Well... I have to admit that's my first experience of writing so long tale in English! Hope it will be interesting! ;)
25th October was the day full of nerves for all of Darren's fans here in Russia. That situation with terrorist attack (I was really surprised that it was shown on your TV!) and that morning news saying that one house near Darren's hotel had crashed, and the news about one of our subway stations that was mined (it wasn't really!) made me nerves as hell!!! I guess Darren's feeling wasn't better! But (thank God!) the concert wasn't canceled.
The show was supposed to start at 8 p.m. but I decided that I should get to New Arena (it's one of the biggest concert halls in our city, there musical performances usually take place) earlier to have a chance to make some photos or at least to see Darren's arriving. And so I missed my studies at Academy and came there at about 4 p.m. (isn't that crazy?!). Many of fans were already there including people from DarrenHayes.Ru (one of Darren's Russian sites) forum (and many of them came from other cities so I have a chance to meet people whom I knew only by net). So we were chatting ... and waiting... It was awfully cold... and security guys were rather rude (when we tried to ask something about Darren they told us that they don't know anything so "would you, girls, just go away?"). Oh My God!!!
Darren's group arrived first. The crowd was already excited - all the people were taking photos, screaming and so on... And finally that moment came - Darren arrived there in a small white bus! Darren came to the barrier to greet the fans, he was smiling charmingly. (I love his smile!!!) He was looking like ordinary guy, wearing simple jeans and coat. (On my point of view, his dress wasn't warm enough!). The crowd went really crazy! And I should say it wasn't good scene - all these girls were screaming, pushing each other, trying to get closer to Darren! In fact he was even scared by that way of showing fan's love! I don't understand why suddenly singer's autograph became more important than his personality, his music... Why do people act as if he is not a human being, but just a machine producing photos and signatures? I was really a bit upset by that incident!
Some time later I decided to go to main entrance. It was nearly 7 p.m. I walked in, showed my ticket and (to my big surprise!) no one checked my bag on subject of having photo or video camera! So I have a chance to take some photos! But my concert photos're not very good... :(
I had a ticket to dancing stalls so I had to do my best to get the place in the front row. And finally I found myself in second row at the right side of the stage right in front of the boosters. Better than nothing actually. In a few minutes I realized that I would not be able to get out of crowd now, even if I wanted to.
We had to wait about an hour before... THE SHOW FINALLY STARTED!
The lights went down and Specificus started their performance... The crowd went just wild!!! I'm not sure I could describe my own feelings - Robert and Matt were playing like... it was simply fantastic!!! And they both had the expression of great pleasure on their faces! The crowd really loved their music, especially remix on "Dirty" and "Do you believe" :)
And then... Darren came on stage... He went out in complete darkness, wearing his casual jeans, leather coat and sunglasses. His view was saying something like "Hey, I was just walking by..." The one single light lightened his figure on stage and he started singing... "Creeping up on you... It's a wrong thing to do..." Everyone was screaming like crazy, clapping hands, pushing and pulling to get closer to him, cheering, crying... Whatever... THEY WANTED HIM. And they LOOOOVED him. The crowd became one whole creature, which was there to feel the music, to get into it, to hear the amazing voice. And my first thought (when I get the ability to think) was "Oh. My. God. I can't believe that it's really happening with me!!!" I knew that Darren sings perfectly live but... I wasn't even expecting he could sing THAT amazing! The song sounded much better than on record! As one of my friends said about Darren after the show: "He looked like average guy from the neighborhood and sounded like a god."
The next songs were "Heart Attack" and "Dirty". Darren was jumping, running from one side of stage to another, falling on his knees and didn't stop singing amazingly even for a second! The song sounded really LOUD especially for me who was standing just near the boosters! At the middle of "Dirty" Darren screamed "Thank you!" and then "Spasibo!" (It's "thank you" in Russian)! I thought: "Oh God! Did he really say that?!" It was really nice!
"Strange Relationship" followed. I should say by that moment it was VERY popular song on our local radio stations, ¹1 in many charts. The whole stadium started singing... That was amazing! I can't even imagine Darren's feelings at that moment - then 10000 people are singing as one! The first thing Darren did was... He sang the first phrase of the song: "Do you love me?" and stopped. The whole crowd yelled: "YYEEAAHH!!" He smiled and continued singing ;)
The next song was "Insatiable". Darren performed acoustic version of it. I was standing there thinking: "How could he sing like that???" Some of his notes were even higher and longer than on record! For one moment I had feeling that it's only dream... that I'm just sleeping... So beautiful...
After that Darren took the chair on stage, sat down and started talking... He said something like "You know... many bad things are happening in our world. I'm talking about situation with hostages in Moscow. May be war is not the best way to solve problems, may be we should try to find another decision..." Oh, he was SO right!!! I wish everyone had the same point of view on that problem!!! And then Darren started singing the acoustic part of the show... "To the Moon and Back" was first. I should say it was the most beautiful version of it that I'd ever heard! And again the whole crowd was singing with Darren! Unfortunately he sang only one verse of the song.
He also sang "The Lover After Me ", "Santa-Monica"(during that song Darren asked: "Would you sing with me?" and we did actually!) and... jazz version of "Chained to you"! "Chained to you" sounded so... strange... unfamiliar... that frankly speaking I didn't recognized it till Darren sang the last line "I wanna be chained to you"! Oh, I love that guy!!! He knows how to keep public amused!
"Good Enough" was next song... What can I say? I fall in love with that song at the moment I heard it for the first time on album! And acoustic live version of it is just incredible!!! Btw, he sang "I can be caught dancing to Kylie" ;)
But then Darren screamed: "Are you ready for the party? Put your hands together now!" (I should say that it wasn't easy for me to do it coz I was holding my camera in one hand ;)) And "I Want You" started. During I Want You (absolutely love this version with Nelly's "it's getting hotter here, so take off all your clothes") Darren started running from one side of the stage to another, asking people to support him, showing that with his hands and in fact trying to find out who were "his party people". I can proudly say that our side of the stadium with proper honors was given a title of the "Official Darren's Party People" at the end of the song!
The next song was "Crush" with a bit of Madonna's "Holiday" in the middle of it! I really love it! And I'm in fact interested what does Madonna think about Darren's singing one of her songs? ;) Then Darren was singing the line "... the memory remains... And the melody's inside my heart" I thought that I'll remember this concert for the rest of my life!
"I Miss You" followed. Darren picked up young girl from the crowd and they were sitting at the edge of the scene, he was holding her gently... Oh, how nice! I'll bet that every girl in the crowd wished to have that chance! (I'm not exception!) As I know that girl was the last "I Miss You Girl" during European part of Darren's tour. And, btw, I know her from that forum on DarrenHayes.Ru, her name is Helen.
Next moment in the show was very interesting for me coz Darren took the guitar and said "This is "What you like". He started playing and looked very serious ;) I must admit that his playing is rather good! May be it sound strange, but when I was looking at Darren during that song I had a thought that he looks like Daniel in some way! And I love that song!!!
When WYL ended, Darren waited for a few seconds till the crowd come down a little, and when he started singing again in almost complete silence, without music. He sang Bob Marley's "I Wanna Love You". It was the most INCREDIBLE moment in the whole show!!! Hearing Darren singing like that was... I bet the whole auditorium was shocked - I've never heard anyone singing better then that. They all should've leaved the concert with strong feeling they are now his fans! I was standing there breathless... Wishing that moment could last forever... Oh God, this couldn't be real!!
Then "Affirmation" started... During the song we all were repeating all that Darren was doing - he was holding his hands as a heart - and we were doing it too and so on... At the end of the song Darren really said "Good Buy! Thank you!" and left the stage... I thought: "What??? No, Darren, you can't leave now!!! What about the rest of the songs?!!!" And I guess the rest of the crowd had the same feeling coz they all were screaming, clapping hands and so on...
But in a few minutes Specificus came on stage again! They started playing the musical part of "I'll bet he was cool" The crowd went crazy (again!) And then Darren returned on stage, wearing black T-shirt and knitted cap. The song was GREAT, fantastic, really: the performance, the dance (who can't dance? Darren can't dance?!), the emotion, the idea of the song... Yes, Darren was dancing so.. sexy... I thought: "Oh, he drives me completely crazy!"
After that enthusiastic performance one more ballad started. That was "I Knew I Loved You". I'm afraid I can't describe public's reaction!!! It's clearly understandable - this song is one of SG's most popular (at least in our country!). "Truly Madly Deeply" followed. It's my favorite song forever! It's the first SG's song I heard and it's the reason I became their fan!!! It was so incredibly pleasant to hear Darren singing "and when the sun is shining brightly in the Russian sky" in Truly Madly Deeply! We were waiting for it for so many years, and now when he sang that, the good half of audience started screaming!
The last song was "Spin"... it felt just unbelievable! A bit sad coz it was last song but absolutely amazing!!! As Darren said these two songs ("Spin" and "Affirmation") got the whole new meaning for him in our country... And I agree with it! During the song I was thinking about recent terrible events in Moscow... Oh God, I wish the music to be able to change people's minds! I just LOVE Darren because of his trying to make people a little more kind and generous, because of love he's adding to my (and not only my!) life! If the whole world could just stop for the moment and listen to "Spin"! Who knows, may be life will became better? Oh, sorry, that's just my ideal dream...
But... Darren sang the last line of the song... said "Thank you! See you next time! (I hope he will!)" and went off the stage... The show was over... The best show ever... I'll never forget it! Thank you, Darren, for giving me one of the best days of my life!!!