A London Weekend: One Direction 'Where We Are' concert at Wembley Stadium

In 2012, the Shrimp (also known as Holly, my sister) and I went to see One Direction on their first tour, Up All Night. We were ridiculously close to the stage and it was awesome.

A year later we managed to get even more sought-after tickets to their Take Me Home tour. Our seats were further away (making us realise how lucky we'd been the previous year), but it was still awesome.

This year, 1D are doing their biggest tour yet - Where We Are, a massive tour of the biggest stadiums in the world - and Shrimpy and I very nearly didn't get to go. But we did. And it was awesome.

When tickets went on sale aaaaaages ago I knew I'd be on my year abroad but didn't know where I'd actually be, so we didn't try for tickets. Then the tour started, the photos, videos and promotion came out, and Shrimpleton and I got somewhat depressed that we weren't going this year.

So when we discovered extra standing tickets for the Wembley Stadium performances were being released, we decided to just go for it, despite how much the whole trip was going to cost.

SUCCESS! Le Shrimp got a pair of tickets and we were off to Wembley. I reluctantly (due to the price) booked my travel from London and back - Eurostar there and Megabus back. The former is expensive, the latter is so cheap. For £18, I got from London Victoria to the centre of Brussels in six and a half hours. Luckily Monday was a Belgian bank holiday!

Realistically, the journey was rather pleasant. There's wifi, sockets and a loo on the bus, I had plenty to read/watch/eat, and rather enjoyed travelling through England, France and Belgium.

And considering the super wonderful weekend I had in London, it was totally worth the travel costs.

So on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, I met up with Shrimple and we made our way to Wembley. Gates opened at 4.30pm, and knowing we didn't have set seats, we tried to get there as soon as we could.

The hardcore Directioners must've thought the same - at 4.30pm there were already massive queues into the venue.

Shrimp and I joined and were herded like cattle into the stadium. To be fair it was very well organised and there were tons of security to control the hysterical fans. We also got wristbands. YAY WRISTBANDS!

I'm pretty used to being one of the oldest fans at 1D concerts (who isn't a parent or guardian) by now. My fellow concert-goers were exactly who you'd imagine: clad in 1D clothes and jewellery, neon face paint revealing which member they heart most, and clutching banners.

We finally got into the stadium and ran to the best position left. It was nearly four hours before 1D were due on. And it was BAKING! Open-air stadiums are great though, and we were pretty lucky it didn't rain.

No problem, I sat down, whacked out my Belgian magazine, nommed my packed tea and waited. The Shrimp and I alternated trips out of the stadium, and when I ventured out I was amazed at how much food and drink was available! Snog froyo, brownies, smoothies, burgers, pizza, chips... It was all awfully tempting. But ridiculously expensive, unsurprisingly.

As the evening drew in, Wembley stadium filled up, and at just before 7pm, 1D's warm-up act, Five Seconds of Summer came on.

For a support act, these guys are pretty established. The Australian band of boys (they play instruments and thus make clear they're NOT a boyband, but rather a band of boys) have recently been nominated for "Best Newcomer" at this year's Kerrang! awards actually.

Usually at concerts barely anyone's heard of the support act. Not so with 5SOS, my friends. There were tons of tweens with banners and faces painted showing their support for the rock-pop group.

I didn't know much about 5SOS, but I liked them. I've listened to their biggest hit, She Looks So Perfect on repeat all day actually. The Shrimp was already a fan and so filled me in on their names, ages etc. They're all younger than me. That's depressing. And before you ask, no, not all of 1D are - Louis is in fact 22, duhh.

5SOS played a pretty long set, much to the audience's delight. And then it was back to the waiting. Throughout the night, security handed out cups of water (so great), and we had a particularly great security guy near us who was dancing and singing along to all the music videos shown on the screens in the run-up to 1D. He seemed to be a particular fan of Olly Murs. Rather entertaining.

Excited sister selfie

At around 8.15pm, it was finally 1D time. *SQUUEEEEAAAAAL*



Oh, what a show it was. Harry, Niall, Liam, Louis and Zayn gave a cracking performance as per. And, unsurprisingly, the audience lapped it up.

Niall

Louis

Harry

Zayn

Liam

It was a battlefield in the standing zone though, and Shrimpmeister and I sadly got separated. We could barely move but at least we could see.

As a tall woman, I thought I'd have a clear view over the heads of all the children. Not so, my friends. Teenagers be tall these days.

Watch out for the giant hand, Harry!

Excitingly, 1D came out on to a part of the stage in the middle of the stadium multiple times, and were thus close enough that I could practically make out every curl on Harry's beautiful head in detail.



At one point they even rose up into the sky.

It's amazing the power these guys have. One wave and the whole audience swoons.

They were their usual banterous selves, but there were fewer organised asides than in previous concerts. By that I mean no hilarious videos or questions from the audience, but they packed in the songs, obviously focussing on hits from their latest album. Have you heard any of their latest stuff? It has a totally different feel to their music from a couple of years ago. Much more grown up. Trust me.

Of course we were treated to the classics though - how could they not do 'What Makes You Beautiful'!?



Every girl (and a few guys) jumped and danced and screamed and sang along all evening as the sun set and day turned to night. Unfortunately I had a particularly vocal but sadly tonedeaf girl in my ear all night, but what can ya do? I'm no Mariah Carey myself.

To be honest, it seemed like we all watched half the concert through the screens of our phones and cameras. But personally, I love having photos and videos to look back on.

The whole concert was quite a spectacle.

There were fireworks, lasers, streamers and cool graphics throughout.

The guys were all dressed in black and white (black skinny jeans being the staple), but their current look is a massive contrast to their seemingly super-coordinated look from two years ago. I myself rather liked Harry's shirt, even if I have realised he dances round the stage in a somewhat camp manner. Still got big love though.

I, however, just about managed to control myself. The same cannot be said for all the Directioners in Wembley that evening. Many a girl had to be carried out due to uncontrollable tears or fainting. Srsly.



Fainting girls aside, we were apparently the best audience not just of all their Wembley performances (this was their third consecutive sold-out night in Wembley Stadium!) but of the whole tour, so I feel pretty proud. The 1D lads finished with the above adorable group hug. Cute.

You can't deny it's blimmin' impressive what they've achieved. And I think it's pretty cool to have been to each tour and seen them get bigger and bigger.

Pic from 1D's Facebook page

I'd never been before but Wembley Stadium is GINORMOUS!

1D just seem like nice guys. Simply by donating 50p from every ticket sold, they've raised £600,000 for the charity, Stand Up To Cancer. Pretty darn impressive and I'm really glad to have contributed.

To finish up, I'm going to leave you with this:

It's a mash-up of 1D's Kiss You and 5SOS's She Looks So Perfect and in my opinion it's AMAZING! I seriously love it.

God, I'm such a fangirl. I wonder when I'm going to grow up and stop loving 1D so much... Well, for now I'm a Directioner and proud.

PS Thanks to Shrimpy McShrimperton for letting me use some of her pictures in this post.

McBusted on tour and why they're awesome.

10 years ago, my younger sister Holly and I went to our first concert as a treat for her ninth birthday. The band in question were without a doubt the 1D of our childhood, the object of the posters covering Holly's walls (I was far too cool, ahem), the cheeky boys we wished were in our classes at school: Busted.

Taken along by our (considerably less excited) mother and with Holly's best friend too, that night in Birmingham was so much fun - I still remember certain parts. There was this unheard-of, new band called McFly as one of the support acts, and I decided there and then that I was a fan, going on to listen to their first album on my discman (those were the days, eh?) on repeat for MONTHS.

Yesterday, Holly and I went back to Birmingham (driving ourselves this time) to relive the glory days. And it was even better.

Let me tell you, McBusted were so worth coming back from Brussels for, and it's little wonder the tour has been a sell-out.



If you've been living under a rock for a few months and haven't heard of McBusted, well, I'm so sorry for your loss. McBusted are, obviously, a supergroup of McFly and Busted, except minus Busted's Charlie (he of the eyebrows, waaaaay before Cara).

I'm still kind of angry at Charlie for not joining in. No, not angry, just disappointed. He wasn't even my fave (that was James), but it just would've been that little bit better if the band were all together again.

That said, considering the show I saw last night, I'm not sure it could get much better.

In short: McBusted. Were. AWESOME!

We arrived at the NEC on a beautiful summery evening along with gaggles of girls similar in age to us, all as excitable as me 13-year-olds at a 1D concert.

Sure, there was the odd token male and even a few families with young children, which struck me as slightly odd. I don't deny that a trip to McBusted would make a nice family evening out, but I think the whole reason McBusted have taken everyone by storm is that they're mainly catering for all those girls (like Holly and I) who were heartbroken when Busted split up back in 2005. I just don't think audience members who weren't fans the first time round are going to have as much fun.

Still, we all took our seats, impatiently waiting for the show to begin. After a few warm-up bands who failed to impress me, IT WAS TIME! *squeal!*

When those men-acting-like-boys jumped out on stage (half from a flying car, of course - the Flux Capacitor, I imagine), 97% of the women in the audience turned back into girls. I know I spent the next hour and forty minutes acting like a hysterical pre-teen girl, and it was so so very much fun.

Tom, Danny, Dougie, James, Matt and Harry looked like they were having the time of their lives up there, and as a result, so did we. The boys ran around the stage like teenagers (Harry less so, being somewhat stuck to his drum-kit), played around, teased the audience, and threw in Busted jumps a-plenty, much to our delight.



They did all the hits and there was definitely more Busted than McFly - I love McFly too, but frankly, I think they knew what the audience mainly wanted. The atmosphere was amazing, and here's a little video of What I Go To School For just to give you the tiniest idea of the fun we had...



Ahhh it just makes me smile!

To be honest, I think part of the reason we love them all so much is that they're all kinda so lame that they're cool. (I like to think I am too but I'm probably just lame.) If you look at them now, they're such a mish-mash and don't look like they should go together as a group, yet somehow, they totally do. Watching a McBusted concert is like watching a load of mates having a laugh.

We love McBusted because they're weird and fun

The whole concert was such a show! They made it really entertaining, and so much more than just a concert. There were:

• Funny, clever videos (for example a parody of Tom's famous wedding speech video to lead into Crashed The Wedding)
• Light-up guitars
• Giant inflatable triple boobs (Busted fans will know what that's referring to)
• Dougie singing Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On in a hilariously high voice
• Dougie wearing a horse's head
• Matt in a wedding dress
• Fire, sparklers, confetti, streamers
• The boys hitting scrunched-up T-shirts out to the audience with tennis rackets
• An AMAZING dance routine to a Jackson Five cover (well, why not?) 

The dancing to the latter was actually one of the cutest things I've ever seen. 

Having a great time

The best part though? No question.

Mid-way through the concert, McBusted left the stage and we were shown a hilarious video of the guys dressed-up as hill-billies and other random characters (basically, they looked like idiots and just took the p*** out of themselves which was so funny) all claiming to have seen a UFO.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on the giant silver UFO-like thingy on the ceiling above the audience RIGHT NEXT TO HOLLY AND ME!

"OH MY GOD! THEY'RE GOING TO BE ON IT! THEY'RE COMING DOWN! OH MY GOD!" We screamed at each other and tried to remember to breathe.

And sure enough, McBusted descended on that UFO to perform three songs beautifully close to us, kicking off with - you guessed it - McFly's Star Girl.

Naturally, I got a bit over-excited and snap-happy...

Hey, Tom

JAMES!

I was particularly pleased as my old-fave James was riiiiight in front of us. Sometimes, as a girl, you don't really know why you love a certain boyband member more than the others, but you just do, don't you? (Who was your fave?)

Aaaanyway. After a thrilling three songs, the boys ran down off the space-ship, past our block and out of the arena. Luckily they were back on the main stage a few minutes later. Phew.

Very few people at concerts actually get to see the artists close up, and of course, that's not what it's all about, but it isn't half exciting.

For the rest of the night we danced and jumped and screamed and sang (I seemingly lost all ability to sing in tune, as one does) and generally forgot about everything going on in the real world. We were school girls again, even if we now understand the lyrics a lot more. 

Case in point: When Busted sing "You sleep around the town" in Who's David, I always thought they meant the girl in question was being a tramp and literally slept on the streets around the town (yes, I was a naive child). 21-year-old me now understands. 21-year-old me was also able to appreciate a topless Harry for the latter half of the concert. Just sayin', the audience was not complaining.

I think the reason we love them so much is because we loved them so much. Hearing the songs you grew up with and listened to over and over again is really comforting. You get nostalgic, and it makes you smile. Just like I do when eating Party Rings (you know, the biscuits that were a staple of every child's birthday party pre- the 'SUGAR IS YOUR ENEMY' days?) or watching Pocahontas.

Apparently McBusted are going to be releasing new, original material, so we'll have to see if they can woo us just like they've done by redoing the old classics (is it too much to call their hits classics?) we all love so much.

In my opinion, McBusted have used social media really well, both as a group and individually. They know that there's no better way to build up a fan base these days (hello, Directioners), and it's strange to think how different it might have been had Twitter been around ten years ago when Busted first appeared on the scene.

Well, Busted certainly didn't need social media to capture the hearts of a generation of girls, and judging by the screams from the audience last night, I think McBusted have done so all over again.

AlunaGeorge gig at The 100 Club, London

Aluna

London's fab, isn't it? As I'm doing work experience here at the moment (yet again), I'm jam-packing my lunch breaks and evenings with seeing people, visiting places and generally doing things. There's just so much going on!

So when I was very kindly offered a pair of tickets to an intimate AlunaGeorge gig on a night that I was actually going to be in London, not to mention at an oh-so-convenient venue just five minutes walk away from my current office, I of course said 'YES PLEASE AND THANKS' right away. 

Now, it's safe to say I'm not a particularly experienced gig-goer, so I invited some much cooler back-up in the shape of my older brother, Jamie. Slash I don't know many other people in London. No but seriously Jamie's into his musac so I knew he'd be keen. Well, who wouldn't?

Inside The 100 Club

So, a little after 7.30pm last night (I told you we were keen), Jamie and I pootled off to The 100 Club on Oxford Street. It was a fantastic venue. Apparently, the club was facing closure a few years ago, but then Paul McCartney stepped in and saved it, and it's a jolly good thing he did. 

Some of the previous performers

The venue capacity is only 250 people, and it was the perfect amount as far as I’m concerned. Full enough that there was an exciting, buzzy atmosphere, but not so full that you couldn’t move and were too squished to enjoy yourself. Although when we arrived, the club was still filling up.

The gig was part of The Durex Intimate Session series, which is a series of intimate gigs by big-name acts in small locations. You can't buy tickets, only win them, or be lucky enough to be offered a pair, like me (and I'm très grateful, of course.)

The 100 Club is a long rectanglular room with a stage in the middle, bars at both ends, and hundreds of fairy lights – little ones and giant bulbs – twinkling over the ceiling and the wall behind the stage. It looked fab! And it's not secret how much I love fairy lights now, is it?

I have to say, the thought of going to a gig did conjure up images of a slightly grimy, dark cellar, but although we were down from street level, I’d had nothing to worry about.

It’s amazing really – just step off the hustle and bustle of Oxford Street, go down some stairs, and suddenly you’re in this intimate little music venue.

Jamie and I got ourselves a drink (needless to say I was astounded at the £4.60 price tag on my Malibu and Diet Coke, but maybe I'm just not used to London prices), had a catch-up and enjoyed a spot of people-watching as the room filled up. Our fellow gig-goers were predominantly young, cool-looking types. Naturally, we fitted right in. Ahem.

Not long after we arrived, I discovered the photobooth at one end of the venue. And this wasn’t just any old photobooth either. It was a photobooth with cool light thingies. So naturally, Jamie and I had a go. Or three. And got some nice souvenirs to take away.

We appear to be channeling Harry and Hermione.

Soon it was time for the warm-up act. A new name to me, and also a name I have unfortunately forgotten (tell me if you know!), but I really liked her! Somewhat Kelly Clarkson-esque, with an almost Taylor Swifty number thrown in there for good measure. I’m no Radio 1 DJ, but I reckon she might be one to watch.

So the crowd was warmed up and it was time to wait for the main act, AlunaGeorge. You’ll no doubt recognise their main hits from the radio, even if you’re not a devoted fan (and trust me, there were a fair few of them there.) AlunaGeorge is an electronic duo – Aluna Francis on vocals (and songwriting) and George Reid producing and making all sort of funky noises from his keyboard. Yes, funky noises. I believe that’s the technical term.

They were shortlisted for the 2013 BRIT Award of Critics' Choice, don’tcha know?

Jamie and I were being old fogies and sitting down after the warm-up act. A beautiful girl walked past us and I was about to comment on her amazing slender figure when I realised it was Aluna! 

Up we got, and over to the stage we went. But we didn’t go all the way to the front – the hardcore groupies had reserved their spot, plus Jamie is a bit of a giant (a big friendly one, mind) and he didn’t want to block people’s view. See, friendly. But because the gig really was intimate, we were still really close, which was amazing.

George and Aluna

AlunaGeorge were fantastic live! They both had so much energy, and really got the crowd going. I never really knew what you were supposed to actually do at gigs, but I started to realise that you don’t really have to do anything, you just enjoy the music. And I did. Live performances are always fantastic, and being so close to AlunaGeorge was particularly great.

Naturally, it was their biggest hits that went down the best – ‘Attracting Flies,’ ‘Your Drums, Your Love’ and ‘White Noise’ were fab. But I really enjoyed even the songs I didn’t already know. 

Check out my videos - Attracting Flies:

And White Noise:

Aluna seemed really sweet, which is always nice.

She looked INCREDIBLE too. Wearing high-waisted shorts, a balconette bra and a sleeveless cardi-come-slouchy-jacket (which she proceeded to remove), Aluna was totally working her enviably svelte physique. 

The set rounded up at a very reasonable time of 10.15pm – it was a school/work night, after all – and Jamie and I made our respective ways home, me feeling a good 10% cooler than I had beforehand. Guys, we got wristbands. From a gig. I’m so cool.

Oxford Street looked lovely as we walked home.

There are more gigs coming up as part of the Intimate Sessions series - click here to find out more!