An 85,000-strong sing-along

Forgive me if I sound a little hoarse today readers, I did rather a lot of singing and screaming last night alongside a further 85,000 other singing and screaming Take That fans at the closing show of a 26 date (including a record-breaking 8 at Wembley) UK Stadium tour.

The uninitiated might think that with it being the biggest tour in UK history and all, it would have been easy to procure tickets. Not so my friends. It took a whole day of hanging pages on websites which crashed more than a season of stock car races before yours truly finally bagged the big prize at 7pm that evening, just as she was giving up hope of seeing her heroes perform on stage reunited once more.

And so months later the day finally arrived. It looked like the rain might hold off as the four of us piled in the car ready for the journey to our fair Capital. It was of course a necessity to warm up our vocal chords with some serious singing on the way there - in particular, Robbie's Angels got a very good airing on the M1. We looked out for evidence of other fans en route but there was a distinct lack of scarves and banners waving from tour buses so we just had to guess and wave at car loads of women with expectant smiles on their faces.

As it turned out the audience has changed a little in its demographic since I first saw them tour back in the mid 90s when I, in my mid 20s was probably one of the oldest there. Fan base then was screaming teenagers and the gay scene. Yesterday everyone from the under 10s out with the family to senior citizens were decked out in Take That T-shirts and singing along with gusto.

I've seen both Take That and Robbie on his own numerous times over the years and both easily rank as my favourite live performers. Tonight having Robbie reunited was truly something special. When he burst out of the backdrop to opening bars of Let me Entertain you, the crowd, already bursting the scale of excitement, then took off into cyberspace! If ever a man knew how to hold an audience, it is Mr Williams (although I was disappointed he didn't split his trousers as apparently he has managed on numerous occasions through over-excited stage acrobatics.

With a show that included everything from Alice's white rabbit and giant caterpillars to spidermen acrobats climbing the walls, pyrotechnics and giant statues that stood up taller than my house in the middle of the football pitch, it's certainly hard to pick favourite moments. And, seeing as I've already written reams maybe I'll just leave it with one understated word. Fanbloodytastic!! Thank you boys. Actually, maybe there is a favourite moment - knowing that a couple of them are (fractinally) older than me! Suddenly I felt cool being 41!

They are off to Europe next week - I think there's still a few tickets available here and there... Hmm. Milan suddenly sounds extra tempting...



PS: the videos aren't mine - thank you to the lovely people who shared their experience on YouTube