Robbie Williams – Gothenburg; July 1st 2006
It all started out Friday morning 3 a.m. with the alarm clock ringing. I had a train to catch to get to Cologne airport for my 7:05 flight. Slight panic attack at the main train station because my train was majorly late, but I did manage to get to the airport on time. Check in was quick and I was ready to pass out from lack of sleep. Not a good start for sure.
At 9 I arrived in Gothenburg, but it took another hour or so to actually get to the city. The walk from the main bus terminal to our hotel took my right past Ullevi stadium and I could see the huge arms of the stage above the stadium and people walking and working on them. It was a beautiful sight. Right at the bus terminal there was an underwear shop and in their window I found an ad that used many of Robbie’s song titles. I later saw some more ads for the same underwear shop downtown.
After a brief stop at the hotel I went downtown to see a little bit of Gothenburg city. Dropped by Robbie’s hotel as well, but nobody was there. Later I picked up my Finnish friend H. from the train station, back to our hotel again and back downtown. We walked to Ullevi too and found people already queuing – the first ones had lined up at 8:30 that morning. Security advised them to have a numbered line but they did not want to. When we went home around 11 pm there were about 35 people camping in front of the stadium. We still decided to get some sleep in hour hotel beds and come back the next morning.
H. and I went back to the stadium at 7:00, arriving at 7:30 – there were around 50 people at each entrance at that time – not too bad. The weather was beautiful and we settled down to wait. Two more friends joined us a bit after 8 and we all enjoyed the sun.
The security people were wonderful. They chatted with us, answered all our questions, gave us water and made sure everyone was feeling OK. One of them even got another girl to make a hat for one girl out of a newspaper. I can’t stretch enough that they did one hell of a job. At over 100 concerts in over 10 different countries I have never encountered such nice and well organized local security people – they made the waiting a lot easier to bear.
Around noon a stag party turned up and the poor groom to be had to sing “Angels” to us. He could not sing at all so what he did was very brave. We got a good laugh out of that and as a reward for his troubles he had his picture taken with a group of the waiting girls casting admiring looks his way for the camera.
It was 2 p.m. I believe when suddenly people jumped up and it got a little crammed at the gates. Some lucky ones were still able to sit down, but not all of us. “2 hours later they let us in through the first gate, where we had to line up and wait again. After that there was one more gate and a turnstile. They told us there was no running into the stadium and if anyone did run, they would close the pit.
When they opened the gates to the turnstiles at 5, everyone was walking through one by one. H. was first of us and I’ve never seen anyone walk that fast before. She secured us a great spot in front row on stage left. Unfortunately we lost the others inside. We settled down again for more waiting – 2 hours to go.
7:00 p.m. , DJ Chris Coco started. He played nice music, but I was not much impressed. Could have been worse though. 8:00 p.m. it was time for Basement Jaxx. I had heard some of their songs before the show and thought they were utter crap so I did not expect much. Boy was I surprised. They put on a great show, very entertaining with colorful costumes and lots of action. I really liked it and time flew buy.
After they had left the stage and everything was set up for Robbie’s entrance, I realized I was actually front row at my first ever Robbie Williams concert – un-fucking-believable. A happy grin appeared on my face that no-one could have wiped off if they tried.
Finally at about 10:35 the people on the right side of the stadium started screaming like hell – they must have been able to see backstage. The screens read “Come with me” and then the house music was off and the band came out. Fireworks started and then blasts of fire came up from the stage sides – they were hot!
We all turned to the platform at the end of the catwalk where Robbie came up out of the floor to the first notes of ‘Radio’. Now that is a song I truly hate, but I found myself singing along anyway and I was screaming like a teenage girl too. I knew then that it was going to be a great concert. The platform was going round in a circle so we could see Robbie from all sides. He came along the catwalk to the main stage for ‘Rock DJ’. “Can I kick it?” he sang and a choir of 60 000 answered “Yes you can!” Everyone in the stadium was standing in their seats, clapping, cheering and singing along. It was amazing.
‘Tripping’ contained elements from ‘Don’t worry’ and was sung very well. The choir and Robbie sounded great and I really loved that version. He talked to us about England losing to Portugal at football and how he was sad about that, then asked us to shout “AMEN”, “HALLELUJA” and “OH MY GOD” if we had come to worship in the temple of football. He also said we were the best crowd so far. “I know you think I say that everywhere, but you really are. Everyone has been singing along right from the first song.” To prove his point he launched into ‘Radio’ again: “Jumping, Thumping…” “Shout out something” came our reply. He tried that a couple of times and was happy with our response.
Next song was ‘Monsoon’, one of my favorites. He screwed up the lyrics a bit, but who cares? He was on the move on the catwalk again and I took some time to watch him on the screen and actually take a look at the members of the band too. Then my eyes were glued on Robbie again. At some point he lay down on the catwalk, staring directly into everyone’s cameras. He did that again later on the show asking “do you wanna take a picture?” and posing on the platform.
‘Sin Sin Sin’ turned out to be another fantastic live song with lots of audience participation. I think it was here that Robbie went off the stage and hugged some people in the crowd. It was on our side of the stage and I kept watching out for him, but he got back up on stage before he reached us. Made some people happy though. ‘Millennium’ followed and it was awesome to see everyone waving their hands.
Robbie talked some more, telling us how he was proud to have sold out both nights at the stadium, because except for him, only three bands had done so: Bruce Springsteen (I screamed ), Sting and the Rolling Stones. He introduced the choir and had everyone to say something into the mik. The last lady gave a very sexy “uuuh”. Robbie grabbed is crotch and remarked “I’ve just come”, then claimed to be needing a tissue. Very funny moment.
He talked a lot all night, telling us to come over to his hotel and kick the paparazzi in the nuts. ‘Make me pure’ was next. He sat in a swivel chair and kept turning around. I grinned when I noticed he did not remember the lyrics. Again the choir did a fantastic job.
He went off to the stage side where Josie helped him change his jacket. The he introduced his “bestest mate” Jonny Wilkes. They bantered on a bit about the great audience in Gothenburg. Robbie said “I understand it now. You see in England, the crowds are better up North. In London they are OK, but they are not like great. In Stockholm (he made a depreciating gesture here). Now Gothenburg… (he indicated all of us and we replied with a great cheer). Jonny went on about having watched him and remarked that he was only giving about 85% entertainment. “Bullocks!” Robbie replied. J:“Honestly” R:“Fuck yourself!” J:“Hey, I’m your best mate, I can tell you this. 85, 86% maybe.” R:“Can you bring the rest then.” J: “I reckon I have to bring that extra 14%.” R: “Let’s do it.”A fantastic ‘Me and my Shadow’ followed. I have loved that song from the first time I saw it on the Swing show DVD and was happy to get to hear it live. They did a wonderful job too.
Afterwards Robbie told us about their Football competition. It was all about who could shoot the ball furthest into the audience and so far, Jonny had won. He really rubbed the 4:0 score in too. Jerry brought the balls out to the platform where Robbie and Jonny where waiting and checked them too after Robbie demanded it. The other balls got checked as well to much laughter from the audience. Both took of the jackets and shot. I thought Jonny did better but the rest of the audience decided Robbie had won. The next the competition involved the audience. They split us in two group to see which side would sing better or rather who could get his side to sing a response louder and better. Jonny had our side and tried hard, but Robbie won again. He was grinning happily too. ‘Strong’ followed, then Jonny left the stage.
‘Back for good’ was next, but first Robbie was chatting with the crowd again, asking if we remembered that. A girl in the front replied to his question if anyone had been to their gig in Gothenburg. He looked at her for some time, the said “But you can’t be older than 18 now. I left Take That in 97, so you were about 3 at hat gig.” She replied, a bit offended. “I’m 24!” “So you were about 12 then. Did you go to a concert when you were 12 years old?” She nodded. “And you’ve been following me ever since?” She nodded again and when he asked her who her favorite was and she said “you” he smiled rather cheesily, but looked very pleased. He offered her to come to the hotel, suggesting they have sex so he could give something back to her. “That’s the least I could do.” I don’t remember much about ‘Advertising Space’ or ‘A Place to Crash’ other than that I enjoyed both songs.
At some point Robbie went off the stage to kiss a girl who had “Kiss you” written on her chest. He told her she was a great kisser and remarked that she stuck her tongue in “and then I stuck in mine. That was really nice.” Her dad should be proud of her Robbie said and that he’d come down again to kiss her friend too. He never did though.
The first notes of ‘Come undone’ had the entire audience singing again and he liked that. He sat on the steps for much of the song, drinking a bit while we sang. ‘Feel’ was a wonderful closer and Robbie disappeared into the floor of the platform. David Enthoven (the manager) was taking pictures of Robbie the entire time, standing right next to me. The encores started with more fireblasts and David remarked how hot it was. You can say that again!
To the sounds of ‘Let me entertain you!’ Robbie was lowered to the stage from one of the stage ‘arms’. He was wearing a white tracksuit (which really screwed p my pictures because it was so light ). I was happy to hear “Let me entertain you” finally and bounced a lot. ‘Angels’was as emotional and beautiful as I had hoped it would be. Really nice, fantastic response from the crowd.
Everyone bowed and Jonny pretended wanting to drag Robbie off stage, but he insisted on one more. “You’ll be Kylie Minogue and I’ll be Robbie Williams.” He then launched into ‘Kids’, doing a sexy dance with the choir. He rubbed up against the ladies and pretended to give the guy a blow job. Another funny moment. One last thank you and they were gone.
I was completely blown away and enjoyed every minute of the show. WOW! It was all worth it and I was already looking forward to the next show as we slowly walked out of the stadium and made our way back to our hotel.
The night did not end for us right there. We decided we could not sleep anyway and went back downtown to check out the Elite Plaza, where Robbie and the band were staying. There were surprisingly few people, so we guessed we might have missed Robbie already. We hung out for a bit, but nothing happened and there was noone in sight. Thus, we went back to our hotel and finally to sleep.