Time:
July 16th 2002
Place:
The Pop Factory at the Welsh Hills Works, Porth, Rhondda Valley, South Wales.
Event:
Cable TV, Stuart Cable’s new BBC Wales chat show.
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Well
this is yet another completely different experience to anything that goes
before. Seeing a television
programme being made, and with Stuart Cable as host, could only prove to be an
entertaining night indeed.
Getting
there was fun and exciting, and getting a half day off work is always a bonus on
a sunny day – South Wales is a beautiful place any day of the week, but today
was hot and mid-summery, the hills were deep green and the Rhondda just seemed
to welcome me in.
Arriving in Porth, I immediately passed the turning for the Pop Factory, so turned at the next junction and parked at the Co-Op supermarket, and decided to walk down to the Pop Factory and have a look around, to see where I could park. As I approached the building, though, I was transformed into some kind of time warp – was this Amsterdam all over again? Was I imagining things, or could I hear Kelly Jones doing a sound check? Of course, his voice is unmistakeable, of course it was him – perhaps tonight was the night rumoured to have Kelly as a guest on the show! Could I be that lucky?
As
I was pondering this, I noticed Steve, who is Richard and Scott’s guitar
technician, stood outside, and so went over and spoke to him. “Is that Mr. Jones inside?” I said, to which Steve
playfully acted dumb and pretended not to know who I was on about!
I giggled at this, and thought this would be a good time to check where
best to park. There was a small car
park in the courtyard of the venue but this was full.
A man sat with Steve asked who I was “with” and I said “Oh I’m
just part of the audience”. Steve
explained how to get to the outer car park, which I hadn’t noticed before, and
the other guy “suggested” I came back later, when the doors were due to open
– in a rather “please go away” kind of a way.
So I thanked Steve for being helpful and left, just as Kelly
finished the song he was singing.
It
was an acoustic song, which meant that it had the exact same formula as most
other acoustic style songs I’ve heard them play.
It was still good though. But
knowing how Kelly changed the songs on the acoustic tour he did a couple of
years ago, I am prepared for it to sound completely different when it’s
recorded.
So
I put the car in the correct car park, and sat watching the world go by as I ate
my lunch – I was on my own, so had no desire to do much. However I decided nature was calling in a bad way and went on
a hunt for a pub. Didn’t find one
and the few shops that were there were closed for the day, so headed back to the
car park, via the main courtyard where I’d spoken to Steve.
As I walked in through the gates, Kelly came out of the main building and
headed towards the studio doors. He
looked at me with a curious look in his eyes, perhaps wondering who I was,
perhaps expecting me to call him over. Our
eyes met for just a second, and (I’ll regret this forever) I freaked out!
I looked down at my shoes and walked away, never looking up, never
looking back, feeling his eyes burning a hole in my back.
I’ve thought about this since, and there a few reasons why I didn’t
speak to him, but the fact of the matter is, I didn’t.
I had the perfect opportunity for a 1 on 1 and didn’t grasp it.
For
a while I sat in my car, door open, music playing, eating choccie bars and
listening to the river rushing by, and as soon as other fans started to arrive I
joined the queue. The queue was
then split up, as heaps of people had VIP tickets – word got around that Kelly
was there! However, there were so
many VIPs that they were queuing themselves, separately!
After
a while though, we were allowed into the building, but not into the studio as
expected. We were ushered into a
large empty area with a small bar in the corner.
As we waited patiently for further direction, a screen flickered on and
footage of the great Morfa Stadium gig started playing – this helped me relax
and little, as I was feeling rather out of place being on my own – everyone
else was in groups.
After
a short while though, the Morfa footage switched to cameras in the Pop Factory
studio, where the stars were setting up – wait a minute, that’s a keyboard
– is that Tony? Not only was Tony on the screen, but Richard and Kelly were setting up
too – the whole band were there! This
called for an excited phone call to Michelle!
As I chatted to Shell, a security chap came in and made an announcement – they might have to start the filming without us – there were TOO MANY VIPs in the audience, and we were surplus! He didn’t use those words, but that was what he meant. Anyway, my fears about watching the whole show on the big screen were belayed, as we were allowed in soon after – but I got into the first crowd quickly – others weren’t so lucky and had to wait until the half time interval, I think! Something occurred to me at this point – who should be more important, friends and family of the crew, or true fans whose hard earned money has gone towards the success of these boys, and the creation of this TV show in the first place….?
Hmmm
rhetorical question, yes?
The
studio was bright and trendy – as any TV set you can imagine.
We were shown to our places – a balcony where we were stood above and
behind the seated guests, and a walkway was below us, where crew were milling
about. The audience
consisted of probably only a couple of hundred people, if that, yet we were very
noisy when we wanted to be!
Onto
the show, and Stuart was relaxed and confident.
The first guest was a guy called Dave somebody (sorry, I really can’t
remember!) who had been made famous for being a gangster, and was now moving
into writing books and making films. He
was funny, if a little stuttery at times in front of the camera, but he was very
entertaining – especially when it came to comparing movie gangsters to real
life ones! “When someone’s
pointing a gun at your face, you DON’T say ‘take your best shot, punk!’
and snarl a bit, you get on your knees and beg for your life!”
The
next part of the show was shown on a large TV screen that formed part of the set
– and this was the first Stereophonics performance of the night, although it
had been recorded about half an hour before, and we had watched it in the bar
already. I’ve already learned a
few lyrics from it, but the words are rather naughty – email me and I’ll let
you in on them! This was the song I'd heard in the sound check too, and it
was called Climbing The Wall.
At the end of the performance, Stuart turned to Kelly and said "Bit of
advice though boys, it could do with some drums!"
The last guest of the night was the incredibly gorgeous Lulu. She was subjected to witnessing black and white footage of her in the ‘early days’ to which she was extremely embarrassed. She talked of her childhood fame and how she cried herself to sleep at night, and that she can’t watch Pop Idol now. She considers it terrible that “these kids” come on every week and perform for the judges, only for the judges to sit there and tell them they’re terrible, and to get off the stage. Stuart asked what she thought of the likes of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. She got very excited at this point and said she thought Christina Aguilera’s voice was absolutely incredible. “And Britney?” “She’s a great entertainer and such a little doll, don’t you think?” To which Stuart replied “Well I wouldn’t kick her out of bed!”. They also discussed hair, and Lulu said she probably spent a lot more time on her hair than Stuart does, and Stuart said “I wouldn’t be so sure about that!”
Stuart
was caught off guard by something Lulu said actually - she said that the first
time she heard Stuart speak was amazing to her - his voice was so big and
booming and Welsh, she said he sounds exactly like Tom Jones. We all know
how much the boys idolise Tom Jones - Stuart was really blind-sided, cracked a
little nervous joke, but was genuinely flattered.
As
Lulu chatted, I got distracted by some whispering coming from below our
platform. Was that Tony stood
there? Yes it was!
Who’s he laughing with? Kelly!
So of course, the girls next to me had to be told of this, and we spent a
few minutes whispering ourselves and spying on them.
I said that if they were to look up at any time, I was going to tell them
to shush – they were making a noise! If
I’d have dangled my leg over the side of the platform, I could’ve tapped
Kelly on the head with my foot! One
girl to my left commented on Kelly’s hair, that she didn’t like it, and I
had to agree. She actually said
that Tony and Kelly have the same hairdo now, and I could see what she meant. Up close though, it doesn’t look as greasy as it looks on
stage, it’s just very shiny – he has very healthy, very jet-black curly hair
girls, it’s just cut badly at the moment!
The
same girl then whispered to me “You could almost spit on him, couldn’t
you?” and this set me off laughing, but of course, Lulu was still on air, so
we had to be quiet – stifling a giggle was very hard, especially when security
were getting nervous about Stereophonics being on set, and were glaring at us
constantly!
Of
course, the thing I really wanted to know, however, was where Richard was, as I
couldn’t see him. But as soon as
I asked the girl next to me, a rather huge, muscly arm, covered in tattoos,
pointed at something from beneath the platform. There he was!! Then
he moved out from underneath, as they prepared to walk on stage.
I kid you not, girls, this man is enormous!
His shoulders are heavy-set and tightly toned, and I was pleased to see
how close fitting his clothes were – I’m very appreciative of these little
details, Richard, thank you!
Stuart
wrapped up the show by saying to Lulu “I can’t let you go before we hear it,
I’m afraid, isn’t that right folks?” to which we replied with lots of
noise – of course we meant the opening to her famous Shout song.
From this tiny little Scots girl came the most powerful
“Wellllllllllll” I’ve ever heard! If you see the show, listen out as she finishes – before
the applause someone squeals “woo!” – that was me, I’m afraid!!
Then
the boys were on stage again, and this time they were in our section of the
studio, not the loft where they’d done the other song.
The second new song of the night was called Maybe Tomorrow.
This was also done unplugged so, again, it might be different later in
the year, but the difference with this song to others was the vocal range that
Kelly brought to it. The last section of the song was especially impressive –
Kelly has really been working out, on his lungs that is! There was a long high pitched section, which he held very,
very well, then he brought the tone back down and belted out the ending as loud
as he could – I'm telling you, it was breathtaking!
The studio fell apart in rapturous applause and the show was over, save for the house band playing some good old rock songs – made me smile – I think there was a bit of Hendrix in there, but I was, by this time, concentrating on getting out to see the band. This was not to be however, even though the boys left through the same entrance as us, security held us back until the all-clear was given, and the boys had made a quick exit. Lulu, however, casually walked right past me amidst the crowd! She’s beautiful even close up, and so well toned.
Is
it a singer thing that they have to be tiny?
Anyway,
there was no hope of meeting the band, as they had escaped the general
population, and all that remained was for my sad trip home alone, leaving the
beautiful Rhondda and Cynon Valleys behind me.
Not a dry eye in sight, even though being on my own, that night, made me
feel a little out of place, I didn’t want to leave Wales… I never do.
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This is a fun little item that's happened since - Mable Cable's little section on Cable TV has got her into the Radio Times!!! GO GIRL!!
