| UK FALL TOUR 2004
Newcastle, UK City Hall Friday, Oct 1 On the Road with MaggieMay... After arguing for several minutes with Darling Hubby over the route out of The Clyde and back to the Moat House, I simply turned and left him to get lost on his own. He wisely chose to follow me. We had hoped to get a table in the bar, but alas – it was full. We made do upstairs, regularly sending one of the male members of our group to fetch us liquor and Diet Cokes. Red introduced us to a fine pair of handsome Scots who spoke English with the sexiest accents I’ve ever heard. Damn, I LOVE Scotland! ; ) We had a GREAT time with them, and I learned what happens when you try to swallow a Viagra and it gets stuck halfway down. Your neck gets stiff! We partied late, had a great time and paid for it the next morning. Sigh You ALWAYS pay for it, and the price gets higher with every passing year. We had to be up early for the 3 hour drive to Newcastle and it was a grim awakening. I dragged myself and my bag downstairs, checked out and waited for everyone else to make it down.  Angel
had sweetly (and very efficiently) made the ground transportation arrangements,
but I have to admit I was quite surprised to go out the Moat House door
and see a bus. We had our very own tour bus for the trip to Newcastle.
Amazing!
The bus trip to Newcastle was a pretty drive despite the overcast weather, with mile after mile of grassy hills dotted with sheep. One by one we dropped off, dreaming of sheep, rather than watching them through the window. I was jerked awake by Darling Hubby exclaiming “There’s Stonehenge!” Though I was half-awake, I thought ‘he’s nuts – we’re no where near Stonehenge’. I had to laugh when I opened my eyes and saw a huge nuclear power plant. Yes, it was reminiscent of Stonehenge! It’s rather a frightening sight. Our driver had no problem reaching Newcastle, but wasn’t too familiar with the city and an address didn’t seem to help him. He called our hotel, got directions and took us directly to a warehouse along the river. I was the only one who had been there before, but I didn’t remember how to get there. It HAD been two years, after all! I thought I did brilliantly, pointing out first that we were on the wrong SIDE of the river, and then following that up with recognition of the Millenium Bridge. I think I’ve done *my* part for the tour! I have to say, it’s a very odd hotel – the elevator speaks French. The front desk was where I remembered it, but a stop at the 2nd floor left me scratching my head. I asked the hostess, uh...wasn’t the bar on the LEFT two years ago and the restaurant on the right?  Yes,
it was. They had remodeled and it was very nice. The bar had
large groupings of votive candles in what was more a large living room
rather than a bar. Darling Hubby really enjoyed the modeling video
looped on the big screen tv, a good thing since he watched it over and
over. It didn’t do a lot for me, but their fine Margarita did.
Snort!
Our room was large and lovely and had a beautiful view of the river. I assume it’s the river Tyne (Newcastle-on-Tyne). We had stayed at this hotel in 2002 and while SueC found the decor odd, I loved it. I suppose it’s modern. The food is excellent (wonderful steaks from Scotland), it has FREE high speed internet access and it’s on the water. I wish we had been able to stay longer in Newcastle. The only negative thing about our hotel is the loud disco music which seems to pervade the neighborhood. I’m afraid Newcastle is a bit too swinging a town for me. While I had remembered the hotel vividly from 2002, I couldn’t remember the venue at all. It took a return trip there to jog my memory.  THE
VENUE
Newcastle City Hall is an older, small, venue in the neighborhood of Northumberland University. It was dark out and misting rain as we arrived and it still didn’t look familiar. I remembered it as we walked in – it’s a beautiful place. There’s quite a good description of this venue in the 2002 UK Tour reviews by a keener, more energetic MaggieMay. There were no purse searches or overt security. THE FASHION REPORT JL – White long-slvd bib shirt, black jeans with leather pockets, 2nd half black long-slved shirred front shirt, boots JH – White with blue stripes long-slvd oxford style shirt, black slacks, shoes GE – Jimi Hendrix shirt, black slacks, 2nd half hula shirt Justin probably changed at the half (as he usually does) but then again, maybe he didn’t. THE CONCERT I initially hadn’t planned to go to Newcastle and was caught with my pants down when the plans finally firmed up and Newcastle was on our to-do list. I yanked them up with one hand and desperately scrolled through eBay with the other. It’s darn hard to gather tickets, at least GOOD tickets in the UK; onsales are sprung on you in the middle of the night, brokers are few and don’t seem to understand the words “front row”. What is it about front row you don’t understand, I said over and over. I rarely use them for the UK and it seems like I go through boxes and boxes of Cracker Jack hunting for the prize. Sigh I had bought a third row pair, about at cost, for Newcastle a couple weeks before the tour started and tried to convince myself that I was lucky to get them and that third row would be fine. Of course, it would be! I’m sure there’s not a bad seat in the house. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Being sweetly philosophical is not in my Type A personality’s nature. I wish it were! I silently beat myself over the head every time I thought of Newcastle. I needed some specific information about one of the UK venues and got out my little notebook from that tour. Leafing thru, I saw the Newcastle heading and saw too that I had noted our seats for that concert. What? Row D was 2nd row there? Well, huh! That meant that Row C was Front Row. I felt SO much better! And to think that ebay seller didn’t realize that and advertised them as third row. : ) Heheheh Score one for the home team!  Front
row at Newcastle maybe wasn’t the BEST front row seat in the world, not
that I was going to give it up. The front row was just a few feet
from the stage and my seat was about dead center. A perfect seat
in most venues! The problem in Newcastle was a high stage.
It was a neckbreaker! For most of the concert, I slid down in my
seat and leaned my neck back against the seat edge and watched the concert
looking almost straight up. My neck hurt for the next two days.
Although photography seemed to be tolerated, I only took a few shots.
Newcastle proved to be one of the few places that you’re too close for
photos and what pictures you might take are literally “nostril shots”.
The UK Tour 2004 setlist was performed in its entirety with a 20 minute intermission. Like Glasgow, it was a very good performance. Nothing of particular note happened in Newcastle. The light setup did not include the three screens seen at Glasgow (apparently the hall did not allow for their rigging.) The sound was fine; as in 2002 I noticed a lot of keyboards. JH’s introduction to VitS was cute. He said this next song is from ISOTLC – I only found 3 of them. First half went smoothly and again Forever Autumn was performed after the interval and received a big ovation. The second half of the concert was every bit as good as the first. The show onstage may have been the same, but my personal experience was quite different from Glasgow. The pleasant fellow to my right turned to me before the show started and said very directly: I want to know what happened to Ray Thomas. This question, while common, always makes me a little bit uncomfortable. After all, I don’t have any official connection with the greatest rock ‘n roll band in the world and I presume they have people they pay to answer such questions. Shrug I told him that Ray had retired and was doing a lot of fishing. That didn’t seem to satisfy him. He narrowed his eyes at me and said, So! We won’t be hearing Legend of a Mind? It’s my favorite song. Well, no you won’t (duh!), I replied, and then quickly added, But you’ll LOVE the new gal that plays flute! She’s REALLY good. Geoff scowled at the time, and I realized moments after The Band came out that I *should* have said, And she’s really CUTE, because Geoff noticed that immediately, sat up in his seat and paid CLOSE attention to the flute (and the flautist). I like to think that Donna, Geoff’s wife, was equally occupied between the Jays at Newcastle. At least I didn’t hear any complaints from her.  Newcastle
was treated to a smooth start and an excellent first half. I thought
John looked particularly good on his 12 string Guild and I love the way
he moves with it on TOoT. Oh, it’s great to be a Moody fan!
It’s a mistake to make sweeping conclusions and I, like everyone else, do it all the time. Not all Americans are obnoxious, not all Scots like haggis and of course, not all Englishmen have no rhythm and clap on 1 and 3, throwing me off during a concert. (HAHA) The latter is wildly annoying – so many have no rhythm whatsoever, the poor little things. I would guess that it is generally assumed by Americans that British Moody Blues fans tend to be reserved, at least more reserved than we are. And they are for the most part. There’s nothing wrong with that! Most sit quietly, happily clapping their thighs, smiling and maybe nodding to the music. I’ve gotten used to it, it’s their country and I’m a guest. It is incumbent on me to respect their customs and I’ve found the vast majority of British fans to be quite tolerant when one shows that kind of respectful attitude. I’ve never understood why a surly few seem to resent and despise their American brethern and make their displeasure very obvious. To them I say: pbbbbbfffffft! I have to admit I was stunned with surprise when my very English seatmate jumped to his feet during Singer, turned and pulled *me* out of my seat to join him. He had a pretty good grip on me too – I wasn’t going to be allowed to sit back down. There we were, dead center, the only two people in the entire house enjoying Singer the way it was meant to be experienced, on your feet, clapping and dancing. I appreciated his very American way of showing his joy and wanted to encourage him to explore alternative acts of concert self-expression, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to um...block the view of the people in the 2nd row. To be completely honest, I was darn sure I didn’t want to be the center of attention of the entire Newcastle audience. I glanced over to the Canadians a few seats down from me and pathetically begged: PLEASE get up! America can always depend on Canada. (At least at Moodies concerts) Pretty soon the front row was on its feet in rock ‘n roll solidarity. There was one really awful aspect to the concert in Newcastle and it was during NIGHTS. The lights shine down on front row center and are blinding. Is it the revenge of The Moody Blues for all those camera bulbs burning their retinas over the years? I’m not exaggerating! It’s blinding. It’s actually painful! I had to put my hands over my eyes during NIGHTS and couldn’t see a darn thing. I looked over at Geoff to see how he was faring and saw him head back, eyes closed, a sweet smile on his face as he was quietly singing along with Justin. I guess that’s the best way to deal with it.  As
always, it was over much too soon! Brian Broggy had asked me to give
a little bouquet of rosebuds to Norda for his daughter and I had suggested
he send her up to me so that she could do it herself. The stage was
way over her head, but I put her in front of me and she began waving her
rosebuds after SeeSaw while I tried to get our flute player’s attention.
Norda thanked her beautifully. I saw Justin look down at Andrea once,
then twice. The third time, I guess he had decided, because he leaned
forward and handed her his guitar pick. : ) I think *I*
was more excited about it than she was! Andrea told her Dad later
that I was screaming in her ear.
The concert was over and I turned to Geoff to see what he thought. He seemed VERY pleased! He did seem down a little bit – he had really wanted a drum stick. I asked him if a guitar pick would do and would he mind if it had a hole in it. He said he wouldn’t mind, so I took off my left earring and handed it to him. Guitar picks NEED to go to a good home! The only thing was, I had brought a few more picks with me, but hadn’t picked ones up with holes. I’ll be stuck wearing Justin Hayward in my ears for the rest of the tour. LOL!!! MaggieMay If you want the winds of change to blow about you, And you're the only other person to know – Don't tell me! I’m just a singer in a rock ‘n roll band. Photos by Maggie and Gabe |
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Nottingham |
