Royal Albert Hall
Tues 14th Nov 2000

Night No.2 for me and even though I knew what was in store the excitement was just as great and no gig is ever the same as any other. Yet another brilliant view for tonight - 3rd row dead centre !

Thanks to virtually the whole of the front two rows for staying seated most of the night. Maybe those tickets had been reserved for promotional purposes or competitions or something like that, or worse still - critics. No wonder Marti was mocking them, gesturing to them in an attempt to get them to their feet and look as if they were enjoying themselves.

Once again 'Sweet Little Mystery' kicked off the set getting everyone in party mode followed by 'Wishing I Was Lucky' which had kept those all so familiar guitars then 'East Of The River' with the great tinkly piano leading into one of those musts to be played live. As before Marti thanked us for our support through his hard times before 'Did You Ever Wake Up', this song just improves the more you hear it. Then of course Marti excelled himself as ever during 'Temptation' holding that note prior to having Leo chasing him across the stage with his saxophone while still playing it.

The cover 'Oh! You Pretty Things' has a strange mixture where at times such as the start and chorus you want to clap then it slows down again, effective though. Just as Marti returned with his microphone to the front of the stage from sitting at the back doing the wonderful haunted sounding ‘Hard To Cry’ he was looking straight ahead at our mob standing in the middle and gave us a wink. I don’t know if many of us had our eye on him at this point as Leo had started playing the intro to 'I Don't Trust You' on his sax so most people were watching him.

If I remember right, it was during this that Marti raised his left arm out to the side of him and firmly pointed to the floor. I’d never really been in a position like this before of being in his line of vision all night whenever he stood at the microphone hence was not prepared for such behaviour. I was almost certain he was signalling for us to sit down, however a few seconds later he nodded towards someone out to his left of the stage as if it had been something to do with a sound level that was now to his liking, ie. in his earpiece. I had actually considered this as a possible explanation but I wasn’t taking any chances thus sat down for most of the song.

Only certain songs can take you from the instant they start and 'New York Vibe' is definitely one of them. It has this magical feel to it, a brilliant upbeat start backed up with a great arrangement and of course lyrics to go. I'd say this is a modern day 'I Can Give You Everything', which just happened to be the next song. 'All Around The World' had changed it’s name overnight to ‘I've Been Around The World’. It’s amazing the things that stick out in your mind from one night to the next, must be the sign of a good song. Jackie was up next joining Marti for the duet, 'It Should Have Been Me', her voice is just amazing, such a range - Marti's limited parts ideally complimented it and the song perfectly.

Tonight he missed out his stupid smoochy noises of the previous night when introducing 'Lip Service' but never lost the English twang for the intro to 'Goodnight Girl'. The Wets material took Marti through to 'With A Little Help From My Friends', which he said was very apt for a great audience and his time to depart the stage.

When he came back on for the first encore, as he sat down to start ‘The River’ he discovered that one of the spotlights positioned on the stage beside him wasn’t working. He asked us to, ‘Ho’d on the now’, while he tried to fix it. He pretended to give it a kick then plugged in a lead or something that had fallen out. Hey presto, it was working – well done Marti ! The audience gave him a cheer and round of applause for being such a handy man. 'The River' is such a refreshing song which sounds great in the live situation.

Marti as always attempted to have us all singing the 'la la, la la' bits of 'Gypsy Girl' and as ever just ended in us all laughing at ourselves as we ran out of puff and Marti finished it off for us. Once again 'Angel Eyes' got a warm welcome from the crowd before Marti headed off stage prior to the 2nd encore.

'Close To You' was uninterrupted by the crowd tonight, as it justly deserved, but unfortunately the sound system let Marti down when it howled as the song was reaching it's climax. At the end of the night my Scottish flag came out again for 'Love Is All Around' which apparently got noticed by some of the band who I was later told had been pointing at it.

Well that was another brilliant night over all too soon, only a few days to go till Newcastle.

I won’t mention anything about my sprint lap round the Royal Albert Hall afterwards but I think it’s sufficient to say that I got round just in time to see the tail lights go off down round the corner. Nobody would have ever seen me move that fast apart from at the front to the stage in Newcastle and Glasgow. Most people looked bewildered as I went flying past yelling, "excuse me, s’cuse me". Miraculously my sister managed to be at the other side to see Marti leaving but as she got him to say hello to me down the phone I missed it as my phone, which was still in my hand at the time, wasn’t at my ear due to me being on the move – ah well, that’s life ! ;-)

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