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moonlettuceSo, while I was at the Meet the Hewletts thing, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
the4ts commented that I'd never posted a review of the John Barrowman concert I went to back in April. Which is a bit of a bummer, really, considering I'd already actually written one for the newsletter at work. (The editor of said newsletter is also a Doctor Who/Torchwood fangirl and threatened me with bodily harm if I didn't do a review for her.)
The problem was, I got a little carried away and handed her five pages of review ::grin:: Anyway, we managed to cut it down to two pages, but it seems like such a shame to let the rest remain unseen. And, asthe4ts pointed out, there's my entire flist who I've never told about that night ::grin::
So, here's my review of the John Barrowman concert in Gatehead on 11th April, 2008. Also, please bear in mind that this was written for a group of people, most of whom aren't DW/TW fans, so there's some explanations as to who people are in there, as well.
~
It was a dark and stormy night on Friday April 11th when I ventured south of the river to meet a mysterious man in black…
(Well, it was 5:30pm when I left the house so technically it wasn't really dark. And, although there was rain, you couldn't really call it a storm. And, come to think of it, the guy I was going to see isn't all that mysterious, either - especially not if you know anything about Doctor Who and Torchwood. Which is a bit annoying, really, because I've always fancied starting something with 'It was a dark and stormy night…' but never mind.)
Okay, so it was rather light and kinda wet when I ventured south of the river to go and see John Barrowman in concert.
Best known for his alter-ego of Captain Jack Harkness, the pansexual ex-Time Agent of the 51st century and head of Torchwood Three in the Who!verse, John Barrowman is both an actor and a singer, having started his career in musical theatre. This start in life has held him in good stead and led him into being one of the judges first on BBC's How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria then on Any Dream Will Do, and most recently on I'll Do Anything.
So, that's the background (just in case any of you were thinking 'John Barrowman? Who on earth's John Barrowman?'), now for the squee (and parentheses. I'm apparently using a lot of parentheses these days…).
I'll preface this by saying that I'm an unashamed Torchwood fangirl so be prepared for this to be ever so slightly biased ::grin::
The sold-out concert took place in Hall One of The Sage (and, can I just say, the view of the Tyne out of the first floor of The Sage? Dude!) and benefited from the fabulous acoustics. (And, as an aside, padded seats and air conditioning? Thank you whoever designed that place! I'm used to the plastic seats and floor-with-so-much-gunk-on-it-you-stick of the Arena, so I was all O_O about it.)
The audience was a mixture of older women going to see "that nice young man who's on with Andrew Lloyd Webber…" (an actual quote which may or may not have seen me snorting coke through my nose. Er, the liquid stuff that comes in cans, not the 'let's make some Columbian drug baron rich' kind, I hasten to add) and Torchwood fans - which was two parts amusing and two parts fascinating to watch. Or at least it was until the lights went down and the wonderful Mr Barrowman (herein known as 'JB') took to the stage.
One of the great things about the concert was that JB's not just a singer; he's an entertainer, which meant he didn't just stand on the stage and go through a list of songs. He joked, laughed and story-told his way through two and a half hours of joy and wonder.
He opened with 'It Had To Be Tonight,' resplendent with wiggling hips, jaunty grin and a massive grin and thumbs-up when he noticed the two women wearing the sparkly 'Captain Jack' and 'Captain Fantastic' t-shirts. This then led into a cover of Carly Simon's 'You're So Vain' that had been prefaced by him telling about the time Carly Simon rang him up and started singing down the phone at him, all because the record producer they shared at the time had suggested a duet between the two of them. This was, he explained, one of the most surreal moments of his life – standing in his kitchen in London while holding a phone that Ms Simon was singing out of.
After 'You're So Vain', JB (after commenting that he thought the fog machine was going a little too strongly - pay attention to this bit, it's relevant later on…) started to talk about one person in particular who had influenced and affected his life, one person who he wanted to introduce to us all. Cue a mannequin being brought on stage and the roof nearly lifting with the scream. If there was anyone in that hall who didn't recognise the grey RAF greatcoat that was brought out then they weren't sitting near me. JB explained what's it been like being able to play a character like Jack Harkness and how amazing it was that a guest spot on Doctor Who that was meant to last for two episodes (the original plan had been to kill off our lovely Captain at the end of 'The Doctor Dances') had evolved into a recurring guest spot on Doctor Who and the lead spot in Who's sister series, Torchwood.
After he'd spoken about Jack JB sang something that was, for me, one of the two highlights of the show. He'd reworked 'The Wizard and I' from Wicked into a song that, he said, explained how Jack felt about The Doctor. 'The Doctor and I' was a song full of in-jokes and humour and would have made no sense to anyone who hadn't seen Doctor Who and Torchwood. And it was brilliant. (Heck, just the fact that he managed to work the phrase 'defabricate me' into song deserves mega kudos.) The song got the biggest cheer of the night and left a huge amount of people with stupid grins on their faces – me included. I mean, John Barrowman sang a love song from Jack to The Doctor, how can you not love that? (Even if I then wanted him to sing one to Ianto, if just to see if he could work Mafanwy into the lyrics.) (Er, Ianto Jones is Jack's kinda boyfriend and Mafanwy's their pet pterodactyl that fell through the rift in time and space that runs through Cardiff… aren't you glad you asked ::grin:: )
At the end of the song JB bowed to Jack's coat and waited until the mannequin was off stage before launching into a mariachi-style version of 'Every Little Thing She Does is Magic' that worked amazingly well. The Police segued into Barry Manilow and 'Weekend in New England,' which he dedicated to his manager, Gavin, who's a big Manilow fan.
He then started talking about his childhood, and how he would stand up and sing whenever his parents had friends round. Since his parents were in the audience he felt that it was only appropriate to recreate his childhood memories and proceeded to sing 'Milly Molly Mandy' with full accompaniment from the band – something he'd never had in his parents' garage.
The mood became a little more sombre with the next song. JB told the story of a friend of his who had contracted HIV and decided to come out to his parents not only as a gay man, but as a gay man who was positive. This led into 'Time After Time' and a version of the Cyndi Lauper song that was reminiscent of Eva Cassidy.
The first half of the show, however, ended on a high note with JB singing 'Man of La Mancha' from Don Quixote, a part he said he's never had the opportunity to play, but would love to. The funny thing was, watching JB on stage, you could almost see Jack dancing around the Hub singing this, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one who had that mental image – 'Destroyer of evil,' indeed.
The interval came and went in a haze of laughter, butterscotch ice cream and the occasional "Dude! John Barrowman!" And then the lights went down on a silent stage.
The band struck a soft chord and a voice of beautiful crystal clarity started singing the opening verse of 'Feeling Good.' JB sang the first verse off-stage and then came on with a single spot-light (and a new suit, the fashionista in me - she's called the Fabulous Lady C and tries to ignore the fact that I dress in jeans and black t-shirts with varying logos 95% of the time - noticed).
After the song finished, JB got serious again and started speaking about his late sister-in-law (his partner Scott's sister). He put the song 'Please Remember Me' on his 'Another Side' album in her memory, and this should have led into him singing it.
I say 'should have,' because that's not exactly what happened.
Now, before I went to the concert I'd been wondering if we were going to have any extras in the audience (wondered, but doubted). I'd been wondering this because other shows on the tour had seen some of JB's co-stars also there.
Naoko Mori (Toshiko Sato), Burn Gorman (Owen Harper) and Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones) were at the Hammersmith Apollo, whereas Cardiff saw Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), David Tennant (The Doctor) and Russell T Davies (co-God - he shares this responsibility with Joss Whedon, Chris Claremont and Martin Gero) in the audience.
Alas, though, none of them decided to venture into the wilds of Gateshead. However, while we didn't have other famous people in the audience (because, somehow, I don't think my three second crowd scene on Spender in 1993 counts), we did have something that the other concerts didn't - a fire alarm.
Indeed, part way through JB telling how his sister-in-law had been diagnosed with terminal cancer the lights went up and a very lovely automated voice rang through the hall declaring "A fire alarm has been activated. Please stay calm and make your way to the nearest exit."
And that was it for the night, I thought - except what I actually thought was one word that started with 'B' and ended with 'ugger.' But not all was lost and a Sage employee came out on stage to say that it was a false alarm possibly set off by someone smoking. JB then jokingly threatened to kick their ass if he found out who it was because they'd interrupted the flow of his story.
Only, it turned out it wasn't someone smoking that had set the alarms off. Earlier said Sage employee (it sounds very impersonal just calling her that – maybe I should name her something. How about Gertrude? Gertrude works, doesn't it? Okay, from now on the Sage employee is Gertrude…) came back on stage to say that, yes, it definitely was false alarm and it was the smoke machine that had set it off. JB gave the only response to this he could – hysterical laughter and turning to the guys off stage and saying, "I told you there was too much smoke!"
Now, the problem was, Gertrude said, the system is automated and so the emergency lights were going to stay on for at least another 10 minutes or so. "That's okay," JB said with an ever so slight dirty grin, "I know how to work an audience." And work us he did…
Instead of leaving the stage until the lights went down, JB turned to the audience, clapped his hands and asked if anyone had any questions. Cue the start of an impromptu Q&A session. Various questions were asked, ranging from "Will there definitely be a third series of Torchwood?" (yes, and a fourth ::grin:: ) to "How good a kisser is James Marsters?" (apparently quite a nervous one since it was the first time he'd snogged another man.) He also took the opportunity to point out his parents and have everyone wave at them. They've been at all of the concerts and when he got in the car after the first one, his Mum looked at him and commented how she "couldn't believe all these people like you…" Oh, we do. We most definitely do ::smirk::
While the lights were up I took the opportunity to snap a couple of photos. I'd taken the camera with me on the off-chance but didn't want to annoy other people by using it when the lights were down.
(Please remember, mine is a crappy camera...)
Eventually, though, the emergency lights shut off and the room faded back into darkness, allowing JB to dedicate 'Please Remember Me' to his sister-in-law and sing it in her memory. He got quite emotional when the song was through and borrowed a hankie off someone in the front row.
After a few moments he then went into a rendition of Moon River. After finishing the song, he introduced his special guest and brought on Ben James-Ellis, one of the contestants from Any Dream Will Do, who is now starring as Link Larkin in the West End production of Hairspray. (Fear me and my info-dumping…)
BJE sang three songs, 'Help Yourself', 'Like Being in Love' (from Brigadoon) and 'Starlight Express' (from, surprisingly enough, Starlight Express) before surrendering the stage back to JB, who came on and launched into 'Anything Goes.'
The end of 'Anything Goes' saw another mannequin being brought on stage - this one dressed, rather reminiscently of Elvis, in one of the costumes JB wore on Dancing on Ice. He spoke about how much fun DoI had been to do and how he'd thoroughly enjoyed it, before singing the song from his favourite DoI routine - 'Is This The Way To Amarillo?' And yes, he got the audience singing as well. And no, I didn't realise I knew the words to that song until we were part way through it ::grin::
Dancing on Ice segued into Oliver and JB sang a gorgeous version of 'Where Is Love?' which, admittedly, is normally sung by a 10 year old boy, but we'll ignore that part…
The next song was an up-tempo version of 'Moondance', which JB sang beautifully. (What? I said at the beginning I was biased ::grin:: )
He led into the next song by commenting that it was apparently a song that Scott said described JB perfectly. JB just laughed and said, "Which is why I can't believe I'm singing it during this tour…" before starting 'I Won't Bring You Roses'.
When he'd finished singing 'I Won't Bring You Roses' JB walked over to the side of the stage to fetch a jacket resplendent with sparkles down the lapels. Beautifully apt considering he then started to sing 'I Am What I Am' - a song which resonates with more than one sector of society, me thinks. This was the second highlight of the show for me and one that JB captured perfectly, evident in the standing ovation he received at the end of it.
Although 'I Am What I Am' heralded the end of the second set (and cheers that could have raised the roof), JB came back on for an encore.
He explained his next song choice in a way that belied earlier comments about him not being that romantic. JB's been with Scott, his partner, for 16 years, they signed the civil register after a ceremony in Cardiff in December 2006 and this, JB said, was how he felt about the man he loved. And then he started singing 'Heaven'. There's no way to explain how he sang this apart from gorgeous and perfect and *meep*.
The final song of the night was 'That's Life', and it was fantastic ending to a fantastic night, with another standing ovation that JB richly deserved.
So, yeah. April 11th. Gateshead. John Barrowman. And a grin that didn't leave my face for about three hours afterwards.
Anyway, that was the long version. The short version went something like this: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee::breathes::eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
the4ts commented that I'd never posted a review of the John Barrowman concert I went to back in April. Which is a bit of a bummer, really, considering I'd already actually written one for the newsletter at work. (The editor of said newsletter is also a Doctor Who/Torchwood fangirl and threatened me with bodily harm if I didn't do a review for her.)The problem was, I got a little carried away and handed her five pages of review ::grin:: Anyway, we managed to cut it down to two pages, but it seems like such a shame to let the rest remain unseen. And, as
the4ts pointed out, there's my entire flist who I've never told about that night ::grin::So, here's my review of the John Barrowman concert in Gatehead on 11th April, 2008. Also, please bear in mind that this was written for a group of people, most of whom aren't DW/TW fans, so there's some explanations as to who people are in there, as well.
~
It was a dark and stormy night on Friday April 11th when I ventured south of the river to meet a mysterious man in black…
(Well, it was 5:30pm when I left the house so technically it wasn't really dark. And, although there was rain, you couldn't really call it a storm. And, come to think of it, the guy I was going to see isn't all that mysterious, either - especially not if you know anything about Doctor Who and Torchwood. Which is a bit annoying, really, because I've always fancied starting something with 'It was a dark and stormy night…' but never mind.)
Okay, so it was rather light and kinda wet when I ventured south of the river to go and see John Barrowman in concert.
Best known for his alter-ego of Captain Jack Harkness, the pansexual ex-Time Agent of the 51st century and head of Torchwood Three in the Who!verse, John Barrowman is both an actor and a singer, having started his career in musical theatre. This start in life has held him in good stead and led him into being one of the judges first on BBC's How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria then on Any Dream Will Do, and most recently on I'll Do Anything.
So, that's the background (just in case any of you were thinking 'John Barrowman? Who on earth's John Barrowman?'), now for the squee (and parentheses. I'm apparently using a lot of parentheses these days…).
I'll preface this by saying that I'm an unashamed Torchwood fangirl so be prepared for this to be ever so slightly biased ::grin::
The sold-out concert took place in Hall One of The Sage (and, can I just say, the view of the Tyne out of the first floor of The Sage? Dude!) and benefited from the fabulous acoustics. (And, as an aside, padded seats and air conditioning? Thank you whoever designed that place! I'm used to the plastic seats and floor-with-so-much-gunk-on-it-you-stick of the Arena, so I was all O_O about it.)
The audience was a mixture of older women going to see "that nice young man who's on with Andrew Lloyd Webber…" (an actual quote which may or may not have seen me snorting coke through my nose. Er, the liquid stuff that comes in cans, not the 'let's make some Columbian drug baron rich' kind, I hasten to add) and Torchwood fans - which was two parts amusing and two parts fascinating to watch. Or at least it was until the lights went down and the wonderful Mr Barrowman (herein known as 'JB') took to the stage.
One of the great things about the concert was that JB's not just a singer; he's an entertainer, which meant he didn't just stand on the stage and go through a list of songs. He joked, laughed and story-told his way through two and a half hours of joy and wonder.
He opened with 'It Had To Be Tonight,' resplendent with wiggling hips, jaunty grin and a massive grin and thumbs-up when he noticed the two women wearing the sparkly 'Captain Jack' and 'Captain Fantastic' t-shirts. This then led into a cover of Carly Simon's 'You're So Vain' that had been prefaced by him telling about the time Carly Simon rang him up and started singing down the phone at him, all because the record producer they shared at the time had suggested a duet between the two of them. This was, he explained, one of the most surreal moments of his life – standing in his kitchen in London while holding a phone that Ms Simon was singing out of.
After 'You're So Vain', JB (after commenting that he thought the fog machine was going a little too strongly - pay attention to this bit, it's relevant later on…) started to talk about one person in particular who had influenced and affected his life, one person who he wanted to introduce to us all. Cue a mannequin being brought on stage and the roof nearly lifting with the scream. If there was anyone in that hall who didn't recognise the grey RAF greatcoat that was brought out then they weren't sitting near me. JB explained what's it been like being able to play a character like Jack Harkness and how amazing it was that a guest spot on Doctor Who that was meant to last for two episodes (the original plan had been to kill off our lovely Captain at the end of 'The Doctor Dances') had evolved into a recurring guest spot on Doctor Who and the lead spot in Who's sister series, Torchwood.
After he'd spoken about Jack JB sang something that was, for me, one of the two highlights of the show. He'd reworked 'The Wizard and I' from Wicked into a song that, he said, explained how Jack felt about The Doctor. 'The Doctor and I' was a song full of in-jokes and humour and would have made no sense to anyone who hadn't seen Doctor Who and Torchwood. And it was brilliant. (Heck, just the fact that he managed to work the phrase 'defabricate me' into song deserves mega kudos.) The song got the biggest cheer of the night and left a huge amount of people with stupid grins on their faces – me included. I mean, John Barrowman sang a love song from Jack to The Doctor, how can you not love that? (Even if I then wanted him to sing one to Ianto, if just to see if he could work Mafanwy into the lyrics.) (Er, Ianto Jones is Jack's kinda boyfriend and Mafanwy's their pet pterodactyl that fell through the rift in time and space that runs through Cardiff… aren't you glad you asked ::grin:: )
At the end of the song JB bowed to Jack's coat and waited until the mannequin was off stage before launching into a mariachi-style version of 'Every Little Thing She Does is Magic' that worked amazingly well. The Police segued into Barry Manilow and 'Weekend in New England,' which he dedicated to his manager, Gavin, who's a big Manilow fan.
He then started talking about his childhood, and how he would stand up and sing whenever his parents had friends round. Since his parents were in the audience he felt that it was only appropriate to recreate his childhood memories and proceeded to sing 'Milly Molly Mandy' with full accompaniment from the band – something he'd never had in his parents' garage.
The mood became a little more sombre with the next song. JB told the story of a friend of his who had contracted HIV and decided to come out to his parents not only as a gay man, but as a gay man who was positive. This led into 'Time After Time' and a version of the Cyndi Lauper song that was reminiscent of Eva Cassidy.
The first half of the show, however, ended on a high note with JB singing 'Man of La Mancha' from Don Quixote, a part he said he's never had the opportunity to play, but would love to. The funny thing was, watching JB on stage, you could almost see Jack dancing around the Hub singing this, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one who had that mental image – 'Destroyer of evil,' indeed.
The interval came and went in a haze of laughter, butterscotch ice cream and the occasional "Dude! John Barrowman!" And then the lights went down on a silent stage.
The band struck a soft chord and a voice of beautiful crystal clarity started singing the opening verse of 'Feeling Good.' JB sang the first verse off-stage and then came on with a single spot-light (and a new suit, the fashionista in me - she's called the Fabulous Lady C and tries to ignore the fact that I dress in jeans and black t-shirts with varying logos 95% of the time - noticed).
After the song finished, JB got serious again and started speaking about his late sister-in-law (his partner Scott's sister). He put the song 'Please Remember Me' on his 'Another Side' album in her memory, and this should have led into him singing it.
I say 'should have,' because that's not exactly what happened.
Now, before I went to the concert I'd been wondering if we were going to have any extras in the audience (wondered, but doubted). I'd been wondering this because other shows on the tour had seen some of JB's co-stars also there.
Naoko Mori (Toshiko Sato), Burn Gorman (Owen Harper) and Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones) were at the Hammersmith Apollo, whereas Cardiff saw Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), David Tennant (The Doctor) and Russell T Davies (co-God - he shares this responsibility with Joss Whedon, Chris Claremont and Martin Gero) in the audience.
Alas, though, none of them decided to venture into the wilds of Gateshead. However, while we didn't have other famous people in the audience (because, somehow, I don't think my three second crowd scene on Spender in 1993 counts), we did have something that the other concerts didn't - a fire alarm.
Indeed, part way through JB telling how his sister-in-law had been diagnosed with terminal cancer the lights went up and a very lovely automated voice rang through the hall declaring "A fire alarm has been activated. Please stay calm and make your way to the nearest exit."
And that was it for the night, I thought - except what I actually thought was one word that started with 'B' and ended with 'ugger.' But not all was lost and a Sage employee came out on stage to say that it was a false alarm possibly set off by someone smoking. JB then jokingly threatened to kick their ass if he found out who it was because they'd interrupted the flow of his story.
Only, it turned out it wasn't someone smoking that had set the alarms off. Earlier said Sage employee (it sounds very impersonal just calling her that – maybe I should name her something. How about Gertrude? Gertrude works, doesn't it? Okay, from now on the Sage employee is Gertrude…) came back on stage to say that, yes, it definitely was false alarm and it was the smoke machine that had set it off. JB gave the only response to this he could – hysterical laughter and turning to the guys off stage and saying, "I told you there was too much smoke!"
Now, the problem was, Gertrude said, the system is automated and so the emergency lights were going to stay on for at least another 10 minutes or so. "That's okay," JB said with an ever so slight dirty grin, "I know how to work an audience." And work us he did…
Instead of leaving the stage until the lights went down, JB turned to the audience, clapped his hands and asked if anyone had any questions. Cue the start of an impromptu Q&A session. Various questions were asked, ranging from "Will there definitely be a third series of Torchwood?" (yes, and a fourth ::grin:: ) to "How good a kisser is James Marsters?" (apparently quite a nervous one since it was the first time he'd snogged another man.) He also took the opportunity to point out his parents and have everyone wave at them. They've been at all of the concerts and when he got in the car after the first one, his Mum looked at him and commented how she "couldn't believe all these people like you…" Oh, we do. We most definitely do ::smirk::
While the lights were up I took the opportunity to snap a couple of photos. I'd taken the camera with me on the off-chance but didn't want to annoy other people by using it when the lights were down.
(Please remember, mine is a crappy camera...)
Eventually, though, the emergency lights shut off and the room faded back into darkness, allowing JB to dedicate 'Please Remember Me' to his sister-in-law and sing it in her memory. He got quite emotional when the song was through and borrowed a hankie off someone in the front row.
After a few moments he then went into a rendition of Moon River. After finishing the song, he introduced his special guest and brought on Ben James-Ellis, one of the contestants from Any Dream Will Do, who is now starring as Link Larkin in the West End production of Hairspray. (Fear me and my info-dumping…)
BJE sang three songs, 'Help Yourself', 'Like Being in Love' (from Brigadoon) and 'Starlight Express' (from, surprisingly enough, Starlight Express) before surrendering the stage back to JB, who came on and launched into 'Anything Goes.'
The end of 'Anything Goes' saw another mannequin being brought on stage - this one dressed, rather reminiscently of Elvis, in one of the costumes JB wore on Dancing on Ice. He spoke about how much fun DoI had been to do and how he'd thoroughly enjoyed it, before singing the song from his favourite DoI routine - 'Is This The Way To Amarillo?' And yes, he got the audience singing as well. And no, I didn't realise I knew the words to that song until we were part way through it ::grin::
Dancing on Ice segued into Oliver and JB sang a gorgeous version of 'Where Is Love?' which, admittedly, is normally sung by a 10 year old boy, but we'll ignore that part…
The next song was an up-tempo version of 'Moondance', which JB sang beautifully. (What? I said at the beginning I was biased ::grin:: )
He led into the next song by commenting that it was apparently a song that Scott said described JB perfectly. JB just laughed and said, "Which is why I can't believe I'm singing it during this tour…" before starting 'I Won't Bring You Roses'.
When he'd finished singing 'I Won't Bring You Roses' JB walked over to the side of the stage to fetch a jacket resplendent with sparkles down the lapels. Beautifully apt considering he then started to sing 'I Am What I Am' - a song which resonates with more than one sector of society, me thinks. This was the second highlight of the show for me and one that JB captured perfectly, evident in the standing ovation he received at the end of it.
Although 'I Am What I Am' heralded the end of the second set (and cheers that could have raised the roof), JB came back on for an encore.
He explained his next song choice in a way that belied earlier comments about him not being that romantic. JB's been with Scott, his partner, for 16 years, they signed the civil register after a ceremony in Cardiff in December 2006 and this, JB said, was how he felt about the man he loved. And then he started singing 'Heaven'. There's no way to explain how he sang this apart from gorgeous and perfect and *meep*.
The final song of the night was 'That's Life', and it was fantastic ending to a fantastic night, with another standing ovation that JB richly deserved.
So, yeah. April 11th. Gateshead. John Barrowman. And a grin that didn't leave my face for about three hours afterwards.
Anyway, that was the long version. The short version went something like this: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee::breathes::eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
