I’ll start from some months earlier: in November 2003 there was a Travis concert in Italy, and I wanted to go there, but for some problems it has been impossible, and I started to moan the whole time because I lost that concert. Eleonora (Eleonara to somebody here) used to tell me “come on, don’t worry, don’t think about what you lost, think about what you will see next time” and she proved to be right, as one day she sent me a message on my mobile telling me about this gig in Milan, the 1st of April. I still remember that I called her and said something like “are you kidding??” Anyway, a family friend (who is as an uncle for me) gave me the ticket as a present, and needless to say that has been a very good present! What’s nice is that my mum who was really not interested about Travis decided to come just to do something different that day, and so we went. She spent the whole day saying “it was better to stay home, It’s going to be boring, I don’t know this band, I don’t like their songs” (even if she never listened to them) and I was like “grrr why didn’t you stay home?!” We arrived in Milan, I met with the girls and we had a very good afternoon. By the way, we also met Dougie and we are hoping he enjoyed our wine and the torroncini that we gave him.
Let’s go to the concert now: Eleonora and me were at the first row in front of Dougie that was fantastic because as you may well can imagine, he spent all the time with his smiles etc so we were just doing the same things to him and had a lot of fun! During All I want to do is rock (?) or maybe another song, anyway, he went to Andy and said something in his ear looking at us, Andy looked at us and laughed. We are still wondering if we were in some way part of that private talk. Come on, we were just having fun!! ;-) I also liked Dougie’s dancing walking to Neil, and his special fall on stage and his laughs with his bottom on the floor. Spectacular!
About the songs, my favourite that night has been Quicksand, I don’t know why, I like it so much live, that night it was very beautiful, especially Dougie’s “hey hey hey hey” I like them, I love that song, and played live is much more beautiful.
I use this space to thank Fran about his ability on stopping the security that didn’t want us to take pictures, so thank you, and thank you again. I have beautiful pictures about that night that make me live the concert again.
Before Turn Fran said a thing that I’ll appreciate forever and I want to say thank you in front of his face for this thing.
Ah, I liked the thing before Happy, Fran was singing that song “If you are happy and you know it clap your hands” or something like it, we have an Italian version of this song, it is something like “se sei felice e tu lo sai batti le mani” I used to sing it when I was 3 – 4 years old at the nursery school, I liked to listen the English version of it!
But let’s talk a minute about my mum again: she (the very one who said that she would get bored, that she doesn’t like them, etc), came at the first row with me, and started to see the concert… she was not cheering but she was there looking at them and was very interested. I think Fran noticed this woman at the first row near Dougie, who was just there watching and doing nothing, because when he came to our part of the stage he looked at her and did a weird face, you know, like “but what is this woman doing here?” I don’t know if it’s true or just my thought, but it really seemed he wanted to say that! Anyways, the concert finished, we met Dougie again, took some pictures, etc, and I went to the car where my mum was waiting me to come back home. She started to talk from Milan to Turin “I liked that song, I like this, I like that, the singer is so sweet, the bassist is so cute, that song was fantastic…………” I couldn’t believe to my ears. Believe it or not, since that night she fell in love with you Travis, she now listens to your albums, we are buying your new things together, we spend time watching mtv together waiting for your videos, we are saving money together to see you again, I don’t know, she was my mum and since that night she became my friend, a friend that is a Travis fan, I listened her saying that her favourite band is Travis, it’s fantastic!! She loves Know nothing and Somewhere else, that are her favourite songs.
Just a last thing! She said that next time you’ll come to Italy, if you can pass by Turin you can have lunch at our house, okay?
Andy, Dougie, Fran and Neil, Thank You so much for a so magic night.
Cheers, Rainonthebrain.