Madrid September 15th 2007

Another early start on a Saturday morning – 3am!! Stephen and I made our way to meet David at the airport and met up with Minke at arrivals in Madrid.

Now it was time to negotiate Madrid’s Metro system. Thank god for Minke who had some prior experience! I though London’s underground system was confusing, but its nothing compared to the Metro!

We had a bit of a tour through Madrid, albeit underground, finding our way from the airport to our first destination to pick up our tickets for the concert and then from there to our hotel.

After freshening up we all headed to Plaza del Torros, Las Ventas and saw a good number of fans already braving the heat queuing. I made my way over to the Spanish Conga girls we’d met in London in December 06, Saru and Laura, and sat with them while we waited. Caught up with Owen from Dublin, Allen from Denmark and Sandra from Holland.

While we waited the Spanish fans serenaded us with many of Gloria’s songs (all very well performed I must add!!) Saru and Laura had helped us with getting tickets for the concert and unknowingly put our names down on the Meet & Greet list, so when David (Spanish FC manager) came over with wrist bands it was a huge surprise, thank you!! We got to hear Gloria and Co rehearsing which helped make the time go faster. Later on we were joined by Annie and her daughter Nathalie.

We waited some more and then it was time to do what can only be described as the cattle run into the bull ring lol! It was crazy! We all made it to just left of the stage about 3-4 rows back where we waited some more. At 8-8.30pm a band whose name I don’t know played a short set, they were really great and totally rocked the crowd.

Gloria was a little late getting on to the stage but it was so worth it!! She sounded flawless, the set list was amazing, 80% in Spanish but it was so nice to hear some songs I’d never heard live before. No one would believe she had just turned 5(0), Gloria’s energy showed no bounds and was amazing. You could tell she was having such a great time, feeding off of the crowd’s energy. Couldn’t understand a word of what she said but it didn’t matter :) she then teased us with not 1 but 2 encores singing for a total of 90mins or more, much longer than expected!!

After the show we made our way to the meeting point for the Meet & Greet! Here we bumped into Dennis from Holland and Ray from USA. It took what seemed like forever to get through the crowd and not understanding the language didn’t help. There was a lot of confusion about the Meet & Greet but eventually we all made it through. By the time we made it to Gloria it was nearly 2am!! I cannot believe she stayed so long to see everyone. We ended up near the back of the queue so had to rush through which was a shame and take a group shot, but it was still great and such a good night. Gloria was gracious as always :)

Thanks go to the Spanish Conga girls for their help!

Frank Amadeo for his help also

And of course Gloria for such an amazing night and for staying up that late!!