours and was fantastic and it was worth the money I paid for the tickets. I actually bought the tickets last November for my dad for ones of his Christmas presents and am so glad that he took me.

I got a cool t-shirt and not the program as I am saving as much money as I can for the Bon Jovi concert as I will want a lot of stuff there :O)

to go till I see Sir Elton John in Manchester at the M.E.N. I can’t wait though I hardly know any of his songs. I did get his greatest hits album but I keep listening to my fav songs lol.
I shall listen to it over the weekend when I have time which I won’t have much of but I know them kinda though I don’t know all the words and wish I did.

Just over two weeks to go and I have over half the money I need. I only need to make another £75 and then I have enough though I would like to make another £30 on top of that so I have some more money to spend over that weekend. I do wish I was seeing them at Manchester but I thought Wembley would be finished on time and wanted to go there.
I don’t know if I can stand up all day as I have never have and of course I would stand for whole of the concert but there is the waiting for the concert and standing through the support act that I don’t want to do :O(

I am looking forward to it and have just ordered his Greatest Hits album so I can listen to that and hopefully know more of his songs for the concert. It should be great and is 2 weeks on Monday :O)

the Elton John tickets finally came today.
There was something inside saying here are the tickets you recently purchased. That made me laugh because I bought them at the beginning of November last year lol

to go and I shall be at the Elton John concert in Manchester.
29th May. The tickets haven’t come yet so I hope that they turn up!!
Less than 2 weeks later I shall be in Milton Keynes for the Bon Jovi concert, I think I would prefer to see them in Manchester but it is too late now.
Grr Wembley for not being finished!!