I arrived at Heathrow at 8.30am which was far too early and had to wait for Alessia til 9.30. We checked in and had to wait until 11.25 for boarding. We sat in the airport starting to panic and had a phone call from Vern to try and calm us down! We went on the internet and made some posts on the forums! By 11.25 the gate still hadn’t been called so we panicked again but finally it was! Alessia can speak Portuguese as she lived there for a few years so we got a Portuguese newspaper and found a Queen article in! Screamed and got glared at by some people on the plane. The article said that Queen had arrived today and were staying for 3 days!! Ahhh! Listened to downloads on our iPods and sang which annoyed the posh woman next to us! Having a glass of wine didn’t help the situation! We finally landed 30 mins late and found Jamie who was waiting at the airport for us!! Got the bus into the city centre and screamed when we saw Queen posters advertising the gig. The bus was packed and we were next to a guy- his phone rang and played ‘We will rock you’. We screamed at him and he moved away!! LOL! Dumped our stuff at our hotel and rested for a bit. We were so hungry by this time and decided to go and have a meal at a posh hotel. For a laugh, Jamie tried to find out if the band were staying there saying ‘My grandparents are coming to Portugal so I am checking out places to stay’. Alessia and I just couldn’t stop laughing! She asked if anyone famous has stayed there and they said Yes, we have the Queens staying here’.
Vern called up and I was drunk enough to answer the phone even though it was going to cost me loads of money. He was drunk too! Jamie followed me out to the lobby and saw Cynthia, Paul’s wife get out of a car so I muttered something about Paul to Vern and hung up and ran in to get Alessia. The waiters panicked thinking we were running off so I gave them my credit card. They could have charged me anything and I would have signed for it! Paul came in and we chatted to him for a few minutes and had a picture taken with him. Cynthia straightened his shirt- bless!!
They wandered off and we got more drinks which we had out in the lobby! Jamie saw a blonde girl and I just knew it would be Serena and then in walks Roger! We had a picture taken with him and talked to him for a while!
He was a in a great, funny mood and I love him when he’s like that!! I asked Roger if he recognised us and he said ‘Yes Visually I do’ and we told him we had been to loads of gigs. I then reminded him about my birthday for the Holland gig and he joked that Serena would have to remember it! I asked if there was going to be a catwalk and he said ‘Yes a very long one’ and I started waffling about how I wouldn’t be able to see him if we stood at the front of the catwalk as he would be so far away. He started to walk into the bar and I said ‘I love your hair Roger’ (as he has had it cut since the last bit of the tour!), he ruffled it up and said ‘Thanks babe’.
We went in to the bar area where there was a man playing piano! We got so drunk and it turned out Queen and the rest were sitting just outside and could probably see us through a glass door. Got chatting to a business man type bloke who was asking all about Queen while I was at the bar waiting for a drink. Jim Beach came in and pushed in before me!! Bloody cheek of it! I asked if he would buy me a drink but he said no!! The business man bloke bought us all a drink instead and he spoke to Jim Beach for a bit! The piano man played We are the champions and we were singing and dancing along!! Turns out he had Greatest hits 1, 2 and 3 so we made him put that on and there was more singing and dancing!!! I bumped into Justine and Serena in the toilets! Jim wandered through the bar again and I had a photo taken with him. Asked him about Live 8 and he said they weren’t doing anything. I told him I loved his jumpers!!! LOL!
The guys were all heading off to bed and Roger and Serena walked off arm in arm. I said good night Roger and he shouted back night.!
Brian came round and we asked if we could have a picture so he posed with all of us! He asked where we were all from so I said ‘Jamie is from America, Alessia is from Italy but lives in London, Andrea lives in New York but id from Italy and I am just from the UK!’ Not sure what happened after that but I remember telling that I was going to Aruba and was not the only one from the UK going and he looked shocked. I asked what the story was and he said ‘Not now’ and then it turns out he posted about it the next day on his website!
After all of this, I had a photo taken with Danny and Jamie. We asked Jamie if there would be any new songs like One Vision. He said ‘Not One vision but there would be a song from the Seventies!!’ AHHH!!
After that, we all left and got a cab back to our hotel. I had to write down all the stuff I said to Roger and text it to myself plus Jen, Vern and Dan! By this time, it was 1.30am!!! LOL! What a day!! I LOVE Lisbon!!
Alessia and I got up and down to breakfast for 6.30am feeling very sick and bad from the night before! All the flash backs of the things I said to Roger started to come back and I knew that wasn't a good thing! Tried to eat as much as possible but was feeling very sick! Just about managed to straighten my hair then we jumped in a taxi to the stadium, Arrived about 7.30am to find Jamie waiting there with Andrea who we met the night before plus the Portuguese guys! Talked to them for a bit and watched the video Andrea took of me talking to Roger the previous night! I almost fainted- I am going to be so embarrassed when I see that full screen!
The day went on and more people arrived- the Austrian guys, Isabelle, Pierre and his mum plus the Portuguese fan club and about 9am, the sun was starting to get very hot. There was a panic about lunchtime that we had been queuing in the wrong (every time- why?!!). Jamie had gone back to the hotel to sleep and Andrea and I walked off round the back leaving Alessia with all our stuff. Spoke to a security guard round the back who confirmed we were actually queuing in the wrong place. By the time we had walked back round to where we had been queuing in the boiling hot sunshine everyone had moved. Finally found them queuing in the right place. Alessia had got the Portuguese guys to help her carry all our stuff and had saved us space at the front. Unfortunately the queue was totally in the sun and there was hardly any shade. All the Portuguese were sensible and sat in the shade and I had to join them but Alessia stayed there in the sun all afternoon!
All I ate all day was 3 ice lollies and I drank 4 litres of water. There was a toilet in the garage down the road so we could use that but it was disgusting! Everyone stood up about 4 which was an hour before the gates were due to open so we had to stand for an hour. A TV crew arrived and asked if we were from England and if they could interview us at 5 as part of the Portuguese Live 8 coverage. The doors were due to open at 5 but we said yes as long as it didn't hold us up getting! They came back at 5 and everyone was pushing, we all did a sing song then we were live on TV!! The interviewer asked me where we were from so I explained that I was from England, Alessia was from Italy but living in London and Jamie was from America. She asked what I thought about Queen and Live 8 so I said something like it's a shame they couldn't do the show and I would have been there if Queen weren't playing in Lisbon! Alessia said something too. She then asked us if we had anything else to add and I said 'I love Roger Taylor' and Alessia shouted 'Bloody hell Leipzig'. I read a few days later on Brian's website that Queen had been watching Live 8 in their dressing room so they may have seen us!!
The doors finally opened at 5.30 ish after we had a bit of an argument with the security guard who then threatened to let the Portuguese in first but it was actually the Austrian guy that got through first then me. We ran down some steps and there was nobody about to stop us running! Got to more steps and I could then hear footsteps behind me, it was Jamie overtaking me. I shouted 'Run like hell' to her and I have never seen anyone run so fast in all my life!! We had to run through the seats at the back of the stadium- all of this I found hard because of my flip flops then we got on the flat ground of the stadium and I did my best to catch up!! We all got to the front row of the catwalk and turned round to see all the Portuguese just walking in!!!! The stadium took ages to fill up and we could easily wander off and get back to our place. We all bought some drumsticks and Andrea and Alessia were banging them against the barrier so hard, it was hurting my head. Met two women behind us who were Paul Rodgers fans and actually knew Paul so we chatted to them for ages. A random bloke arrived and said he has just seen us on TV from his hotel room! Turns out Terry was a mad fan from the UK and did all the summer shows! I was feeling bad and had to sit down through the support band. Queen finally arrived on stage at 9.30pm when it was just getting dark! The catwalk was long so we were quite way back (as I was telling Roger the night before!) but the show was great! I was texting Vern and Didy with the setlist all the way through and they were keeping everyone on QOL updated! LOL!
The set list was:
The set list was one of the standard ones and nowhere near the length of Belfast and Dublin which I felt was quite disappointing but I loved the atmosphere at the gig! We managed to forget the condoms but did told up our flag which they spotted!!!
After the gig, we were all just so tired from the night before, we just went home and to bed!!
Alessia and I got up about 8 and had breakfast! As we were about to get the life back to the room, Queen came on and we screamed. The cleaner rushed round the corner to see if we were ok!!! We wandered round the centre of Lisbon for the day and went to a café. Spotted a bloke with a Queen t-shirt on and he came and sat with us for a while talking about Queen! Jamie then turned up as she had missed her plane and was stuck in Lisbon! More fans walked into the café so we said hi to them, then Jamie, Alessia and I went on tram to an Internet café! How sad!!
Alessia and I then had to go and get our plane. Got to the departures lounge and bumped into the guys we met at the bands hotel on the Friday night! They had seen Brian and Paul in the swimming pool (not Roger though!) and had seen them all at breakfast and stuff! Ahhhhhhhhh! They though we were mad for queuing from 7.30am!! Had a good flight back then drove back from Heathrow and got in at midnight!! Exhausted!