As this was my first gig EVER (Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking, "She lives in London and this was her very first gig?!? Where has she been?!?") I was very excited at the prospect of meeting the Travis boys again.
The gig was extra special for me because it was coming up to Christmas and I had just finished my mock A Level exams (I had just finished French that day), so I immmediately took the tube to Brixton and arrived at the Academy at about 4:15pm.
At about 4:30pm, the boys appeared. Neil appeared first and slipped while he was walking to the side entrance (Poor Neil! I didn't stop laughing, though, it was funny seeing him trying to show as if nothing had happened), then the rest appeared. Fran said he was sorry but they couldn't stop to sign anything, but that didn't stop some of the other girls waiting for the main doors to open and ran to get some piccies with the boys and autographs.
The doors opened roughly at 7pm and I waited for the support act to come on with my mates, Ooberstarlet, and her mate Milli. The support act was the Clint Boon Experience and they came on at about 8:15pm. Man, did they RAWK!!! Admittedly, the only song I actually knew that they sang was 'White With No Sugar' (Thanks to the overplay on Xfm) but all their songs were hits and really knew how to put on a show. One of the highlights of the CBE was the appearance of Charlotte from Ash who played two songs with the CBE, the band's mate, T-Shirt, dancing about with a Bez-esque familiarity to him and an opera singer affectionately given the moniker 'Sarah Spice', who features on their single, The Biggest Horizon.
At about 9pm, the boys came on stage to a raptous roar from the crowd. At this stage, being right at the front of the stage, I got seriously crushed, to the point where when people were jumping along and moshing to the songs, I was jumping too, but not of my own free will.
The first song that Travis played was 'All I Want To Do Is Rock', which got us all jumping and rawking and moshing. I got my wish when Travis played 'More Than Us' and 'Writing To Reach You', Ooberstarlet didn't as she wanted to hear 'Tied To The 90s', but all the other tracks rawked just as well as those two. One of the magic touches of the gig was when Travis played 'Slide Show' and put up a big massive screen in front of them showing slides, which can be seen on the Travisonline web site under the Access All Areas bit. After that was over, the screen came down and the band played 'Blue Flashing Light', the bonus track on 'The Man Who'.
The band ended with their trademark, er....ending song, 'Happy' and then.........oh, God....the most AWFUL thing happened.....oh, dear..........why did I do it.......basically, to cut a long story short, I tried to throw my Obi-Wan Kenobi lightsabre TO Fran, but it hit him on his left hand, which he uses to play the chords on his guitar, and the lightsabre was confiscated. Woe is me!!!! If Fran or any of the boys (Dougie, Neil and Andy) are reading this, I'M SO SO SO SORRY!!!!!!
So, all-in-all, the gig rawked, but it was spoilt for me by the security (Secure I did NOT feel), being crushed and the way-too-overpriced t-shirts and other merchandise inside the Academy (I'm a poor A Level student!!! Don't they realise that Travis have a loyal student following who need to spend their money on books and academic material!!!)
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