I didn't manage to get to Gloucester, in the end. Still, I don't mind especially; I'm seeing David Tennant in September anyway, and I've some friends who got a kick out of being so close to the filming. Gloucester cathedral's getting pretty popular for a filming location, isn't it?

Anyway, I looked at the blog today and realised that I still haven't written about the night of Barrowman. God knows who'd really be interested, but writing about it is a kind of a self-gratification exercise as well as for the interest of other people; it'll serve as an archive for a fantastic experience that I can look back on in the future, and writing is a brilliant exorcism.

So. It took me several hours, by way of three different trains, to get down to Pokesdown to meet Tara, who I hadn't seen in six months and had come up with the idea of the concert in the first place. I don't think I've mentioned Tara in here, which is a shame; I met her on the writer's course during the summer, and she is already one of the best friends I've ever had; she's wacky, she's kind, she's so creative, and we have masses in common. She is incredibly funny and very excitable - the PERFECT companion for a Barrowman night out!

Anyway, three trains, many stations, lots of rainfall, and a long and involved discussion about Torchwood and John Barrowman with some lovely fangirls on a train later, I reached Pokesdown (just on the outskirts of Bournemouth) and had a lovely reunion with Tara - it was fantastic to see her again, pink tights and messy bedroom and all. Within two minutes...

"Tara?"
"Yeah?"
"D'you realise that in three and a quarter hours we will be seeing John Barrowman live on stage?"
"I KNOW!!!"

Whereupon we jumped up and down and had our first screaming attack of many that evening. This is what John Barrowman does to the two of us.

We caught up, we surfed the net, we killed ourselves laughing at Eddie Izzard ("I'm Darth Vader, I'm your boss." "What, you're Mr Stevens?" "Who's Mr Stevens?" "He's head of catering." "I AM NOT HEAD OF CATERING!") , we got dressed into our finery (in Tara's words, looking "goddamn sexy"), and we headed out, in a considerable rush and high panic, to the train station, where we nearly missed the train out due to underestimating how much time we had.

(In retrospect, it may have been a bad idea to both dash down the street in high heels, waving at the men at the bus stop who were staring at us and shouting, "Barrowman, we're coming!")

All I seem to remember of the short train journeys to Portsmouth that followed were me constantly panicking that we were going to be late and not let into the Guildhall, and Tara telling me, in no uncertain terms, to calm the bloody hell down. I've unfortunately inherited my Mum's penchant for travel paranoia; I love going on excursions, but everything has to be meticulously planned and time left in case anything goes wrong. It's in the genes, and it does begin to irratate people after a while.

Still, as predicted by lovely Tara, absolutely none of the worry mattered, as we reached Portsmouth half an hour before the concert, and the Guildhall was literally right next to the station. I felt a wee bit sheepish after that, but my worry served an excellent purpose, as I'll shortly explain.

(I've read through all this, and God, it sounds very dull, not in the least bit creative. I'll try and spice it up.)

For those who haven't seen it, the Guildhall is incredible-looking from the outside; I posted a picture last time, but it really is brilliant; it's incredibly ornate and stretches up to the sky; looking over a massive plaza; pillars and statues at the top of (what seemed to me), about a million steps. Tara and I (and a couple of her friends who we'd bumped into at Southampton Station), all let out a collective breath of amazement when we rounded the corner and saw it looming, in all its glory.

I knew, right then at that first glance, that we were in for a spectacular night.

The butterflies began as soon as we went inside and saw the queue, and the Barrowman paraphenalia being sold. I began to realise that this was it; we were actually here. A vague plan made months ago had come to complete and total fruition, and we were poised on the edge of utter brilliance and incredible excitement. Everyone knows the feeling of delicious anticipation; it stirs in your stomach just as it begins and you realise how much there is still to come, and relish. It's a bloody brilliant feeling.

That anticipation was heightened when we entered the auditorium, which was smaller than I expected, until I saw the stage, which is bloody massive; it's very wide and stretches very far back, and when we filed in, it was all set out with instruments for the band; saxophones and keyboards and guitars and drums and percussion.

That was when it started.

Have you ever been so completely excited that it takes over your entire body, and brain? That you're taken aback by your own reactions, by how much it utterly absorbs you, from the roots of your hair to the edges of your toenails?

That happened to me.

I had never felt so excited, as me and Tara sat in our designated seats in Row K (which were wonderfully close to the stage), than I did in that half hour of waiting. In my head, it seemed, all the worry about trains and lateness had been replaced with this bubbling, happy, almost hysterical excitement. I know it sounds sad, but it just overtook me; my stomach contained a million butterflies that wouldn't stay still for a moment, my breaths took on a shallow edge, and I couldn't stop laughing in amazement, a little thing I do when I'm excited. Everything seemed to trigger me; the sight of the stage, the fans, the seats slowly filling up, the background music, it was electric to me. Tara thought I was adorable, and in retrospect, I must have looked a little insane to someone watching me closely, but I managed to keep it in check. Just. I did a lot of seat-wriggling, though.

(Tara was also ridiculously excited, as well. In fact, she probably deserved to be so more than me; she's never seen him live before, whereas this was my second time in a year. She bit my arm at one point to try and contain herself - I know that sounds very weird, but it was perfectly acceptable under the circumstances.)

Finally, finally, after half an hour of increasing excitement, of happy discussions with the ladies on our row, of frantic capslocked texts sent to friends and my Dad (who replied Get a grip, you wally!), half past seven arrived. The band came on stage to cheers from the very packed audience, the lights dimmed, an unknown voice rang out "Ladies and Gentlemen...", at which point Tara and I grabbed each other so tight it's a surprise we didn't suffocate, "...Mr John Barrowman!"

Then the theatre erupted, we whooped and clapped, I peered over someone's shoulder, and there was John Barrowman coming onto the stage. As gorgeous and as large-as-life as he appears. We went crazy; I'll never forget Tara bouncing up and down in her seat. The butterflies took off and exited me in the form of screams.

John Barrowman had entered the building, and was causing a storm of excitement in his wake. Lord, do I love that man!

He began straight away with the Latin-American themed It had to be tonight - which, after research on my part, is apparently a Michael Buble song. And this may be a redundant statement, but John Barrowman can fucking sing. He is brilliant. He gave the song incredible life and was clearly enjoying himself, dancing away during the instrumentals and providing the audience with some arse-wiggling (which we *greatly* appreciated). After that he moved straight onto You're so vain, which I didn't recognise until the chorus. I'm not a massive fan of that song, but John can make anything sound good (as evidenced later on in the show), and it was, again, bloody wonderful. Afterwards, he greeted the audience (to explosive screaming), and told us about how he'd been rung up by Carly Simon and asked to do a duet of that song, and he described the experience as completely surreal. He also did an impression of Carly that had the audience in total hysterics.

There's something about John Barrowman, and being a fan of John Barrowman, by extension; despite him being a lovely, cheeky, entertaining man, there is a certain disconnect when you're viewing him on television. David Tennant is very much a "bloke"; despite being so famous, he's reassuringly normal and charmingly bewildered at all the attention he gets. John Barrowman is different in that respect - perhaps it's the American in him; the massive, loud personality, or the fact that he's done so much, but it's often hard to imagine him living a normal life. He gets everywhere, and sometimes you think of him as just a star rather than just a bloke. On stage, there is still an element of this left (I spent half the concert thinking, sweet Lord, John fucking Barrowman is right in front of us), but he makes up for it by being absolutely absorbed in what he sings. Whatever song it is, he means it absolutely, and is so involved and so brilliant that it's infectious. Performing musically is when he is the most sincere, and throughout the concert, we got to see further depths of John Barrowman rather than his personality on all the shows he ends up on; the funny, giggly, banter-y one which joked and flirted with the audience and the band, and the serious and touching side, which doesn't come out very often and moved us considerably. Long story short, he may seem unreachable, but when he sings, you can see more of him, somehow.

ANYWAY. His next song was Milly Molly Mandy, a song he sang when he was five in Scotland, accompanied by childish dance moves which made us all laugh and go, "Awww!" It was adorable! Following that, he brought on a dummy with Captain's Jack's coat draped over it (eliciting a staggering response from the crowd - the coat!), and dedicated a song to Jack Harkness from The Wizard and I, except he changed some of the lyrics and called it The Doctor and I - it was a lovely dedication and we all went a bit nuts over the defabrication request. I was half-hoping David Tennant might appear, but I was obviously underestimating his schedule.

Following that (although I'm not sure of the exact order) was Every little thing she does is magic, and Time after time, accompanied by a heartbreaking story about a friend in America who tested positive for HIV, and his father, not finding anything to say, sent him a package with this song on cassette, with a note saying the song said everything that he wanted to say. It was an incredibly emotive peformance and moved a lot of the audience to tears, including me. After that was Weekend in New England, a Barry Mannilow song for his manager Gavin ("A big gayer, like me!"), and he did a hilarious impression of his first "meeting" with Barry, when he saw his jet plane fly over his hotel and jumped up and down yelling, "HI, BARRY!"

Then there was Anything Goes, a personal favourite of mine that had me squirming in my seat with glee, followed by Where is love from Oliver, (although he caused hysteria by imitating Nancy in a cockney accent at first. And don't get me started about the jokes involving the word Nancy.) The first half ended with Man of la Mancha with him saying he would love to play Don Quixote one day, as "he's a little crazy, like me."

Whew. My fingers really hurt from typing now, and God only knows how long this entry is already. I may come back to it tomorrow. It's becoming lacklustre as I get more tired.

More tomorrow, I promise, if you haven't died of boredom already. Plus, my thoughts on Doctor Who. Watch this space!