This is the weekend that many of us had been talking about and looking forward to for months. So did it live up to our expectations? for some the answer is a resounding yes for others a resounding no.
Butlin's itself was ok, the accommodation and food was reasonable for the money paid. The only real criticism would be lack of security which allowed 750 people to enter a venue at the same time, which had the effect of allowing a stampede to the front of the stage. This was positively dangerous for any children in attendance and distinctly uncomfortable for any disabled guests. It also resulted in people at the back standing on chairs, a health and safety nightmare.
The first gig got underway late, as did everything else for the entire weekend. Tony was on first. I am not sure why he choose the songs he did, but because they were less well known than his usual offerings the weekend got of to a slow start which only picked up when Peter Cox came on stage.
The second night was by far the best of the three, firstly because Tony did not turn up in leather trousers as he did for the first gig but had gone back to the more sedate grey suit, and secondly because this was the night when he did the Spandau Ballet set. As usual his singing could not be faulted, fantastic songs sung with great enthusiasm. The only hitch being the small problem with the lyrics to 'Round and Round' which resulted in Tony having them written down.
The third night Halloween, (Tony didn't dress up, spoilsport) was more or less the set from their recent tour.
Day time activities included re-runs of 'Reborn', Ready, Steady, Cook, and other TV programmes that Tony has taken part in. There was also a quiz which consisted of teams led by Tony and Richard Drummie answering questions about each others work. Richard Drummie won this, he also won the award for the wally of the weekend by calling the lyrics of 'Musclebound' pretentious because he did not know them!!!.
There was also a football match between the fans which Tony's fans won. Peter Cox's fans evened things up by winning the ten pin bowling.
The most looked forward to daytime activity was the showing of the infamous HNK dvd, which turned out unexpectedly, to contain one of the highlighs of the weekend Steve Norman singing 'Motivator' suffice to say his version is a bit different from Tony's.
Sadly the most disappointing event of the weekend was the so called fans convention at which neither Tony or John was presant. Steve apparently was also invited but couldn't attend due to work commitments in Italy. This meant that a weekend that was billed as 'would you like to spend a weekend with Tony' turned out to be basically 2 gigs (Tony only did half a gig on the first 2 nights) and a quiz totalling less than 10 hours.
There was a couple of brief chances to get a quick autograph or photograph but given the sheer weight of numbers and the fact that only one of these was made general knowledge I would guess that many fans went home disappointed.
It was mentioned that the weekend may be repeated 'somewhere more exotic'. If this is the case I would make 2 recommendations (1) make it Tony fans only, and, (2) restrict the numbers to a more realistic level
Luckily for me my weekend was made complete by a very good friend bringing with her DVDs of Gary in 'Hide and Seek' and 'The Tomorrow People' which I hadn't seen before, such a cute little boy (he hasn't changed much) with a very strange taste in clothes and hairstyles (luckily that has). As we laughed so much the first time we had to watch them again (well thats our excuse).