Manchester 4 May 2005

Got up at 6am to try and be ready for 7am but it was more like 7.30am when we left. 4 people having a shower in a tiny hotel room is not a great idea! Luckily it only took us 2 hours to get to Manchester and we parked up next to the arena and joined the queue! The usual people were there and a new person called James who was SO excited to there! We also met some people from Malta who were fantastic! Someone brought the sandwich trolley round to us when we were queuing and we stocked up on crisps and chocolate!! After trying to find out which was the best place to queue, we all decided to move inside and queue there! We sang Queen songs and played charades to pass the time and Michelle went to in to town to buy condoms to throw at Roger later- and they were ‘get 3 for 2’!! Gavin and I went for a walk at lunchtime to get food and when we got back he pinched my plastic fork and used it for charades- he snapped it in half and threw it – breakthru!!!

Jen and Michelle went round the back at 3 and after a while Jen rang us to say the security gates had opened so Trina and I went round the back. I was car spotting but every car looked like it might be it but no! What seemed like ages after, Brian turned up- The Maltese guy managed to block my view with a banner but I managed to get down underneath it to see!! LOL!! He was so funny and seemed to think that I was mad!! Then we had to wait for Roger! Jen went to the other side of the road but Trina and I weren’t sure but when Roger did turn up he got stuck behind one of the tour buses and we could see he wasn’t on our side so Trina and I had to run across the road in front of tour bus which luckily didn’t run us over!! We waved and shouted to Roger and think that he waved back!!

Went back to the queue- Gavin made a stage out of condoms to show people the layout!

He then went to sleep in a sleeping bag for a while!

Some random 18 year old chave came up and started saying things about Freddie being dead so Gavin took the piss out of him and he walked off singing ‘I want to break free’. Time passed then some idiots arrived and pushed in the queue and everyone crushed to the front. When they finally opened the doors most of us were still in the front when we got through to the next bit of the queue where they gave us wristbands. Now about 4 queues had formed and we were worried that another door would open before us but they actually turned out to be quite organised and slowly walked all the people down the stairs at the same time and we ran to the front- some people got grabbed by the security guards but I just escaped and had to walk the last section. Gavin and I reached the barrier first and just collapsed. I was so stressed by that point and it took me ages to calm down but we all made it to the front of the cat walk!!

The set list was:

Reaching Out
Tie Your Mother Down
I Want To Break Free
Fat Bottomed Girls
Wishing Well
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Say Its Not True
39
Love Of My Life
Hammer To Fall
I’m In Love With My Car
Gtr Solo

Last Horizon
These Are The Days Of Our Lives- Oh yeah!!!!!!
Radio Ga Ga
Can’t Get Enough
A Kind Of Magic
I Want It All
Bohemian Rhapsody
Peter Kay and Paddy from Max and Paddy!? turned up and sang a bit of Amarillo- this was our tour song and we had been singing it in the queue since Brixton) I went totally crazy and was totally in shock!!)

Under Pressure (I was in tears at this point- so totally overwhelmed with it all- first our queue song then the first time we ever hear Under Pressure and Roger sang most of it- AMAZING!!!)
All Right Now

We Will Rock You
We Are The Champions

I was lucky enough to have Paul and Brian look at me during the show but not Roger (he never does!!)

After the show, we went round the back to see if anything was going on but it wasn’t so we went back to James’s hotel and had drink and talked about the gig! God I needed that beer! Slept on a matress on their hotel room floor in my clothes! Dead to the world!!