From: Mad Hatter (the_teaparty@yahoo.com)

Well, it has to be said... That was amazing! WOW! What a gig... What a night... What an afternoon!

OK... here's a little review for those who are interested...

I arrived at the Astoria and met Mat Wijlaars at 3pm. We went into The Great George and was joined by Johan a little while later. We drank... erm, then drank some more, and then some more and by 6.30pm quite a lot of the Mishlist had joined us... Got to meet some very nice people (racking my brains to come up with some names, all I can remember is Graham, Fiona, Natalie, Paul, Peter (and his girlfriend), erm... Darren, erm........ Barbara, erm............ Karst and his girlfriend, erm.......and lots of other nice people that I spoke to!!!)

Anyways, we wondered into the gig at 7 and took a nice place towards the back on the raised bit. The first support band, whoever they were, were not worth me writing about! (Ok, they wen't that bad, but I've got better things to say!)...

AAE! OH MY GOD! Did you Americans miss out or what? I sware to you, they could have headlined the show... The atmosphire was fantastic. Featuring Andy Cousins on bass with special guest Rik Carter on keys and 12-string, they rocked big time! They were on for what seemed like a blissful 45 mins (not that I could see my watch to tell!). ...I really thought that the evening could get no better, knowing full well it was about too!

The mish came on at about 9.30 and started off with Beyond the Pale. Then they played straight into Hands Across the Ocean followed by Butterfly, which was the first time Wayne really said anything which was "hey! security - common'" 'cause they were getting arsy about all the people getting ontop of eachotherssholders...

The gig rocked on, and in no order ('cause I have the memory of a goldfish), played:

Severina (which included Wayne stopping to retune his guitar both before and after the song. He said "Crap guitar... Looks good though" and Mark replied "Well, it was in tune when you brought it"!)
Raising Cain
Blood Brother
Into the Blue
Swoon
Garden of Delight
Tower
Deliverance

and erm... Some more... (so if anybody can help meout, please let me know!).

Wayne introduced "Scotty G, the resident yank" which was funny! It has to be said... I dont quite think that you Americans have mastered the "tower of strength" thing yet... I'll tell you, during that song, I could hardly see the stage through the ocean of raised hands and people climbing ontop of eachothers sholders! I actually took a picture and will adventually stick it online so that you can see what I mean about the good 'ol UK crowds.

The band left the stage leaving Wayne, who produced... A SINGING DUCK!!! And asked if Johan was about! It was really funny watching him holding this duck to the microphone... I'll tell you... I bet alot of those dead serious goth types where getting the shock of their life!

For the encore, Wayne came back on with his 12-string and played "Falling in love with you" by the King(!), and *everybody* sang along!

He then started "Like a child" but screwed it up by missing the first verse so he stopped and said "hold on a minuite, thats not right, lets try again"... He started it again, but made the same mistake and said "I give up" and continued to play "Dancing Barefoot".

He was joined by the rest of the band and said "who travelled out here to see GLJ, well we have a special guest" and brought out James and played... erm....Like a Hurricane. They then played Crystal Ocean and erm... 1969.

There was actually two encores, but I for the life of me can't remeber how the order went... Please, somebody have stolen the set list! :o)

I'll tell you, it was an amazing gig and the crowd electric... Probably the best mission gig I have seen in... well, years!!!!!!!!

Like I said... I've probably got the order of these songs wrong, missed out a few and I know I have forgotten a whole bunch of mishlist members names but, well, like I said... Its the goldfish syndrome... That and those nice cool glasses of Calsburg that Mat kept buying!Best wishes to all.

---Mike

From Dominic Mitchell (dmitchell@bmjgroup.com)

All About Eve opened...

They started with a brilliantly loopy fused Phased, then went into Strange Way. Julianne really looked as though she was enjoying herself and I could see her smiling at individual people in the crowd as they called to her. She looked really nervous as well in a bashful kinda way! As ever, Marty was fantastic on geetar. They played In the Clouds, Freeze, Are You Lonely (the last gut-wrenching track from Tuoched By Jesus), What Kind of Fool, Every Angel, Shelter from the Rain (not in that order -sorry can't remember it!) and finished with a version of Outshine the Sun that all the shoegazers, My Bloody Valentine in particular, would have been proud of. To see Julianne crouched down at her amp with her guitar going for it like there was no tomorrow was amazing and you can tell that she really warmed to being back on stage with a crackin' band. The wall of noise that came off the last song was unbelievable and really left everyone wondering several things: why did AAE ever leave? Will they come bakc? and why didn't folk appreciate all that talent before! The songs from Ultraviolet haven't dated at all and actually seem quite contemporary.

The Mish moshed the house down and I shall never forget the feeling of the floor going up and down to Deliverance, whilst I stood there holding my sisters hands above our heads and just thank Whoever that I was there. Mad Hatter has captured the whole thing brilliantly so I won't reiterate what he has said but he forgot Wasteland!!

Mad Hatter, I have to thank you now for the laminate - it was a great idea and I met some brilliant people. Melanie I came back to speak to you but you had gone, I wanted to thank you for being so nice to me once.

Keep the faith

---Dominic

From: "Jennifer Roche" (astrojenn@indigo.ie)

Hi folks

Oh gosh!!! I'm just back from London/Nottingham and I'm still on a MAJOR HIGH!!Reckon I'd better get this down while it's still fresh in my mind, Mike, nice review, I'm gonna fill in a few blanks here.

Missed the George baforehand as we got there a bit late. Ended up in the Tottenham instead, no mishlist members. Made our way into the gig, Crazyhead were on, 'nuff said, more drink was had. I decided to visit the loo before AAE appeared, of course what happens? I hear "Phased" starting while I'm in there, BUGGER! Tore back up the stairs and almost knocked Mike Peters back out of the door he'd just come in, sorry about that mate!! Anyway, made it back to the front, if I elbowed anyone in any tender places in the process please accept my apologies.

AAE, what can I say?? I'd never seen them play live and they just blew me away, each and every one of them looked so happy to be back, the track listing was as Mike said, the last number 'outshine the sun' was a complete and utter guitar-fest with everyone (Rik, Marty, Julianne) giving it their all, my jaw was on the floor by the time they were finished, brilliant.

And now the Mission, arriving on to the strains of the Dambusters March (which we all sang along to!) They kicked off with Beyond the Pale, great opener then straight into 'Hands', song followed song with Wayne whipping the crowd into an absolute frenzy, the atmosphere was electric. Then the singing duck was introduced, suffice to say it made a certain swedish blokes night! Wayne's Elvis number was really beautiful, shame about Like a Child but it was great to hear Dancing Barefoot again. By the time 1969 was played the Astoria had become a seething mass of Mish fans rocking like there was no tomorrow, utterly amazing stuff!

Met lots of mishlist folk courtesy of the laminates, Hi to Karst & Anne-Marie, Graham & Fiona, Mike, Johan, and anyone else that I've forgotten (brain's pickled, sorry!)

The laminates did their work well in other ways as Myself, Bryan and Uggi ended up upstairs at the after show party, unfortunately everybody else had gone out ahead of us and we'd lost them(sorry!) Met Cat, Mel and Johan upstairs along with AAE, Mike Peters and the Mish.

Julianne, thanks for signing my CD! :-) (lovely person!) Wayne, same to you! :-)

Good night had by all, partied into the wee hours, fookin excellent!!

From: "Paul Morgan" (paul_morgan@hotmail.com>

First some thanx and soz's

It was great to finally meet people off the list - we all got on soooo well, it was most beaudacious ;) Melanie, I can't say how impressed I was with the journey you've taken to date!!

On the other side, sorry to Neil, Uggi and the others who turned up after I left (6:45 to meet a friend and give him his tickets - bastard was 30 mins late) - really would of liked to met you (and not talk "techie" Belinda!!;)) I was amazed how I almost got the piccy of Mat down to a tee!!!!

Now on to the Gig! I think we were all agreed that Crazyhead were a "filler". From what I heard it's not worth going any further....then

AAE...ohmygod. It sounds EVEN better live with Julianne's voice (he said avoiding reference to the gorgeous looks...DAMN!) so damn fine. The whole band were just sooo cool - really, words can't say...

OK, now the mish. Explosion of the crowd, the band building up a crescendo. Too f*cking cool. You could see that Wayne was really fired by the audience reaction and this was confirmed when he said "We've just spent 6 weeks touring the States and I can honestly say it's good to be home". Sorry US peeps; I know you were there for 'em, but imagine hundreds of mish fans clawing the sky for more, building up a frenzy and the band going for it hell for leather. We even got to see Wayne to play his singing duck on stage - believe me that joke died!! ;) (Imagine 2% of the audience getting the joke - it was that bad!)

Anyway, that's all I gotta say. But hey - this thing is just too cool to stop now, isn't it?

Paul

From: "Bryan McPhail" (mish@tendril.force9.net)

Well what can I say, that was a fantastic week! It was great to meet lots of people from the list including in no particular order Johan (I cracked up laughing when you called me Mr Hacker in that email!), Karst (I wasn't at all prepared for the Irish accent!), Astrojen, Mel, Cat, Greame (spelling?) , and several others whom I can't quite remember right now...

After much fun on the underground we (me, uggi, jen) got to the Astoria about 7, and a ticket tout was so desperate to sell us tickets he even opened the cab door for me and shoved them in my fact.. Blame Uggi for the fact we didn't go to the George as planned. At the Astoria we positioned ourselves down the front. Crazyhead reminded me of GUN a lot.. Maybe it's the singers hair.

I must admit I'd never really listened to AAE very much before, but they were very good :)

As I'm sure you all know by now The Mish looked & sounded great - the lighting was great and the sound brilliant (though Wayne's guitar was a little low in the mix). They played Crystal Ocean (without keyboards) and the usual set plus Dancing Barefoot when Like A Child went wrong ;) The new arrangement of Blood Brother sounds great too.

After the show we blagged our way into the aftershow party using the trusty MishList laminates - I almost choked at the bar prices up there though... The barmaid proved resistant to my Scottish charm by simply looking the other way until I paid up..

Famous people spotted (apart from the bands): Gary Numan! Chris McCormack!

After this we somehow ended up at the bands hotel (after a bastard taxi driver charged us double the real price - I think he took advantage of Johan's state of drunkenness ;). Once again I choked on the bar prices (I like to keep up the tight scotmans image, no-one's getting in MY sporran). On the way out the hotel doorman was baffled by my accent, I had to spell out TEE AY X EYE several times, with lots of arm waving to get the point across..

Bryan

Hi,

what a concert !

came from Germany for two days. Unfortunately my girl-friend had a bad cold (thats why I couldn t meet anyone before the gig)...thought we had to miss the show...but we went...only the last three songs of the Eves (so great!)...and then the mission were overwhelming!!!!!

So straightforward and a drummer like a machine gun.... ;)

Wayne was in a fantastic condition - great voice - great sound !!!!

The full list (not exactly in right order I think):

Beyond
Hands
Into The Blue
Garden Of Delight
Severina
Blood Brother
Butterfly
Raising Cain
Swoon
Tower
Deliverance
Canīt Help Falling in Love
(Like A Child) -> Dancing Barefoot
Hurricane
Wasteland
Crystal Ocean
1969

(great selection !!! only missed Never Again and Without You !!)

Bought a t-Shirt and missed the duck-joke....aaaargh !!!

have a good time on the next shows !!!!

(back home :( )

bye

steph*

From: "Drew Sharkey" (drewmish@mission.demon.co.uk)

Just got home from one of the best weeks of my life.

The Mission were just brilliant. Can't believe its been, what 4 years??, since I last saw them at the Garage in Glasgow during the Neverland tour.

Can't believe its been 12 years since I first saw them at Glasgow Barrowlands. Where has the time gone? Goods news is The Mission are timeless.

AAE were as good as I imagined they'd be (never seen them live before). I'm disappointed I never managed to get to any of the onelist pub meets. Always seemed to be running late and having to make a dash to the gig (Nottingham was especially bad as I was staying in the hotel straight across the road from the Tap & Tumbler). Maybe next time.

To the onelister from Sweden (who'd ordered his ticket 2 months ago) who spoke to me at Astoria (couldn't hear half what you were saying), but a wee tip mate - You Were Pissed!!!!!.

Overriding Memories?

London

Amazing - Wayne got the lyrics wrong to Like a Child Again not once, but twice. The duck thing (great feeling knowing that only a handful of us knew what Wayne was on about).

Great to see both AAE and The Mission look as if they were all enjoying each others company again. Wayne & Craig looked best buds.

Nottingham Amazing - Dodgy acoustics. Started during AAE, got fixed, then started again. Thank God Wayne knew what the problem was and got them to "take some of the bottom end off".

Most Amazing bit?? - Meeting AAE. Leaving the hotel the next morning, went to take a pic of Rock City to go with my concert pics when who do I see walking towards me - Rik Carter. Take a second look and there are Julianne, Marty and the others. Julianne said she looked awful - but she looked dandy to me. Thanks guys for letting me take a picture (and thanks for warning me that my 'thingy' was over the camera lens).

Manchester

Amazing - Pity about the strict curfew which meant AAE were a bit rushed.

I sweated more and ached more after this one than the other 2. Must have taken me some time to get the old bones moving again. Wayne wanted to be persuaded to do it all again next year. After about 2 seconds of persuasion he said the words we all wanted "Ok, All right then, I'm persuaded". Hurry back!

The Mission? - to mirror the words of Craig when Wayne talked about them going "way back" - "You Guys Rock My World".

London...

From: "Luis Maldonado" (pygmallion@hotmail.com)

I think everything has been said...just a few more notes. It was not me, repeat, IT WAS NOT ME the one who shouted "FREAK" to Wayne when he started singing "Can't help falling in love". Funny when he made the mistake twice in "Like a child". Apologies to Manolo for arriving late at the pub but it wasn't my fault. Nice meeting you again Johan. Hope the hangover wasn't too bad. Nice meeting Melanie there as well.

From: Johan Eskils (joes4803

I also made a duck page or actual it is more of my personal reflection on the recent London happening... Philosophical waste would describe it better...