TFI-Friday.... A Night To Remember, Unfortunately.

Converse/Area-51

So, the night had finally arrived. I had been looking forward to going to Chris Evans' TV Show for weeks and weeks..... But wait!!! This is a worldwide diskmag... who the hell is Chris Evans and what's this TV show???? For those not in the UK and fortunate enough not to have heard of Chris, here are the essential details:

Chris Evans is a TV and Radio show host here in the UK, he is famous for being a sharp witted, funny, ginger git. His TFI Friday TV show is pretty good, he has a whole host of guests and bands on each week along with an audience drafted in to watch the show and provide some atmosphere.

So after watching this show for many years, myself and a few pals decided to get tickets to see the show.

The show was due to go out live and was being shown at 11PM... Friday, surprisingly. :)

The tickets said that we had to arrive by 8:30 PM so as to avoid being turned away, so like a good bunch of kids, we arrived early at 8:00. It wasn't until 9:40 that we were allowed into the building and then had to wait in some tiny "hall" whilst the TFI film crew prepared everything.

Now we imagined that we would be allowed in a fair while before the show to be prepped and warmed up, cuz this has to be done, or so we thought.

It wasn't until 5 minutes before the show (that's 10:55PM) that we were allowed into the main studio area! We were then told to make sure we clapped whenever a band was on and to make sure our hands were in the air.

By this time we were so grateful of being allowed the free tickets and getting a good place to see the bands that the long waits and last minute entry jobby was forgiven.

Now, just to set the scene a little, the studio is split into two areas, they comprise of a small room upstairs where Chris interviews guests and has a handful of special guests as an audience, and downstairs, where a couple of hundred people crowd around a small stage to watch the bands. So as you can gather, most of the show revolves around the upstairs, due to Chris & interviewees being there, so we thought we'd watch the big screen and see what was happening upstairs.... hmmmm... WHAT BIG SCREEN??? There were 4 tiny TVs to watch the show on and you had to watch those because there was nothing else to do, the show is 1 hour long, but only 10 minutes worth of bands are on, so that leave 50 minutes of erm, well, trying to see a small tv screen. This was very annoying, but halleluja, a band started setting up on stage, Chris was introducing the band, which happened to be the Corrs (nice gals they are :). They sang great live and looked so tiny in real life, I was standing about 2 metres away from them.... great. :)

After they had finished singing, another shock arrived on our doorstep... it turns out after each band has finished playing, the whole crowd has to shuffle round to the other side of the stage! This happened about 5 times in all and the studio is so small too, which doesn't help matters.

Later on after a couple more bands had played, was the finale, it was David Gray singing Babylon, what a great singer, the keyboardist was ace too. David was the last on, so they finished the TV show with them playing out with the credits scrolling on screen.

Once the show had finished, David was allowed to finish singing Babylon, after which the crowd was screaming for MORE...MORE!!! To which he started on another track, oh great we thought, this is where the night gets good, seeing the bands carry on after the shows finished on TV. No sooner had David started, some twat from the film crew shouted at him to stop, then a second time, more sternly this time, they said he must stop.

So, that was it, no more bands.... the last little ray of hope was to actually catch a glimpse of Chris Evans... small consolation I know, but it would have been better than nothing, but it wasn't to be, Mr twat then told the whole crowd that they had 10 minutes to get out of the building! I know this seems harsh and maybe I'm exaggerating, but really his tone of voice was that of us being thrown out, they were adamant that nobody from the audience would be allowed to stay a single second after the 10 minute deadline.

By this point we were all pretty pissed off and disappointed, so we made our way out and vowed never to join a TV show audience again as it was just all so false and different to how it seemed on TV.

I had set the video to record the show, hoping to catch a glimpse of myself on TV. :) Although I didn't see myself, the show actually seemed good watching it properly at home, I didn't realise just how much we'd missed out on seeing.

Overall, I have to say that despite the tickets being free and seeing some bands, the night was awful and annoying. I wouldn't quite say it was a waste of time going there, because it was an interesting experience seeing how TV shows are made, but that doesn't excuse the poor way we were treated or the feeling of being used as automatic clapping machines.

Luckily, TFI Friday is being axed from the telly, so just a few months time and nobody else will suffer the same treatment, but it does make you think twice about anything you watch on TV and reinforces what we probably all knew anyway, that is, TV shows are just false, sad and presented by wankers who think they are all God.

Oh, but thanks for the free tickets though ;)

ASSHOLE!

Converse/Area-51