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 UK REPORT
Royal Albert Hall, 23rd March 1998
Open Road Tour
Report By Julia Wharton
Today, I wasn't so exhausted
for seeing Gary in concert!
After mee ting up with a friend we headed
off to park near to the hall and had a bite to eat beforehand. We
were meant to be meeting another friend at 7pm outside but after
waiting until 7.50pm we gave up and went inside. I had already seen
the support act 'Kinane' at the Manchester gig, so I wasn't too
upset that I only managed to catch the last song of hers! Once inside
I was shocked at the fact that the crowd seemed alot more calmer
than the Manchester crowd....but thankfully that wasn't to last
too long. I also heard rumours that Robbie Williams would attend
and then spotted him in the audience singing away to the Take That
Medley!
 I had thankfully made a visit
to my local camera shop for some decent film this time and made
sure that it was on 'high speed'! As you can see from these photo's
I had some success! All in all I took 72 photos that night, and
have scanned about 16 of the better ones for you to see. Some will
be on here and the rest I will place in a special pictures file
shortly. Gary was at his best tonight and seemed to come alive with
the knowledge that he was appearing at the Albert Hall for the very
first time.
 As soon as he came on stage
he gazed around the hall in amazement...'So here I am at the Albert
Hall'...or words to that effect. The tracklist
was exactly the same, most of his lines were virtually the same
but the whole gig seemed extremely special. He introduced 'Forever
Love' as usual, dedicating it to Princess Diana, Gianni Versace
and his Nan (who died in 1997). The crowd although not totally quiet,
immediately sat down and eventually grew silent for the entire song.
Chocolates of the night were
Cadbury's Dairy Milk (of course!) and a Cadbury's Flake. Gary dived
straight for the Flake and muttered the oh-so familiar line, "I
haven't eaten chocolate for about a year now....." and proceeded
to polish a portion off in his usual way.
 But, the best bit was to come!
Little did everyone know that above the people sitting in the stalls
was a huge great net of balloons, as he came on for the encore they
were slowly let down until there was a mass of balloons over the
crowd and aisles. They also had the words 'GB' on them which was
an added bonus to all. There were screams and yelps of delight as
everyone dived to catch them.
Minutes later, Gary was beckoning
everyone to come down the aisles (popping balloons as they went!)
to join him at the front of the stage. I had this horrible feeling
that things would get out of hand, but all was well and most people
were quite polite about it! Needless to say, I was amongst them
and Gary walked up and down the stage trying to t ouch as many of the out-stretched
hands reaching towards him as possible. I have to say that by the
time he walked off stage everyone in the entire audience were on
one great high together. Gary had managed to lift everyone so much
there were smiles on everyone's faces as they left.
More photos from this concert can be found in
the Gallery
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