Wonderland // McFly

Hot as Hell

September 21, 2013

I stood alone on the dark stairs just below a crowd of screaming fans, with a perfect view of the stage from the left side. I'd never been in the audience, but I reckon if i had I would prefer to stay here anyways. 

A large screen descended from above the stage in the darkness and lit the large room. A black and white image of four men getting ready appeared. 

They tuned instruments, got dressed and walked down the hall single file in a stoic manner. Then, they opened a door. 

And when they passed through, it was almost like they had been transported into another dimension. 

Dougie was dressed a sailor, Danny was in a Native American costume, Tom was a shirtless cowboy and Harry was a police officer, also shirtless. 

The black and white video had been replaced with vivid color, and the song YMCA by Village People blasted through the speakers of The Royal Albert Hall. 

When the video finished, the boys walked out slowly, arms extended, taking in the glory as the fan's roared and the lights came up on them. This was their third of four shows at the RAH. 

"SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE ALBERT HALL!" Danny yelled into his mic, as they finished up their opening song, Saturday Night. "LONDON MAKE SOME NOISE!"

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Just after the boys finished Room on the Third Floor, the lights dimmed again as the large screen came into view again. 

Like last time, the screen was filled with images of the band, but this time they were boys again. 

"The bond between the four of us is quite a...it's quite a unique bond, I think." Tom's voice projects, as the screen is filled with videos taken from back in time. Tom had chubby cheeks, Danny had bone-straight hair covering his eyes, Harry had dodgy sideburns and Dougie had a lip ring. 

"It's quite hard to describe and quite hard to explain. There's a connection there." Danny's voice takes over. Then, it was Harry. 

"We each get on in different ways." He says, as the videos of the young boys continues to play. I wish they'd never stop and my cheeks begin to ache from smiling. "I relate to Tom in a way that I don't relate to Danny, but I relate to Danny in a way that I don't relate to Tom so...I think we all offer each other something." 

"I don't really quite...I don't think for legal reasons I can go into detail about what the bond actually is." Dougie jokes through the video. 

"Band mates," Tom continues, "is...uh...it's different to just friends and best friends and it's...I think it's more- it's closer to being brothers." 

The video montage continues showing the boys dancing, jumping, eating, drinking, falling over, stripping and torturing each other. 

Then, modern day Tom appears on the screen in black and white. Almost as if we were back in time. That the videos playing from the Wonderland tour were now, and that everything happening now is from another time period we've not been to yet. I find It feels like that often.  

"What's amazing is how much we've all experienced, the four of us together as a band. Not only have we gone through all of these...you know, the amazing things we've been able to do as a band...like musically as McFly, but just...growing up together from the age of fifteen to our late twenties." Then Dougie appears, also in black and white, sitting in an empty row in an audience somewhere. 

"We'll never stop doing what we do because we started doing this so young...none of us really know any better. We'll keep doing it until...nobody comes to the shows. And even then we'll just...try and tell tickets to our mums."