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This has been what seemed like a much more 'long awaited' tour, even more anticipated than the break I had from the boys between summer 2002 and Dublin Castle in May 2003.  It's only really been six months, rather than nearly a year, but as you know, so much has happened during that time.

No matter what your thoughts were on Stuart Cable leaving, or being told to leave Stereophonics, I think you all shared my fears that something would be "missing" due to his absence.  We planned to get there early and meet the band, and just pass on our messages of encouragement to Kelly and Richard, to tell them how we wanted them to carry on no matter what the press and other people said.

The day was bitterly cold, and there was a strong wind blowing.  We'd worn jackets, but not quite enough to cope with the wind that just went through us.  The 'we' to which I refer was my now ever present gigging buddy Shell and her son Luke, who was going to his first Stereophonics gig - was he excited??  Oh yes!!  Full of questions about 'what it's like' and of course we would proudly tell him all, as we felt like seasoned pros by now!  Shell's older son Aidan was at the gig too, but had gone with his mates, so we just saw him in the queue before, really.

We arrived there in plenty of time, and found the back gate where we assumed the bus would pull in.  We met up with net friend James Walker, known to those who frequent the official site message board.  He's VERY tall and a nice lad, but Shell chatted to him more, I was hiding in a stairway, trying to keep warm!  He was suitably armed with a 7" Chaplin record, to try and get signed though, so big respect goes to that man!

The wait for any action seemed an eternity, but probably wasn't that long, hour or two maybe.  There were tour buses already parked in the complex, so we weren't sure if we'd missed them or not, but as we started to ask Steve Davies what time they were due to arrive, they actually turned up.  However they went to another entrance and the bus parked inside a fenced off area.  We called over and they waved back, but didn't come over, just went inside in the warm.

James and Luke were obviously the most disappointed as they'd not met them before.  I do understand, though, why they didn't want to mingle too much at the time.  Stuart had left just weeks before and the rumours going round the camp fire between the press and even established fans were often scathing towards the remaining members.  If I was in their shoes, I'd definitely protect my own feelings a bit until things settled down, and you will see from what happened after the gig what I mean, as people tried to meet them then too.

Well the arena was holding a kiddie's convention in the foyer, so we actually got away with staying in the warm for the rest of the afternoon.  We could peer through the glass window of a couple of the doors and watch Tim Burgess do his sound check too, which was kinda cool.  So a pie and a cuppa tea later and we were in the queue outside, back to freezing our bits off!  We were only perhaps 15 to 20 people back so we were happy we'd get to the front.  We sang songs and had group hugs to keep warm, and we also made friends with the two guys in front of us.  They were Matt and Charlie, and Luke spent most of the time messing about with them quoting lines from The Office.  It made the time go more quickly though, and soon we were on the barrier inside - warm again!

What is noticeable now, when we attend a new arena tour with Stereophonics, is that they are forever ploughing the 'fruits' of their success back into their shows, more so each time.  The last time there were big screens to each side of the stage and this time was the same, but the screens had more interesting things to watch, hehe!  There were, admittedly, far too many adverts for Tim Burgess on them - he was supporting already, and we kept getting clips of his songs on the screens too - bit overkill in my opinion, humble as that may be.  But every now and again there would be a "3 Minute Pop Quiz" where they would just pop up a question, then let you have the answer a few seconds later.  Some of it was old sad 80's stuff and we were scaring each other with the questions we got right - I'm not telling you the ones I got right..!  The lighting show was also a step up for them.  There was a sort of mobile rigging system to house the lights in, so the lights could move around behind the band, making different shapes and forms etc.  Much more extravagant than they've done before.

I thought Tim Burgess came on a little early - there wasn't that noticeable crew-off-band-on changeover and there was no real entrance or lighting change as such, so he didn't get a particularly good reception, as people were still chatting to each other, and he had to say hello into the microphone for people to notice him.

He was a sweet guy, really chuffed to be playing his new music, giving the aura of a man just there for the pleasure of performing regardless of whether people liked it or not.  Some didn't, and Newcastle people can be a little unforgiving if they're bored.  There was some negative heckling, but there was also some positive heckling too, and Tim just honed in on that, ignoring the other, keeping a smile on his face the whole time.  I don't know if Tim plays guitar normally, but he seemed to nervously play air guitar throughout the whole set - Shell said at one point "give that man a guitar!" hehe.  His music was a bit different, I couldn't categorise it for you, and I think that's the plan.  Some songs had a folksy sound to them, some an American country sound to them.  I quite liked the upbeat Only A Boy, but the rest I doubt I'll make an effort to listen to again.

This was really one of those gigs where the fans on mass were just there for the headliners and didn't want to bother with anything else, because the quiet reaction Tim Burgess was quite the opposite to the warm and noisy welcome that Stereophonics received.  People may have been divided in opinion on the reasons for Stuart leaving, but the fact remained that everyone still loved to see them live and tonight would be no exception.

There's a slight change in the "seating plan" on stage.  Kelly always used to be on the left of the stage, seemingly keeping out of the way of the Scott and Richard on the other side of the stage, as they are both well over 6 foot tall, but they have now put Kelly in the middle.  It looks good, it gives him this kind of 'centre stage attention' that he deserves really, and it makes the rest of the layout look kind of symmetrical.  Scott's one side, Richard the other, Anna and Aileen are behind Rich, Tony's behind Scott and Steve's behind Kelly.  The full band on stage now is a powerful combination, Tony's keyboard skills are inspirational, Anna and Aileen have big soul-girl voices that really fill up a song, and Scott's guitar playing at times reminds me of Slash from Guns N Roses, really creative, soulful and beautiful, but rocky at the same time. It gives you plenty to watch and soak up.

We were treated to being directly in front of Richard in the crowd and as you will see from Shell's photos, he was smiling down at us all night, we waved, shouted stuff up at him and took photos and he smiled, pulled faces, laughed at us and posed for the camera - tart!  (No I'm not complaining!)  He wanders around the stage all the time, as he plays, and he even stopped mid-wander because Luke was trying to take a photo.  This man knows just how to please his fans!

Stereophonics now possess the luxury, due to a fourth album, of being able to pick just 'la crème de la crème' of their back catalogue, and still fill 2 and a quarter hours with pure entertainment.  We treated to classics, old and new, and not a note was out of place.

Highlights for me were Bartender, which remains to be one of their rockiest feeling songs live and High As The Ceiling, which is a BIG song, everyone has their parts to play to fill this song with beautiful magical noise, and it ends the set SO well.  But the biggest impact for me this night was I Miss You Now.  Not everyone rates this song, some think it's a little weak for a live performance - NOT I!!  This is a delicate song, admitted, but it's the way Richard plays his bass throughout it.  He was not in Newcastle while he was playing that song!  Most of the time his eyes were closed, or he was just staring off into space, but the way he played his instrument, he could've been home with Gail, if you know what I mean!!  He plays the song in a real sensual way, his fingers 'hold' the guitar, 'feeling' the strings as his eyes are closed, and you can't help drifting off imagining how it would feel being that guitar...!

Ahem, anyway... where was I?  Oh yeah, Newcastle!!  Steve Gorman was, and remains to be, a talented addition to the Stereophonics family.  He's obviously a quieter presence on stage than his predecessor, but all is not lost, and you can tell from Kelly and Richard that things are comfortable in the camp.  They still do the old 'turn round, watch the drummer, wait for the extended song ending to end' routine with him, and I hope I don't only speak for myself here when I say that we are glad he was around to keep up the momentum of the Stereophonics touring train.  I truly appreciate that he was here to keep us entertained when Stuart couldn't be, so for that I thank him.

I will hopefully get hold of a set-list in the near future, so you can see what was played in full, but rest assured this was a night for singing and dancing along to every word and every beat.  I hobbled away in great pain, because I was against the barrier, and had been forced to put all my weight on one knee for the whole set.  We went round to the back of the arena, as we had a long wait for our taxi - we thought we'd try to meet them again.

We got chatting to a truck driver who told us what his job is like, he seemed to love the life, although it tended to keep him away from his family.  He normally just drove the truck with the equipment in it, helping to offload and load up the truck at each venue, but for this one he'd been asked to do Scott's spotlight too.  He was enjoying himself immensely doing that (brave guy, you're basically sat on lighting rigging, above the stage, way up high!) and he said at one point he noticed a girl either with a low cut top on, or she was getting her boobs out, or something.  He leaned round to catch a quick look, and briefly let the spotlight go away from Scott!! I won't say his name, as I don't want him to get in trouble for it, but it's a funny story, so I thought I'd share.

As we spoke to him, the band came out of the venue and headed away from us, towards a bus that we hadn't spotted.  Luke and Shell ran round, and I hobbled after them.  Luke got to Scott and asked if he could sign something, but neither of them had a pen so Scott got on the bus.  Shell got there just after, with a pen, and she asked Neil McDonald, the tour manager, if she could get her items signed.  She had some photos she wanted to get signed.  Neil was kind enough to arrange for someone to take them on the bus, so the boys could sign them, and he didn't really have to do this, so I extend a heartfelt thank you to him for this.

However, while this was going on, and I was still hobbling over, a crowd of other people turned up.  There were a couple of people who were basically trying to get ON the bus, to see the band!  One girl was probably a bit too drunk and feeling a bit invincible, as drunk people do, and when the security guards threatened to call the police if she didn't back away, she just said "I don't care, call them, I just want to get on the bus!".  At this, we were all ushered well away from the bus, behind a barrier, and just Shell and Luke, and one other quiet chap who was on his own, were left by the bus to get their things back.  Everyone else lost their chance.

I want to just step away from the diary briefly here and say at this stage that whenever we meet the boys in the band, we are NEVER rude, we never try to get on their tour bus, ask them personal questions or in ANY other way make them feel uncomfortable about being there.  This is exactly why we are continually allowed to speak to them for longer periods of time than other people would normally manage.  We talk about the different gigs we've seen them at, get them to sign our stuff, politely ask if they wouldn't mind us taking a photo with them, and in return, they offer us information of what they've been up to lately, they put their arms around us for photograph poses, ask us questions about ourselves and are generally wonderfully courteous back. What I witnessed that night made me realise why they shied away - with all that's going on with Stuart at the moment, legal proceedings pending etc, if they have to be dealing with "fans" who want to encroach on their personal space, who knows where those "fans" will, or will not, draw the line!

If you stick to being friendly and polite, but at arms length, Kelly and Richard are the sweetest guys you could ever hope to meet - they are in this business because of you.  If you are rude, brash or too personal with them, they will shy away from view, and stay out of your way.  Since when did it hurt to say please and thank you?  So we didn't get the chance to pass on the "please carry on" messages that we wanted to, but if you have a look at the Letters they wrote in the programme, it seems they're thinking the same thing anyway.

Anyway, although there was a cloud to that silver lining, the silver lining was enough to keep the evening a magical one.  If you have a look in our Personal Collection of photos, there is one of Shell, her son Aidan, Tom, Kelly and to the left, Richard is stood to the side pulling a really funny face.  Well Shell managed to get that photo on the bus and Rich signed it, drawing a halo over his head on the photo, hehe!  They got a few other items signed too, and it all ended well for us.  The rest of the crowd were really upset that they were moved away, as the bus pulled away, people disappointed that they didn't get to meet their idols.  But as they say, it only takes one match - one drunk stupid woman - to ruin it for the rest of you.

I hobbled away with a smile on my face - I've met them before and I'll meet them again, what mattered to me was a magical musical evening - yet again!  Thanks guys!