Craving Take That

I've never been what you might call a huge fan of Take That. But, as that old Harry Enfield character might say, "I respect the contribution that Barlow, Owen, Donald and Orange have made to the British popular music industry over many years."

Or, at least, that's what I would have said prior to last night. Alongside Vanessa, her sister Hannah and friend Vicky, I went along to the first date of Take That's British tour at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland - and they were absolutely magnificent.

I've been fortunate enough to see quite a few big open air gigs and some have proven to be a bit of a disappointment. In my experience, they generally fall into two categories - bands who are determined to give the audience full value for money by investing in the show financially and in terms of effort on stage, and bands who seem almost content to do the minimum.

I would put REM into the latter category. But thankfully, Take That were very much in the former camp last night. According to this morning's newspapers, the band have pumped £10 million into the production of "The Circus Live," 238 people are on the road with them and it takes 52 lorries and a fleet of buses to cart their kit around.

As well as all sorts of performers including trapeze artists, high-wire walkers, dancers and clowns, they even had a 30 feet high mechanical elephant which the famous foursome apparently appeared out of whilst I was at the bar - you win some, you lose some.

And they're now much more than just a boy band. They played their own instruments for several songs and three of them even rode down the stage unaided on unicycles. The exception was head man Gary Barlow who, in what was a genuinely laugh out loud moment (honestly), made the journey astride a kid's bike complete with stabilisers.

As I mentioned yesterday, Hannah (below right) is due to give birth to her and Dagenham Dave's second child next week (you read that right) but was determined to be there once Wee John had pulled out. And I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I considered packing flasks of hot water and a bag of towels, "just in case."

But, believe it or not, the lady on the other side of me was also heavily pregnant. And so were several other female fans I spotted over the course of the night amongst the 50,000 crowd.

I know it is natural for women to have cravings when they're up the duff. But I thought they were limited to, for example, chocolate, liver and jam on things that aren't normally coated in jam.

You can now add Take That to the list