Well, on Friday 5th May 2017, I realised a dream I've held for more years than it is correct for a lady to mention and I finally got to see my idol and massive teenage crush, the one and only Mr Adam Ant, live on stage!
My pal, El, and I had chatted about going along to the opening night of his ANTHEMS tour at Newcastle Arena and pretty much made up our minds to do so but we were rather gobsmacked to be beaten to the ticket-buying post by El’s husband who surprised us both with tickets as a gift on Mother's Day – how cool was that? I’m not even his mother haha!! Cue several weeks of anticipation and high excitement!
When the day finally arrived, we were blessed with a warm(ish) and sunny spring evening which was absolutely perfect for a stroll along Newcastle's beautiful Quayside. Excitement mounted as we entered the Metro Radio Arena. Due to our leisurely stroll (and pit stop at the Slug & Lettuce) we unfortunately missed the support band, Glam Skanks, which is our loss as I’ve heard only good things about them – sorry ladies!
We had a quick peek at the merch and fought the temptation to say “I’ll have one of those, three of those and half a dozen of these please” (the tour tshirts are somewhat fab!) before being shown to our seats (yes, we were rubbish and couldn’t find them ourselves!). El's hubby did us proud with amazing seats that were way closer to the stage than we had dared to hope for! Excitement levels reached their peak as the lights went out and, somewhat surprisingly, the overture from Carmen blasted out! This heralded the arrival of the man himself and to our delight, rather than sitting politely in their allocated seats, the crowd rose to greet him! Fantastic!
With a simple yet striking laser beam light show to dazzle us all, the band blasted straight into a fantastic rendition of Beat My Guest and I was delighted to note instantly that Adam Ant does in fact sound as good live as he does recorded - big names can so often be a major disappointment in that respect. I’d heard mutterings that he has ‘lost it’ but no, he most certainly has not. The sound overall was pretty much perfect – hats off to the soundman/woman!
There was a fantastic atmosphere – the crowd was very receptive and ranged from tiny toddlers dressed as pirates to dandy highwaymen (and women) of a certain age in full regalia! I tell you what, it's been a long time since I've been at a gig where everyone I could see in the crowd was smiling, singing or both throughout the whole performance! They really showed AA the love! They – ok, we - danced, sang and cheered throughout the set which ran just short of the two hour mark. It was fun to spot the hardcore fans who knew every word to every song compared to the greatest hits fans who looked a bit lost during the lesser known tracks and b-sides!! I could list the songs but let’s just say there were no disappointments – apart from no Deutscher Girls but I’m prepared to let that go! You can check out the full and impressive set list here.
As for the band, we had the obligatory dual drummers - Andy and the glamorous Jola who worked like Trojans to provide the trademark Ant beat; new recruit, guitarist Paul Leach, who seemed to have a guitar for every occasion; on bass, the multi talented Joe Holweger and guitarist Will Crewdson (with his stunning eye-catching guitar) were as cool as cool can be as they blasted out the tunes we know and love. The band were tight and note perfect and I was massively impressed by our hero’s own guitar skills.
Adam Ant himself is looking great! He was in good shape and on fine form, delivering a slick and professional performance. Showing no signs of fatigue he sang, danced and twirled round the stage, he played guitar and oozed gallons of “it”, putting more energy into the show than a lot of performers I know who are 20 plus years his junior. One of the best things for me was the fact that everyone on stage seemed to enjoy it as much as we did in the audience – AA’s beaming smile said it all!
The show was over all too soon and after a three song encore we headed home with our own happy smiles, fuzzy ears and fantastic tunes buzzing round our heads! I really loved every minute of it and, if I could, would have headed up to Edinburgh Playhouse for show #2 the following night too!
Strangely there was no feeling of nostalgia, it all felt decidedly current, here and now. I think this was largely due to the brilliant rock guitar sound which I know surprised a few folk. By all accounts the rest of the tour is going tremendously well so catch him if you can and indulge yourself in an evening of Antmusic – you won’t regret it!
No comments:
Post a Comment