Saturday – 23rd August – Tour Diary
It felt like we hadn’t been to sleep when the alarm went off at 5am but we had to crawl out of bed and get checked in for our flight. It was a very bleary eyed group of cast who were greeted by some fans at the airport! Hope we didn’t look too bad!
On to the plane and we managed to get another hour or so of shut eye before we touched down at Heathrow where we had to wait forever for our luggage. We finally got it all and hopped into our van and drove into the city for some breakfast at a greasy diner.
Then we drove to the Hippodrome and went in the back door where we were greeted by David Longman the International Brand Manager for Cloud 9. He and Hannah Butler had arranged the event and they talked us through the schedule and made sure that we were settled into our dressing rooms before they went off to continue getting everything organised.
We took a seat on a couch and suddenly Matt came in the door! We hadn’t seen him for a few months so there was a lot of hugging going on. It was wicked to see the Mattdogg again!
We got into our cossies and slapped on the make-up and then went downstairs to the basement. We stepped onto a platform and suddenly we were being raised up to meet the crowd. What an awesome feeling! We were so excited and could hear the crowd screaming for us. We erupted up onto the stage in a blaze of flashing lights and dry ice and it was just amazing; something we will never forget.
The day was fantastic, we got to meet so many fans and were glad to see some familiar faces again. People like CK, Rhiannon, Rhyss, Sophie, Regan, Michaela, Laura, Calissa, Shabbs, Carly, Keana and Sara. And we got to meet plenty of new people too.
We were amazed to see that so many people had dressed up and it was really hard when we had to choose just 20 (we made it 21 actually) fans to come up on stage. We were particularly impressed by Spider from Leeds who was in drag as Ebony. Nice pair of legs Spider! We thought the set-up for the day was so cool because there was a huge screen behind the stage and we all got to watch the latest episode of The Tribe on it as well as the footage shot earlier this year when we toured round Europe, Scandinavia, The Netherlands and the UK. All the fans screamed every time they saw something they liked and it was an electric atmosphere. Matt got set up behind the piano and did an awesome job performing 3 songs in front of the crowd. He has a fantastic voice and it sent tingles up and down our spines.
Meryl also performed 2 songs from the Abe Messiah CD and she really got the crowd going. It was great to see the fans singing along from the littlies all the way up to the older generation.
We got to relax for a while and watch the Youth Create team perform their 4 minute drama based on The Tribe and they did such a cool job. We’re really excited about something called Tribe Community which we are hoping will be introduced to all schools throughout England very soon. We’ll let you know more about it when we can. Carol and her group of 5 cast members did such a good job and it got us a bit worried to think that these guys could take
over from us quite easily!!
We also got to listen to a speech made by Heather from UNICEF and we’re pleased to announce that several thousands of pounds were raised at the Gathering for UNICEF! We’ll fill you in on the work that The Tribe and UNICEF hope to do together soon as well.
The raffle tickets sold like hot cakes and there were some cool prizes to be won. Sophie went away with a Chosen outfit (which she promptly put on).
Other prizes included a signed script and episode on video, a signed Mall Rats book and a Techno zapper. After signing autographs we had to choose the Fan of the Day but it was so
hard to decide that we settled on one guy (who won a Techno mask) and one girl (who won a Mozzie mask). The 2 fans came from Northern Ireland and Holland and we were amazed that people had travelled so far just to see us! In fact there were fans from Germany, Denmark and France at the Gathering as well. We felt humbled by that but so pleased that it was an event that everyone could take part in.
Wow, what an amazing day. So much fun and so much support from everyone who made it there. Sorry to see that Amanda, Laura and The Mole couldn’t make it and we know that many others couldn’t make the journey either. We were so blown away by the event that we’re sure that we’ll hold more in the future so we hope to meet many more of you at Gatherings soon.
Time to head back to the hotel and we managed a quick change before we headed to dinner at Pizza Express with some competition winners and their families. What a cool bunch of guys! We had such a good time with everyone and Saranne talked about Johnny Depp the whole time with one of the mothers!
Back to the hotel for a cup of tea and a calm down in the bar after a wonderful day.
Thanks so much to those of you who made it to the Gathering and to everyone who helped get it all planned and co-ordinated. Special thanks though must go to David who worked so hard to get everything organised and for being such a great M.C.
Tribe Tour 2003 – Bringing The Dream To The World…