Sade in Poland 11/11/11

By Malwi (well as you see I’m here to write about the music LOL)

So you all must know that I’m a music freak … I love THE sound … :) So when I heard that one and only SADE will be in my city just few streets from my home I had to be there but…. Tickets were already sold out ;/ … that was not a good news !!! … but if you keep believing in something this WILL happen, coz those small things and little angels around you will make all to make your dream come true!!! Here is the story of really great show and amazing time I had with Hanna and her sis Dominica on a magical day 11.11.2011 in my hometown Lodz, Poland.

So now a few words about the concert.
Unfortunately it was delayed due to some technical problems. They say online that some of the trucks had problems on their way from Moscow, they were stopped in Belarous. The concert was delayed by 2h. The arena was supposed to be opened at 6PM but eventually they let us in over 1,5h later and it was freezing outside ( it was -5C) . We got a good look from the top to the whole stage and the seats. All the tickets were sold out like three months before show. No chance to buy any. The arena is huge, maybe not as massive as the ones in the US or UK or not as huge as some Open-Air concerts,  but still amazing view, especially when all those people were already seated. Plus, we have never been to a concert where you sit before! When we got the tickets we wondered how it would be because it showed the row number and seats and before that we had thought we would stand on the floor in front of the stage. Picking the tickets is a funny story. We got amazing tickets thanks to one Guardian Angel ;) who was nice enough to make our dream come true ! (ps: THANK YOU again ) We went there earlier to check whether they were at the pick up point but these girls looked strangely at us and wanted to know through which company we ordered them. But I kept saying we are friend's guests. Anyway, later in the evening we went there again and the tickets were there. We were SO VERY happy :) We were SO close to the stage , very close!!!

That was SADE’s first concert in our country. When she came out on the stage for the first time she said: "We have waited for this moment for years. I know that you have waited long in the cold. Today we'll do what we have the best. For you, Poland, you deserve!". She greeted the audience like this. Everything about the concert itself was perfect: the music, the stage, the outfits, the 3D effect. We love her music now and her voice. Never had we seen something like this before, you know when this thin curtain goes down and images are displayed on it then behind you saw the band and behind them there were other images. Something totally awesome! It gave the effect as if they were really in that forest for example. WOW. And there were these movies displayed on the screen, like Sade running in a garden. Another great thing was that the stage was not the same all the time. Once there were these 3d images, then there were these red curtains and she changed her outfit and gave the impression of some New Orlean's jazz club, the stage all in red. Then also the images of NY buildings (think it was NY) and shadows of the band in these images. Plus how the hell did she manage not to fall from this huge box at the very end of the concert? (see the photos bellow)  It was high and she still was dancing there!

About the music - well her voice is extraordinary, that's the truth. She can modulate so perfectly. One guy from the back chorus was funny, he was swinging to the music in a very expressive sort of way. LOL. And about the saxophone guy, Stewart with "Is it a crime" WOW, he has some great lungs there. Everybody was taken aback after his show. Real MAGIC!!! And then with "Paradise" and "Nothing Can Come Between Us" ha nobody was seating at that time. Everybody was swinging and dancing. "Soldiers of love" "Love is found" "Smooth Operator" "Kiss of Life' "NoOrdinary Love" these are the songs that people loved the most also the beautiful ballad "Jezebel" and "Pearls”. And the comments we have read online are all positive about the show.  Everybody who was seated on the ground floor just stood up and danced. No seats for Polish people next time ;) We love dancing and having fun during such concerts. And people behaved really awesom. They all enjoyed this performace.

We must admit I’m still speechless after Sade concert ! If that is even possible I LOVE her music even more now . She proved what a great singer she is !!!! And the band is AWESOME !!! She gave awesome show . She begged and thundered, mocked, and bubbled over with anger  this emotional storm reported only by her voice , and in a moment perfectly flat, once childishly sensitive, and in a moment full of supernatural power. The audience stopped breathing, and when the song ended awarded artist – and this thing is extremely rare - a long standing ovation. These few minutes will surely go down in history of Atlas Arena in Lodz .
In two hours we heard 22 songs Sade danced on the stage quite a few minutes and the crowd several times were dancing too . I think that the audience loved most obviously hits: “Soldiers of love’ , “Love is found” , "Smooth Operator," "Kiss of Life", "No OrdinaryLove", the beautiful ballad "Jezebel" and "Pearls." But I can be wrong of course  All were saying that was amazing and all the comments online are great too .
All those awesome Visual effects In "Morning Bird" and in “Bring me home” WOW we were speechless ! It was like 3D live , truly amazing view !!!

Sade  dressed up couple of times ( three if I have good memory )  - the last time before the encore. And it was  "Cherish the Day". The column what is hidden in the full stage elevators and trap it was a few meters above the rest of the musicians,  she threw the audience a few smiles in farewell. We will remember her like that  - at the top. :)

All in all that was magical time we had a blast !!!

The ticket.

Hanna, her sister Dominika and me with our tickets.

The arena inside. We got there before all.

The stage was really huge.

During the concert it was packed with people. Our setas were downstairs.

What you see behind us is the stage. We were THAT close and in the center. BEST.SEATS.EVER.

And here we go. We saw everything that well!

One of the best moments were the videos shown on the big screens.

That was pretty scary. When it went up we all thought she was going to fall. But she kept dancing. Amazing.

HA. I got to check this "studio". Great job there!

Some of the things fans could buy from the concert. The next day we saw some people walking round my city in such Tshirts. :)

Thank you for reading !!! :) M

London - random

01:50 am. Everyone's sleeping in Europe, except me. I am already in my zombie holiday mode meaning no sleep or very little. Looks like there are more zombies walking on this planet ;)

Continuing the topic of 2009 and our trip to London I decided to post just some random photos from London. These come from a walk along the Thames with our friends. The promenade is called The Queen's Walk. We jumped out on St. Paul's Cathedral tube station. As you can see Malwi was very happy - she was a totaly London fresher.

Such pianos were placed in different parts of the city. Everyone could just sit and play though I am not quite sure our friend, Lizzy knew what she was doing at that time ;)

HA. This one I took on the Millennium Bridge. Kinda nice. Tate Modern gallery in the back.

Walking down the Millennium Bridge. St. Paul's Cathedral in the background. Such a great sight. 

Passing Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Been there to see some plays even. Will write some other time.

Snacks, anyone? 

Malwi will so kill me tomorrow for posting this photo here. I think it's lovely. Malwi 2009 edition, here we go! The Tower Bridge in the background.

And our friend Izzy, contemplating the views.

all photos taken by me.

Hanna

"A Doll's House" stage door

 by Hanna 

As promised yesterday - stage door memoirs today.

The stage door took place after the play. Downstairs in the theatre's hall. Since it is not the most spacious place on Earth it was always packed with fans. There were, however, ways of getting yourself at the very begining of the line...

You must be aware of is the fact that when the play finished all the actors were already gone from the stage but they came back after a very short while. The theatre itself, the actual stage is on the first floor, the circle (the upstair seats) are on the second floor. The actors' dressing room was also located on the first floor and they used the same entrance from the hallways to the theatre room which was used by the audience. 

The first time we went there we did not know that the actors would return. We left the room couple of minutes earlier to wait downstairs. While climbing down we almost hit with the actors in the hallway. 

On the third floor there is a bar. One day our friend, Eva, pretended to be sick. After the break in between te acts we did not go inside the room but to the bar. There was a TV showing wat was going on on the stage so we did not miss a thing from the play. Some minutes before the audience left the room we had gone downstairs and waited for the stage door to start. Then Malwi came with our other friends and took their positions. ha. 

While writing this a thought hit me. If we had seen the play on a tv screen then they must have recorded it somehow. Why won't they release it as a DVD???

The hallways of DW on the ground floor. There is nothing special really downstairs. Just a cash desk and stairs. There are, however, huge photos on the walls from the theatre's plays. 

On our first day in London we all went to see the theatre's location and to check how does the stage door look like. We simply stood outside and here are the photos taken by us. This little gentleman could perfectly find himself in the role of giving autographs. Though maybe for him it was more of a fun than a job duty. 

And he truly was a lovely boy. ("was" because I am describing events from 2009 and I do not know whether this boy is still lovely. LOL. ;)))

Here is another photo taken from the outside. You can clearly see there is already little space inside to put a needle. 

Mind you - THE flip flops. How many pairs does she exactly have of this particular design? She has already auctioned some of them and still has other pairs...

GA signing photos, books, etc. The only thing she did not sign were photos and stuff X Files realated. So whenever you meet her and want an autograph, try to have something about her new project, the one you came to see. 

Our friend, Eva, had one very shameful moment in her stage door career. While GA was going from one fan to another Eva's mobile phone rang. Such an embarassement because her ringone was the opening motive from XF. You can imagine the panic in her eyes while trying to switch the damn phone off. Someone even told her "this is so embarassing" LOL

GA in her pinky coat during one of the stage door. The hairdo is what I call "an artistic mess":)

Another stage door photo. Us already waiting in a line and GA coming downstairs with the theatre worker who was collecting all the gifts from fans to Gillian. Can you actually see in this photo how small GA is? 

You can see here how tired GA must have been after the plays. And on some days she did 2 plays. One in the afternoon around 2PM and the second one in the evening.

This is a moment when me and my friend, Eva were giving GA a gift. And if I asked you here if you have any idea on what we had given her, I am pretty sure many of you would be wrong. I do not remember all the gifts we managed to bring. I will tell you about the two most important. The first one was a scrapbook with crazy photos from the Polish fanbase. The second gift was a total under the moment gift, however as we learnt the following days GA liked it. In a nicely decorated bag she could find Polish Vodka.

Gillian's reaction after having the bag inspected. ;)

 One of the funniest moments of the stage door. Everytime after it, Mark G. came to pick GA up from the theatre. Here she had to take a small break in order to answer his call and suddenly everybody went so quiet, except me, of course. I said something like: "such a private convo in the public" and all gathered there laughed. By the way, the bag you are seeing in this photo is, as all Xphiles assume, one of Gillian's favourites. She has travelled with her on numerous occasions.

Here, GA signing our friend Em's copy of A Doll's House. And Malwi waiting for her turn. I know Malwi also brought a Polish version of Bleak House DVD. The title "Samotnia" in translation means A Lonely Place and GA tried to pronounce that. It was not like she did not sign any other stuff, not connected with the play. She did. Bleak House DVD? Not a problem. However, X Files related? Sorry, no autograph. 

Hey Malwi you know what? I have just realized that foreigners perfectly know how to spell your name. Because you all reading this must know that Malwi was not able to spell her full name "MALWINA" but somehow Gillian knew how to write it and spelled it for Malwi who had asked our friend "spell it!" ha ha. 

Hmm... and Mal later you will know another person who perfectly knew how to spell your name upon meeting you, right? 

Stage door was a real fun and we have plenty of memories to cherish. GA is a really cool person, however, only when you are OK and not overreacting. I am sure every fan knows her favourite word is "fuck". 

While in London we were told a story that one fan wanted to have GA's autograph so badly she ran after her  car! Then the car stopped, GA came out and just well let's just say that GA had a really dirty tongue at that particular moment. ;) Yeah, always remember celebs are also people. Treat them nice, huh? Not as objects. 

Thanks for reading and stopping by.

Ibsen's "A Doll's House" in Donmar Warehouse, London

by Hanna

Before I tell you something (though Malwi insists on much) about the whole play let me introduce you to the most magical theatre I have ever been to.
Donmar Warehouse located in the heart of London's West End. Can seat 250 people and is UK's leading producing theatres. These are some facts.

The sign on the building telling you "destination reached"

What you feel when you actually enter it cannot be described in words. The feeling is magical. It is so small inside that it gives the feeling of intimacy and direct contact with the actors on stage. ( and yes it is possible to touch the actor when you are seated in the first row. But never do it. Need to admit that our knees hurt a bit after seating there because of the lack of space between the seat and the stage).

This is how the theatre looks inside. Pretty small, huh? But so great. Utter perfection. The best seat I had was first row on the right as you are looking at the photo. One of the actors was articulating his lines in such a manner his saliva landed on some folks. (no, not me.). The actor was Christopher Eccleston (Dr Who number 9)
Mmm... maybe I should also tell you (and this! you won't find this in tourist guides) a bit about DW's bodyguard or manager was he? Anyway, very unpleasant guy. Disliked fans (even these well-behaved!), closed the door in front of their faces during stage door. Yeah, such people unfortunately also live on this planet :/ We baptised him "furry".

And if your next question is whether we checked the seats upstairs then the answer is - yes, we did. The view is amazing from there. Actually there is a funny story coming. During the first time we went to see the play we sat upstairs. Our friend, Em together with Malwi brought the actual book written by Ibsen to the play and they were checking the lines as Gillian was speaking. They were turning the pages, checking and decided she missed some lines, changed them or some of them she did not even say. I think both Malwi and Em were too loud in their activity. Some people from downstairs were giving them strange looks.

Back in 2008 the world of the X Files learnt the news that Gillian Anderson (from now on I'll be referring to her as GA, to much writing) will be the playing the lead character in Ibsen's A Doll's House. You have no idea (or maybe you do, I know some of our friends got to see her there as well) how great it felt being able to get the opportunity to see her on stage. And so we waited for any additional information to be released as to "when & where can we buy the freakin' tickets". Our Polish fan forum was well organised and we decided to attend as a group - go there together, sightsee London. After my X Files movie premiere review they were all very eager to attend such an event. All X-philes all over the world (literally! We met one girl who flew in from Australia just for a day (ONE DAY!!!) to see the play) were ready to attack the website with tickets. We had already checked the seating plan hundreds of times, searched through different theatre forums reading people's remarks about a particular seat - whether the view was good, etc. All very well planned logistically, I would say. I also remember that the tickets were supposed to be sold at a different time than they actually started selling them and me, the head of purchase departament, I was at work! Such a fail! However, upon arriving home I managed to get great seats for four different days. 

Day 1 - Circle. However the luckiest seat was A3 stalls. So whenever you will get the chance to visit DW pick that one. I still have the tickets! Safe & sound in a special magic box ;)

It was around November when we purchased the tickets and the play was the next June. HA! So many months to prepare the flights, etc. So let's just skip all these months that dragged mercilessly.

And we are in June 2009. London again. Beautiful city at this time of year. 

So as you know during the first time we say the play we sat upstair and saw everything from the bird's view. All was so great - the stage, the seating, the decoration, the actors, GA!!! FTW. As I recall well, GA was the first who entered the stage. She came right from the audience. If you just took a look at the first photo of this post. Yes, that one. As you see the stage is how GA saw it when she entered it in the first act. 

This is how the stage looked form upstairs. (photo not taken by us)

One day we came earlier and there was nobody seated yet. Em decided to go on stage and had this photo taken by Malwi. When the furry guy saw this he wanted to throw Malwi out of the theatre. LOL. I think she told him she did not understand any English. 

In short I will write you about the play. What we saw was a rewritten version of Ibsen's orignal. The story is placed in London and the names were also changed. A Doll's House is a story of a woman called Nora (GA), a married woman with two children. Her husband, Thomas has just become vice president of a bank. However, thins were not always so bright for her. Back in the past Thomas was ill and needed to go to southern Europe to recover. Nora took a loan from his friend, Kelman who worked in Thomas's bank. However, she forged her dying father's signature putting him as the loan's guarantor. For years Nora managed to pay the installments and all seemed fine until her friend, Mrs. Lyle, arrives one day asking Nora for a job in Thomas's bank. Mrs. Lyle can get this job, actually she can get Kelman 's job and he will loose his. Kelman  threatens Nora telling her that  Thomas  will learn about the forged signature. She is sure, however, that her husband will protect her when he learns the truth. How wrong she is!  Thomas is furious and has no intention of protecting his wife. In the meantime Kelman  withdraws from his plan. Nora already sees her marriage is not what she wanted and...

Well I guess you need to read it in order to learn what happened. The whole story is very interesting and you simply take the journey with Nora through her ups and downs.

A great applause should be given to the actors who put their hearts into the play. Let me introduce you to (from the left): Tara Fitzgerald (Mrs. Lyle), Maggie Wells (Annie, Nora's maid), Gillian Anderson (Nora), Toby Stephens (Thomas), Anton Lesser (Dr Rank), Christopher Eccleston (Kelman). (photo source: gilliananderson.ws) 

Photos from rehearsals. The first one I took myself from a the play's leaflet. 

The leaflet itself looks like this (still have it at home): 

Rehearsal time: GA & Toby Stephens

Photos from the play, found randomly online. All the actors were magnificent in their roles. GA, however, was ravishing. If you expected to see Scully here, you were so wrong in your judgement. 

GA with actors who played Nora's kids:  William Nye and Abby Negus. I recall them as very talented children.

This photo shows you the very begining of the first act. Nora walks onto the stage.

Christopher Eccleston and GA - "I want my money back"

GA. so many dresses and hairdos.

You will find more photos here: CLICK 

And more photos and videos here: CLICK

Nora has one enormous weakness - macaroons. Wherever she goes, she carries a tiny bag with her with macaroons. We even noticed Gillian pretending not to eat them on stage. She must have had enough of their sweetness and just pretended swallowing. I think the marshamallows she was given were just too sweet to eat every day in large quantities.

The whole cast, and I will reapeat myself, was truly amazing. Top acting. I would love to see it again though it is not possible. 

Oh, I have just been reminded that Malwi and our friends went the 5th time to see the play. I did not. I headed to visit my friends in other part of the city. The 5th time was the second in one day. No seats were available at that time and they had standing places. upstairs. 

pssst: I am really sorry to finish this post like this. I blame REM. Will be back tomorrow with part 2. Stories behind the scenes or rather behind the curtain and stage door memoirs! stay tuned.