Hugh Laurie in Manchester – 7 May 2011

Warning: This post contains pictures of Hugh in a hat, but they’re sized down for your safety. Clicking for a bigger picture is at your own risk.

Right. My Hugh Laurie trip story.

I live in The Netherlands, but I went to Manchester to see Hugh Laurie in concert there. There were a couple of my (best) internet friends going there too (Steph and Mary), so we were excited about going and meeting each other. Actually we wanted to go to the Hugh Laurie concert in London, but we didn’t get tickets at the presale and the tickets at the regular sale sold out in 4 minutes!!! Afterwards it was better, because Mélanie and Olivia were also going to Manchester :)
We were discussing which concert we then wanted to go to, when we found out that the Manchester tickets were already on sale (we thought the sale started at 13:00 not 11:00) and we managed to get the last 3 tickets on a row. It was a real madness, because you could buy only 2 tickets per person and the third ticket we wanted disappeared! But it reappeared luckily ^^

Well, I met my friends on Thursday 5 May who were just as nice as they appeared online, but I shan’t bother you with stories about that.

Saturday 7 May
Concert day! We went shopping in the morning, ate lunch and then walked to the concert hall, where we arrived around 16:30. I still could hardly believe that Hugh Laurie was going to be there in a couple of hours and the fact that it wasn’t announced with posters anywhere didn’t help either. When we were eating we kept a close eye on a hallway which led to the hall and every time I saw a security guard or somebody with walkeetalkies I could feel the excitement in my stomach. We finished our dinner quickly and went to meet Olivia and Mélanie who were already there. We sat outside where we thought that Hugh Laurie was going to park before the soundcheck and just talked about Hugh, House and other things in the mean time ^^ There were a couple of other people waiting there too (2 from Ireland and some people who get autographs to sell them on the internet), but we were by far the biggest Hugh fans. I can’t remember exactly when, but we saw people running to the right, so we ran too and… HUGH WAS THERE! People were getting autographs and pictures, but I was just so stunned that all I could do was stare. I did turn my camera on while running, but my mind went blank and I didn’t take any pictures. Luckily Steph could think and made two pictures:


I actually believe that Hugh is looking at me in the first picture, because I was standing somewhere in that direction and he did look at me briefly! This didn’t help of course to getting control of my limbs back.
So we were standing only meters away from Hugh, but he said that he had to go inside and that he would come back later. My mind was still blankish, so I couldn’t ask if we could just have a quick picture. I’ve never been so speechless before. I’m actually a bit shy, but usually my mind isn’t blank ;) So Hugh was gone and my daydreams of being cool while talking to Hugh casually were shattered. I also fear now that I won’t be able to speak or move when I meet a band member of U2 of which I’m a bigger fan than Hugh Laurie.
We waited at the door until the doors for the concert opened and still hoped that Hugh Laurie would come back, because we weren’t with that many and Simon (who turned out to be the stage guy/waiter) said that he would talk to the security guys. After a while a guy who arrived later said that Hugh Laurie was walking up the stairs (there were windows), but at first we didn’t believe him, because he joked before that Jesse Spencer would be there. So when I did look he was almost out of sight. Almost :)
The next time we saw Hugh was at the concert ^^
We were far away, but so close.
I made some pictures, but it was hard to keep my hands from shaking, so most of them turned out blurry, but these are the best ones:

Blues and Jazz is not music I listen to a lot, but I love Hugh’s album and everything was just better live! EV-E-RY-THING. The band was truly amazing. There were some incredible guitar/saxophone/bass solos. And Hugh’s speeches and faces: loved them.
I made one video of Swanee River:

At the end of the last song, we rushed to the door where Hugh Laurie would come for autographs and we were practically on the first row!!! I had a House t-shirt with me (Bird Brain) which I wanted Hugh to sign. Well first the equipment was moved into a van and a little later a guy came out saying something like “It’s raining so Hugh Laurie….” I couldn’t listen to the rest, because Hugh was standing next to him and made a silly face! Again: all I could do was stare, but when the people started to get autographs I held my t-shirt over somebody else and he recognized it!!!! He said “Wow…” and found a spot to sign. I got my t-shirt back, walked to somewhere quieter and then I dared to look at it :P It is so awesome!! ^^ I’m completely happy :D

My insanely awesome t-shirt!!!

We all got autographs!!!

We saw Kevin Breit the guitarist walking somewhere near the van and made a little chat with him and he signed my t-shirt too! :)
When Hugh was gone, we bought some more dinner and went to our hotel to watch the videos and especially this one:

Oh it was so nice AWESOME to go to a concert with fellow fans ^^
Now I really want to go to another concert, but that might be a while.

Conclusion:

1. Hugh Laurie is AWESOME!
2. I’m a bigger Hugh Laurie fan than I thought (it really makes me wonder how I’ll react if I ever meet U2, because I’m the biggest fan of them) and seeing and ‘meeting’ him made me a bigger fan.

EDIT:
Oh and here’s a photo of HUGH LAURIE SIGNING MY T-SHIRT!!!

The blond girl in the middle? That’s me! :D

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