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It’s Sunday, noon, and I’m suffering from an irremovable headache, my neck hurts from head banging and every time my body touches anything I feel like I’m developing another bruise, and I’m the happiest I’ve been in months!!

All this because last night I was stood amongst 55 to 60 thousand like minded people watching Kelly, Richard, Scott, Stuart and Tony play live at the very impressive new Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

To quote Kelly’s first words to us, let’s start at the beginning.

Just a fortnight ago I found out that this event was far from being sold out.  The event was originally being held at Chepstow, but due to the Foot and Mouth disease crisis that hit the country this year, it had to be moved to within city limits.  Disappointed fans unable to make it to Cardiff were getting their money back.  Nevertheless the turn out was impressive at approximately 60,000 attending.  The official figures haven’t been confirmed yet.

Before this, I had just automatically assumed that since Cardiff was just down the road from where the guys come from, the concert would have been an immediate sell-out.  But this was not so, therefore I thought “This is fate…” and decided that I would go to any lengths to make the effort to go – which was where Mr. Cahoot, my credit card, became my very best friend!

So I bought two tickets with a General Admission stamp on them so that I had the freedom to position myself wherever I wanted.

One of the reasons, I did think, of why the event may not have been selling out, was that public transport once the event was finished was minimal, if non-existent.  The last train headed out to Bristol was at 9:30, and I already knew, from fans’ accounts of Donington Park the week before, that the boys would still be playing until 10:30.  I found it strange that Cardiff on a Saturday night would be completely shut down by the time we came out of the Stadium – this is the Welsh capital city after all!

With this problem, there was no choice but for Chris, my partner, to drive to Cardiff.

This was a day of firsts for me.  It was the first time I have travelled across the new 4-mile long Severn bridge (and the first time I’ve ever had to fork out £4.40 for a bridge toll!).  The bridge is an impressive structure, however, and provided added excitement for me, as Wales appeared to me across the water.  There was a feeling I was venturing on the Stereophonics’ local turf, or hallowed ground even!  Plus, no sooner were we on Welsh turf were the black screens (which usually give you traffic delay warnings) flashing up “S’PHONICS PARK + RIDE JCN 33” – we weren’t even at Newport yet!

This, and a note from a friend who lives in Aberdare, told me that the local boys’ homecoming was a special event indeed – one that the whole area was getting involved in.

Approaching the Park and Ride were signs saying “£5 per car”.  This was essentially a muddy puddled field outside the Cardiff City Football Team’s ground, so £5 seemed a bit steep, but at least we had a guaranteed space and a bus ride straight to the Stadium.

Another first was to be visiting Cardiff aswell as the new Stadium, and we arrived at our designated entrance – Gate 7 – at 3:30pm, an hour before the gates were due to open.  At first Chris complained that this was too early, and a dose of classic Welsh weather wasn’t helping matters!  But we soon agreed that having only 3 or 4 people in front of us at the gate was a bonus as we really did get to choose where to sit.  People at Gate 7 were entertaining us with drunken renditions of Have A Nice Day, and there was even a Kelly look-alike!  The weather even cleared up and we saw the sun for a short while, before going undercover.

After getting ourselves kitted out in official t-shirts (mine’s a cute little vest top with Phonics Babe written on it, and Chris’ is a grey tour t-shirt with the circular Stereophonics logo on the front) we found our seats, next to an aisle on the lower tier, just to the right of the stage.  This felt good to me, as we had a seat to relax in, we were close enough to see everything that went on, but we weren’t being jostled around or crushed like the people stood in front of the stage.  The announcer had to order spectators to stop pushing forward as smaller crowd members were being pulled out looking a bit green.  The Stadium felt intimate, despite its size, probably not unconnected to the spectacular retractable roof, which was closed over.  Probably due to the lovely Welsh weather again!

Up first were the Crocketts who were surprisingly entertaining.  I had been warned that the week before the singer had smashed his guitar over his own head.  I didn’t notice him doing that this time but he did seem fond of punching himself in the side of his own head, aswell as head butting the microphone!  We both had a good giggle about that.  There was also a man dressed from head to toe in Welsh flags running around the stage, getting in the way – most amusing!

Ash were great professional performers.  Chris has their ‘1977’ album on tape so he had a good sing along, and even I was impressed at how much stronger the singer’s voice was.

The only low of the night was the Black Crowes set, unfortunately.  I had tried to get into the music but never really felt like it was taking me anywhere.  There was the added annoyance that the aisle by me was now filled constantly and I didn’t feel inclined to stand up for a band that was not doing anything for me.  Which all added up to an hour of people watching.  This included spotting another Kelly wannabe, who wasn’t a look-alike, but had the Mr. Writer clown outfit on, face paint ‘n’ all.

The Phonics build up brought me back to life, as they left it just five or ten minutes late to come on which meant we were ready! The set opened up with Kelly’s now well known “Let’s start at the beginning”.  Local Boy filled the Stadium with lights, music and elation.  The crowd went wild, and so did I - such a contrast from half an hour before!  This was another first – to finally see the boys live, in the flesh.

Kelly was wearing shades and a leather jacket, Stuart a red bandana in his hair, Scott a big cream coloured hat and shades, Richard a new haircut and Tony was sporting a big grin (we would find out why later!).

They worked their way through the classics of Word Gets Around (when the first guitar chords of Traffic started up, Kelly didn’t sing the first line, he paused, and the entire crowd started the song for him.  Gave him a grin a mile wide, that one did!),

Then Performance and Cocktails (where again the crowd started a song, by chanting 1 2 3 4 at the beginning of Wouldn’t Believe Your Radio, and Kelly staggered backwards with another grin).

Then they moved onto Just Enough Education to Perform, with Mr. Writer.  With this song, Kelly’s jacket and shades came off.  In videos I’ve seen of previous live performances, Kelly had always seemed to look like he’s concentrating or nervous, but this time he seemed like he was truly enjoying himself and he even said at one point “Hello Cardiff, it’s good to be back!” to which the crowd responded with thunderous appreciation.  His introduction to Have A Nice Day was a description of a “really crap day” when they filmed the video, surrounded by 21 half naked women! (Yeah right, Kel, we believe ya!)

Somewhere during the show, Stu’s bandana went missing showing off his signature curls, although it re-appeared later and at least two sets of drumsticks were thrown into the crowd.  Later I have learned that one fan had his drumstick taken off him by Police branding it an offensive weapon – wonder whether he just wanted to take it home himself!!

Faces were pulled at the camera, words were changed (Mr. Writer “I’d like to kiss you all” … mmmm!) and Kelly even danced!  When the band took a very brief pause before the encore, people were flooding out – I got the feeling not all fans were as die-hard as me (either that or they didn’t know there’d be an encore! Hehe!).

When the boys finally returned, Kelly announced that Tony’s wife or girlfriend (Kelly used the word “Missus”) was pregnant.  He said it was supposed to be a secret but he was telling us about it, so we all cheered and I realised why Tony had been grinning like a Cheshire Cat all night!

The outtro to Rooftop brought the night to an ecstatic climax and we were left with Kelly’s words “See you soon, don’t know where, don’t know when”.  I certainly WILL be seeing them again.

As we walked back to the car I decided on this summation:

I sang my heart out,

I danced my legs off,

I cried my eyes out

And laughed my head off.

And it was heaven sent!