08 opening, Arena, Ringo
RELIEF is probably my overriding emotion this morning. I was just so pleased that the two events to open Capital of Culture went off so well, and delighted that the Echo Arena looked so fantastic and coped so admirably.
Friday's sea of humanity backed up everything I believe about the public's take on 08 - they are willing it to succeed and the cynics are in a small minority.
Inside the Empire theatre I spoke to top brass from the council, the police and Merseytravel and each of them gave me a wildly differing crowd estimate.
I'm settling on 50,000 - what do you reckon?
Lynne not well enough to go Friday so Harry cam with me, He ended the night deep in conversation with Paul McGann - 'I' from Withnail and I - one of Harry's all-time top films.
He failed in his quest to get a photo with Heidi from the Sugababes and had to watch me get a kiss on both cheeks from Atomic Kitten's Liz McLarnon...
The magnificent Claire Sweeney (my absolute favourite) looked sensational as usual.
Ringo asked for Friday and Saturday Echos to take home so I arranged for them to be dropped off at his hotel.
Ringo's song? Crap or catchy????
Saturday at the Arena and I was knocked out by how wonderful it looked. We have put a lot into the naming rights deal and this was a superb start for us.
Lynne made a huge effort and came along to our box - Arena is super-wheelchair-friendly which helped a lot and she enjoyed the show and the company. People were so kind and thoughtful towards her.
I thought The Farm brought the whole thing kicking and screaming to life with their timeless anthem All Together Now.
Ricky Tomlinson joined us as our guest - he looks fantastic after his bypass operation and we compared chest scars with an enthusiasm sadly not reciprocated by our fellow guests.
Ended up crying on shoulder of Everton legend Peter Reid about sad state of my beloved Newcastle United - a blight on a great weekend.
Your views on Friday, Saturday???
alan wrote...
just can't agree sir ... Friday's event was a terrible anti-climax, two live performers both miming and a heavy metal soundtrack not suited to this city ... I allowed myself to get excited during the week, and when Ringo hit the drums for a few bars of the intro to 'The End' I thought here we go, but my God, what a letdown ... the people that braved the cold were just used as a back drop for fantastic images to be flashed around the world - the content they were given was not good enough ... all I came away with was the knowledge that Ringo's and The Wombats' new singles are out today ... Sat was better, the arena is just fantastic, but still just seemed like a 'will this do' event - lots of hard work had gone into it and it was better, but there were no "I was there when..." moments for me. Sorry, but I wanted more ...
Posted by: alan | January 14, 2008 2:54 PM